It's all about science.

On today's Inspire, we discuss the career opportunities, the importance of mentorship for our younger ladies interested in science.

And we provide an inside look into Washburn University's Women in Science Day.

Stay with us.

Inspire is sponsored by Kansas Furniture Mart using furniture to inspire conversation and by the Blanche Bryden Foundation.

The Friends of KTWU are honored to support programs and services that enrich the lives of our viewers and the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation.

Hello.

Welcome to Inspire.

I'm pleased to be here with my co-hosts, Amber Dickinson and Danielle Norwood.

And thank you so much for being with us.

Today's program is all about women in science.

We're going to visit with professional women and find out why they chose careers in science.

But first, we're going to hear all about the Women in Science Day event at Washburn University.

Every year, hundreds of seventh grade girls from northeast Kansas come to Washburn University to participate in Women in Science Day.

Here to tell us all about it are Susan Bjerke, professor of biology at Washburn University, and Karen Camarda, professor of physics at Washburn University.

Ladies, welcome to Inspire.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

So this is obviously a very exciting topic and we're really curious to know more about the Women in Science Day.

What were the originations of it?

What was the motivation for it?

How did it all come together?

So Women and Science Day is an event we've held almost every year since 2007.

And we bring, as you mentioned, about 250, 7th grade girls to campus for a day of science activities.

So they participate in hands on laboratory activities, as well as attending presentations and participating in trivia quiz bowl.

That's awesome.

And Susan, this October was phenomenal.

So many young ladies.

What types of hands on things were they able to do?

We had a tremendous support from our community at Washburn, as well as supporting partners out in the community.

Advisors Excel ran a finance lab kind of a day in the life of budgeting that the girls were really excited about.

We had the National Weather Service come in, we had Geological Survey come in.

We had labs from KU.

One of our most popular labs was isolating DNA from strawberries.

The girls really enjoyed that.

We also had a forensic lab where they can kind of solve a miniature crime, so they always enjoy that.

So we try to have a wide range of labs available for them biological sciences, social sciences, computer science, math, so that all the girls can find something that they're interested in.

So what was the feedback that you got from the girls who attended?

What were their reactions to Science Day?

By and large, they they seemed to enjoy it.

I think they really enjoy socializing with each other and also participating in the activities and interacting with real women scientists primarily.

So is there a reason why there is a specific women in Science Day?

Is there something that's motivating people to want to really encourage young women to move towards these STEM types of fields?

Yeah, so they've found that up to about 6/7 grade or so, girls perform just as well as boys on math and science.

But about that age, they tend to opt out of science classes.

And so what we really wanted to do is make sure that they're aware that, you know, women do go into science and it's something for them.

It's still something they're interested in, even if they don't always get that sort of signal from society.

So is that a societal thing that that young women just don't feel like that those are opportunities for them, that those are more male oriented careers?

Is that sort of what's happening there?

Yeah, and I don't think anyone really does it on purpose.

I just think maybe that's what they've seen.

That's what's often depicted, you know, in movies or in stories.

That's what you see is the boy goes into engineering or physics or math, and the girls don't necessarily do that.

It certainly doesn't mean that they're not entirely capable.

So generally, boys and girls perform about the same even through high school on math tests.

But curiously, the girls, even though they're scoring the same as the boys, tend to think they're not as good at it, even though they are.

So even though the scores show that they're exactly the same internally, they're saying, Well, I didn't get a perfect score.

And the boy's like, Well, it was fine.

So just kind of different approaches, I think, different understanding.

So just making sure that girls understand that they are just as capable as their male counterparts.

I think is really important.

You know, I think society has played into that.

Any number of movies that you can can count on that we all watched as teenagers and older where they had the girls didn't want to be appear smart because they they thought that would make them less appealing to the male students or whatever.

Nerdy yeah all that Or especially if you had any kind of looks about you.

Oh boy.

You had to play down the smart.

The fact that you were smart.

So this program with the science and mentorship, that has to be invaluable.

Susan.

Yeah, I think it's really great.

Not all of our labs are run by women.

We have some that are run by men, too, and we appreciate that as well.

But I think it's really great for the girls to be in that environment and see that women are doing these these fields that they maybe never thought they could do.

So it just kind of opens up possibilities that these are seventh graders.

So they're quite young yet to be deciding on a potential career.

But we at least like to get it in their mind that, yeah, this was really fun.

I think I could see myself doing this and I saw someone like me doing this at Women in Science Day.

So I know that it's possible.

I can see that there are women doing it now.

Both of you teach science classes here at Washburn University.

Karen, I'm going to start with you.

What do you teach?

I teach physics.

Okay.

And Susan, what do you teach?

Yeah, I'm in the biology department and I teach mostly microbiology, but also some immunology and virology as well.

Okay.

So, Karen, let me ask you, how did you get your start in science?

What brought you into the field and why do you love it so much?

I actually decided in first grade that I wanted to be a scientist.

Really?

We had planted some bean plants in styrofoam cups and watched how they lean towards the sun.

And I thought that was really cool.

And more recently in college, I fell in love with physics because I really liked the way that math could be used to describe nature.

And I really enjoyed that interplay, and I like sharing it with others.

Awesome.

Susan, what about you?

Yes.

So my dad was an explosives chemist while I was growing up, so we kind of always talked about not necessarily things exploding, but we also always talked about science.

And as far as I can remember, I've always been a really curious person.

I just want to know why is this thing happening?

Not even just in regards to science.

But I think science is a field where you can get those answers right.

You can do the experiments and figure out the why.

And I'm always interested in the why, whether or not I personally can figure out I want someone to figure it out just because I think the world is so cool all the things that we can do now that we couldn't do even ten years ago.

Amazing.

So obviously, with your participation in the Women in Science Day, you clearly have an interest in mentorship.

So did you have a personal mentor that was sort of helping you get to where you are now?

And if so, we'll start with Karen and go to Susan.

If you could talk to us a little bit about perhaps someone that was impactful to you in your life in terms of mentorship?

Yeah, I don't recall a specific mentor, but I do know that the science teacher I had in fifth in seventh grade really encouraged me.

He made sure that, you know, he recognized me interested in science and made sure I was involved in class activities and told my mother to get me science magazines.

That's amazing.

That's wonderful.

And, Susan, what about you?

Yeah.

So, like I said, I've always been interested in why things happen.

And one of my very favorite classes really ever that I've taken was high school chemistry.

And his name was Mr. Johnson and he was the chemistry teacher for a long, long time at my local high school.

But, you know, it didn't matter that I was a girl.

He treated all the students the same and definitely pushed me to pursue chemistry in college, which then turned into biochemistry, but definitely thankful for the time that he took.

Just to show me how cool the world of chemistry was.

This is amazing you to have just inspired so many young girls and older girls who are watching Inspire.

Thank you very much.

And we salute those teachers because without teachers filling these young minds who are now doing so well, we would we would just be lost.

So thank you.

Thank you so much.

We are going to take a short break.

We'll be back with more women in science and two more who are in the field.

Hi, I'm Deborah Smith.

Dr. Smith or Professor at University of Kansas.

I do both teaching and research.

I came here in 91, actually, and hired into the entomology department and ever since then been teaching and doing research on both spiders and honeybees.

Well, my main interest with spiders is actually something most people have never thought about, except maybe in a nightmare.

Social spiders.

So spiders that live in large groups and work together to capture prey.

It's obviously fascinating because you have predators living together in very close proximity and working with each other.

And although people do think about it and things like lions or, you know, other big cat predators or wolves, they're kind of shocked to find out that there's spiders that do a lot of the same things.

They spin one web, one big web that everybody uses and take care of each other's offspring, share food.

So it's a very congenial arrangement.

I think I was looking at a bit of a spider phobia that I wanted to get over.

So as an undergraduate, I had a job working in an entomology department, and we were working on insects in alfalfa, which was not as exciting as it as you might think.

And I had a job counting all the eggs of alfalfa weevils and all the larvae of alfalfa weevils and all the adult alfalfa weevils and all the parasites of alfalfa weevils.

And after a year or two of counting weevil eggs, they said, you know, no one's ever looked at the spiders and would someone like to do those?

And I will do that.

I will do that.

I can't think of one I didn't actually That was always my favorite reading from I mean, like, of course, dinosaurs as a kid and just reading a lot about geology and archeology.

And I don't think there was a choice.

I mean, I think I just sort of always felt that's what I wanted to do.

Well, when you start looking closely at anything, you start to appreciate it more.

And this actually hit me more because I didn't know a lot about plants.

And while I was in college, we would drive back and forth from home to college every year and go by these big fields of weeds...plants.

And then I took some time to learn a little bit about botany, identifying plants, and suddenly, Oh my God, look at all the stuff that's there, you know?

And in a way, if you don't have a name for it, you hardly notice it.

And then when you do that, when you go out and start looking at insects or spiders and and really recognizing how to tell them apart and the diversity there, it's it's it's like a whole world is opened up that that you didn't even see around you before.

Welcome back.

Next, we're going to visit with some professional women about their careers in science.

Joining us are Kris Craven, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service Forecast office here in Topeka.

And Fani Limberopoulos a scientist at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment who works in the field of environmental monitoring and emergency preparedness.

Thank you so much for joining us on Inspire.

You have very impressive job titles, so please walk us through what your job is and some of your duties that are associated with your positions.

Well, I work actually in radiation control.

And it sounds a little bit scary, but usually what I do is educate our partners.

And I also work with the radon program.

So I do a lot of educating to professionals and to the public, to everybody, really.

All righ.

I'm, as you said, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service here in Topeka.

I actually spent 18 years doing operational forecasting, and I started out in Key West, FL as and intern and then went to Pueblo, Colorado as a general forecaster.

And I came here in 2012, was the lead forecaster and worked on that desk up until about five years ago.

And then I took the head meteorologist position.

So I spent a lot of time doing a lot of forecasting, warnings, that sort of thing.

And now I do a lot more administrational, hiring but I still serve as a fill in on the operational desk, so.

Well, it's kind of best of both worlds and I'm just so impressed to have both of you here.

Thank you for your time.

And thank you for what you do for all of us and especially for women.

Let's get into the reasoning behind choosing meteorology.

I mean, there's a lot of math involved, so forth.

There is I think I have a common origin story, and that is that I was terrified of tornadoes as a kid.

Right.

So that was kind of the background story.

And then as I went through school, I was always pretty good at math.

And so I, I took the higher level math classes.

I went through school.

I have to admit, I hesitated on the science part.

I hesitated on the physics and the chemistry, but I started taking that in college.

And then by the time I went on to graduate school, I had had a professor in between that really convinced me that I had the aptitude to do meteorology.

And so then I went on, pursued a masters degree in meteorology.

That's amazing that somebody actually encouraged you.

Let's let's get into the radiation and all that kind of thing.

I mean, that's kind of scary.

Well, it's not too scary.

We have a lot of research.

And, you know, I would say that I mean, I liked science really, really early on.

I come from a family of honestly, of scientists, you know, and whether they all call themselves scientists or not, they are.

And so science seemed pretty natural to me, but it wasn't really until gosh, I don't know.

I guess you could say I've just gained confidence every step.

So I. I would have thought I would be the last person in a field like radiation.

Right.

But with a good I think with a good basic science education and encouragement.

I really think science is for everybody.

I want I want you to say, though, your little name that you have been called the nerd thing.

Oh, yeah.

My sister coined the term specifically for me and it is "“Bi-nerdal"”.

Its because I don't look like a nerd on the outside.

But she says 30 seconds in and you know that I have a chewy nerd center.

There's no doubting.

There's no doubt.

I love it, I love it.. Only a sister can get away with that.

And I love it.

For Sure.

Well, Kris, I want to go with you because as somebody who's been in radio for decades now, the National Weather Service is a huge thing because we're the ones doing all the weather alerts and you're the ones putting out all the information.

Have you ever been in a situatio like Twister, like Helen Hunt, where you were out there, like with the truck and.

Oh, as a chaser.

Yes.

So no, because I'm terrified of lightning.

So I was always like the one to be like, I'll stay back and I'll watch the radar and I'll kind of guide you guys where to go?

But no, I mean, I love to be outdoors.

I love to be in nature, but I have a healthy respect for lightning.

So I was never a chaser.

But I will get on a kayak and go down the river any day of the week and twice on Sunday as long as it's not storming.

And one of the things that I'm noticing, because I have a lot of friends in TV who are women meteorologists, are there a lot in the field of meteorology?

Our numbers are getting a lot better.

So when I came in my first time, I was the only woman in my office of 25.

And then I got my second job.

There were a couple more and we've got six in our office now out of 23 total.

That includes a couple of techs and administrative support.

But half our management team is female and then three of our forecasters of about ten are female.

You think it's a growing trend?

I do.

I do.

Just looking at the numbers that are graduating from school in meteorology, But tornadoes are what you found interesting here in Kansas?

Yes, I'm actually a Lawrence native, so.

Okay.

So kind of touching on this idea of this gender discrepancy in these STEM fields.

Have you personally had to face those kinds of hurdles?

And if so, what was that challenge like for you and how did you get beyond this idea of sort of being this minority in a STEM field?

Well, I mean, my field is definitely has a history of being very male dominated.

And I just I haven't really experienced like a ton of like bias or anything like that.

You know, I think that most most of the people in my field are interested in what do you know and what can you do?

And so if you're knowledgeable and, you know, you just step out and you share what you have, there's a place.

Good.

That's wonderful.

That's my experience.

That's wonderful.

Yeah.

I'm like I said, the first office I came in, I was the only female in the office, the only stuff I experience was accidental.

They weren't used to it.

They didn't know.

And they and they were well educated men that adjusted to having somebody like me in the office.

That's fantastic.

That's a relief, because we don't always hear.

That's not always the response we get to those types of questions.

And so that's I'm glad that was your experience.

And I certainly think that a lack of those negative stories is certainly encouraging for younger women as well.

I think it's fair to say that that some women might shy away from these careers because of concern over those experiences.

So it's very comforting to hear that that isn't everyone's experience.

I'd love to know something that you didn't know before, that as you're studying that you learned.

And it was just profound to you not to throw you a tricky question!

Or even like about tornadoes.

Are you less fearful now about them?

Oh, yeah, that's exactly why I think the more I study that, the more the less afraid I was of it.

Because, you know, now I know what's a good tornado day and a bad tornado day.

And I, you know, I mean, I just yeah that's that's certainly gave me... Well I know there are certain parameters that make certain days much more favorable for tornadoes than others.

And so I you know, if I know I know those and I'm watching the forecast in the back of my head.

I know that's not like my big concern of the day.

So it's like aversion therapy for your own personal fear and you can impart that knowledgeto all the broadcasters of course, but...

I remember being in one of my chemistry classes early on and the professor said, a bunch of you are going to do water chemistry.

And I was like, Okay, I guess, I mean, I've done it.

I've done a lot of water chemistry, but I we just get really there's so there's so much to know.

I mean, there's so many things to study, if you can imagine it.

It's pretty much there to study.

Sure.

And changing, I'm sure, with the developments and learning and observing things.

I mean, the things that we know from a scientific perspective that we know now we might not have known 100 years ago.

So I think that's a really thrilling aspect of your careers, is that it's ever changing to a certain extent, I think so.

I think I heard I heard a statistic that at a talk up at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is where I got my master's and the gal was saying that the speed of technology doubles every 20 years.

So and I've been in the Weather Service for 23, so I think about how fast I mean, that makes sense to me now that I've been doing it for twenty years because there really is, like you said, so much more and so much more opportunity.

And how things have changed.

Thank you both.

This is incredible.

We could talk to these ladies forever.

Thank you so much.

We'll be back tontinue our discussion on women in Science.

Ladies, we learned a lot today about women in science, both the event at Washburn University and the women who work in various scientific fields.

So what were your takeaways from our discussions?

I'm excited as all get out what impressive women, what they are doing just for all of us and for young women like let's go to back in October where they had the women in science on Washburn, all those young ladies.

I would have loved to have seen the glee in their faces and just the lights turn on in their heads like, Hey, this is something I can do, and I'm interested in it.

Like Karen learning when she was in first grade that it was something that she was interested in and I was really, really glad to hear it.

We talked so much on this show about gender discrimination and it was really nice to hear that that we had people on the show that didn't have those negative experiences, because I think the only way to really get young women invested in these kinds of STEM related professions is to make sure it's a safe space for them, because who wants to go dedicate their life to something that's not a safe space?

And so I really have this hope that for future generations of female scientists or women that want to go into STEM, that that they won't have those negative experiences that some women do experience in this field.

What about you?

And I'm curious about stem and STEAM, you know, because I think the arts are a huge part of it, too, because mathematics is all about music.

So, I mean, and some people think that science is just like the traditional sciences, but we were talking about cooking.

You have to know how many cups go into certain things in order to make it turn out right.

So it's like even if you're not going into something traditional like, you know, physics or whatever, you could use cooking as a way to use science to learn more and to teach and to perfect things.

So I just, I think that's cool that science is a broad term, right?

And math is a broad term because I play music all the time and it's all about counting, right?

Knowing how to, you know, time signatures and all of that.

So sure.

It just makes me excited that women and girls are getting into that.

I think so, too.

And also before we went on air, we're visiting with the ladies and they were talking about, you know, if you're in atrack, you know, you're an engineer, you have to know something works.

And and you certainly especially anything with electricity, don't be blowing yourself up, killing yourself, I mean, there's so many things you and I would be paid accordingly.

Yeah, sure.

Hello.

Which was so wonderful that at the federal level, yes, she's making the same amount of money that.

Yes, male counterparts.

Absolutely.

Science is for everyone.

And I I'm looking forward to the day where we don't have to keep saying that we're we just know that that's the case and that we don't have to advocate the way we're advocating right now.

I think so, because I just think that these these opportunities are out there regardless of your gender.

And I think that the the interest that young women are showing when they come to things like Washburn's Science Day is just wonderful.

It's amazing.

It's a whole thing.

If you can see it, you can be absolutely.

And each one of our very exemplary women that we had on today, can they live it?

I mean, I want to see another Sally Ride in my life.

Yeah.

There you go.

We will.

She was certainly using.

Sure.

And I remember her going up to space and it just being like, oh, the first woman.

But we don't hear about too many women going forward, but it's like, let's open it all up for everybody.

And we will and we can't talk about that anymore today because that's all the time we have.

But if you'd like to watch this program again or any KTWU program, you can do that online at watch.ktwu.org And if you were so inspired to learn about our guests, find out what's coming up on future shows and get additional access to content.

Be sure to visit our website at www.ktwu.org/inspire Inspiring women, inspiring interest in science.

Inspiring you on KTWU.

We thank you for watching.

Inspire is sponsored by Kansas Furniture Mart using furniture to inspire conversation and by the Blanche Bryden Foundation.

The Friends of KTWU, honored to support programs and services that enrich the lives of our viewers.

And the Raymond C. and Marguerite Gibson Foundation.