STEMinists

Since I've become a SAHM (stay at home mom) I've been trying to find ways to stay connected with the engineering community.  One of the ways I've found is to volunteer for EngineerGirl.org.  It's a site dedicated to helping young girls and teenagers understand and get excited about engineering.  They put on contests and do all sorts of fun things (I'm pretty sure that some schools require the students to come to the site).  Anyways, one section of the site is dedicated to profiles of real engineers (see mine here).  The girls can ask a general question about engineering and one of the professional engineers will reply back to them.  Some of the questions I've answered have even come from college students seeking career advice.  It's really fun and hopefully I can help someone with my experiences.

Anyways, a few months ago I received a question on the site from a lady who works for the Michigan Women's Historical Center and Hall of Fame.  She said they were doing a new exhibit for Michigan Women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) and wanted to feature me in the exhibit.  How cool!  But I replied and told her that I'm not working right now.  AND I actually just moved to Michigan.  My career was spent in Connecticut (though I did a summer internship here in 2007).  After I told her that information I was sure the opportunity was over, but they still wanted to include me!!!   

I sent her a bunch of pictures and answered many questions.  They had a big opening of the exhibit on 3/14 - during my awful stomach bug!  I was so sad I missed it.  So this past Saturday Jake took me to Lansing to see it in person.  The exhibit is open through Feb 2014.  So if you're in the Lansing area - you should check it out!  ;-)

I was surprised to see that they even used my picture in the FSAE car on another wall!!!

I'm so glad that I have the chance to be home with my girl (soon to be girlS).  But sometimes I feel like part of me is "on hold" right now.  I'm grateful for little opportunities like this to fulfill that part of me.  And hopefully someday my girls will look back and realize that I chose them over my career.

Afterward we decided to check out the Impression 5 Science Center (since we drove all the way to Lansing for the day).  Scarlett thought that was way more fun than the Women's Museum... though I'm not sure why...