2022 Summary

This year’s impact report looks a little different because we had a year that was a little different. One of our favorite charms of WiSTEM is that all of our events, initiatives, onboarding, and daily proceedings are organized completely by high school students. Although we are moving into a space where we may need to bring WiSTEM alumni and trusted professionals onto our team in order to work towards becoming a 501(c)3 tax-deductible nonprofit, we will continue to strive to preserve this aspect of our organization. We believe that not only is being on the WiSTEM team a great opportunity to connect with peers from around the globe interested in STEM, it is a great opportunity to practice leadership and agency. 

Having an entirely high school leadership team poses some challenges to effectively running an organization given how busy our schedules are, how often our team is turned over, and how our commitments vary throughout the year. We invite you to read the following Impact Report for 2022, which outlines how we overcame the challenges of this year to rise to a membership over twice the size of our previous record and provided interesting and engaging programming to this network.

142

Chapters

307

Members

31

State

14

Countries

2022-2023 Leadership Team

WiSTEM is so excited to present our 2022-2023 leadership team. Maddie Stearns is our 2022-2023 President, hailing from Massachusetts. She leads the four branches that compose our team: 

  • The Outreach Team. 

    • Led by Directors of Outreach Emily Khossravi from California and Liv Walker Massachusetts.

    • Composed of four stellar Regional Outreach Directors: Julia Sharpe from California, Stephanie Maari from Illinois, Shreya Satheesh from Pennsylvania, and Miranda Castella from our El Salvador Chapter.

  • The Digital Team.

    • Composed of Firmiana Wang, our Website Manager from Illinois; Aparna Ganesh, our Director of Communications and Publicity from Maryland; and our two lovely Directors of Digital Media,  Carolyn He from New Jersey and Mya Koffie from Wisconsin.

  • The Programming Team. 

    • Composed of our Director of Development, Shreya Dhara from Georgia; Project Manager, Aditi Daga from Arizona; Director of Internal Affairs, Emmy from Canada.

  • The Partnerships Team. 

    • Composed of Nora Sun, ENVISION/ATHENA leader from Illinois; and Ana Cucalon, ATHENA leader also from Illinois. 

The 2022-2023 Leadership Team worked hard to build this network of 142 chapters across 31 states and 14 countries, including 3,433 members. This is particularly impressive considering our precious membership record was just over 1,400 members. Furthermore, the team was forced to completely wipe the member count to zero in August due to some errors in documentation. 

University Applications Panel

The first event that our new leadership team hosted was a hit! We put together a University Applications Panel which centered around three female college students of three different interest areas. First, we welcomed Nikitha Kota from Rice University, a freshman studying Biosciences and Women, Gender, and Sexuality. We loved her perspective on the integration of sciences and the humanities!

Next up was Lara Capellino, a freshman at Cornell University studying Chemical Engineering. Since Lara is a former WiSTEM Regional Outreach Director for Argentina, she offered some great thoughts on the transition from being a WiSTEM member in high school to some similar organizations in college.

And lastly, we talked with Isa Kessinger, a junior at Princeton University studying Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering with a minor in Material Science. Isa was able to advise on the importance of hard work and balance as a STEM concentrator.

“Ready to Shoot for the Stars?” Series

Our “Ready to Shoot for the Stars?” series was a hit with speaking events from a few inspiring individuals. Lauren McIssac, an aerospace professional who graduated from Tufts University shared her path through jobs at GE Aerospace, the US Navy, DARPA, NASA, and Aurora Flight Sciences. Audrey Godsell, current college student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, spoke about her internships at NASA and Boeing!

Jessica Jensen, Vice President of Customer Operations and Integration at SpaceX highlighted this series with her speaker event. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Virginia Tech. and was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Public Service Medal for Leadership in 2015. Jensen told participants about her work overseeing program management of satellite, rideshare, and Dragon crew and cargo missions as well as future human spaceflight missions.

Chat with Dr. Pageler

In November, we were so excited to get to meet Dr. Natalie Pageler, Chief Medical Information Officer at Stanford Children's Health and Clinical Informatics Fellowship Program Director. We learned about Dr. Pageler’s work as a clinical professor in biomedical informatics as well as her path in STEM. Dr. Pageler spoke extensively on the importance of living a full, balanced, and fulfilling life in any career. Her perspectives on just how possible this type of livelihood is, even with a demanding career in STEM, stunned and reassured participants of the viability of their intended paths.

National Advisory Council (NAC) Spotlight Events

Following the onboarding of new NAC members Gabriella Pelletier, Amanda Obidike, and Kelsey Huntington, we held several spotlight events highlighting each of their careers. Please head to our NAC page to learn more about these NAC members and more. If you are interested in joining our NAC team, please feel free to use the Contact Us form to inquire!

Launch of the Timeline Project

Our Digital Media team worked hard with several other leadership team members to put together our new Timeline page of our website. Take a moment to scroll through and learn about influential and pioneering women in STEM who paved the way for our organization and girls like us.