Serena Zhang ​My first experience at AGSS was when I was in fifth grade, attending the Geometry Workshop. I was a bit intimidated at first, but mostly curious about what was in store. When I stepped foot into the library’s multipurpose room, the bright tablecloths and welcoming smiles immediately brought joy to me face. I felt like I belonged. We spent the workshop learning about shapes - not just the ones I saw in my school textbook, but ones that went beyond the classroom basics. An origami-lover at heart, I was excited to learn that our activities involved folding intricate, 3 ..read more

Mia Gover Although women have participated in science, technology, engineering, and math for as long as the subjects have existed, only in recent years has it become normalized. We are still a long way off from full representation in STEM, but have made great strides, and in order to recognize this progress, here are a few of the greatest milestones for women in STEM throughout history. ​ 4th Century - Hypatia of Alexandria, a prominent mathematician, heads her city’s school of philosophy, the first woman in such a position 18th Century - the Enlightenment brings new opportunities for women in ..read more

Nora Bitar In 2020, Gitanjali Rao became the first ever winner of Time’s Kid of the Year award. At only fifteen years of age, she won on the basis of her “astonishing work using technology to tackle issues ranging from contaminated drinking water to opioid addiction and cyberbullying,” according to Time’s Magazine. This included Kindly, both an app and a chrome extension that uses AI to prevent cyberbullying before it happens. “You type in a word or phrase, and it’s able to pick it up if it’s bullying, and it gives you the option to edit it or send it ​the way it is,” Rao explained in the s ..read more

Anabel Weinstein                                                              Women in NASA Almost everyone in our modern society has heard of Neil Armstrong - the first person to walk on the moon! But how about Judy Resnik, Annie Easley, Mae C. Jemison, and Sally Ride? Most of us don’t know the names of all the women who are an integral part of engineering, building, or flying at NASA. So let’s change that. Judy Resnik was the fourth woma ..read more

Woman in Stem Spotlight: 2023 Nobel Prize Winner Katalin Karikó Nora Bitar Last month, Hungarian-American biochemist Katalin Karikó won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with her work partner, Drew Weissman. They were awarded the Nobel Prize for their efforts in speeding up the process of developing the COVID-19 vaccine with the help of mRNA-based vaccines that allowed “potent Covid vaccines to be made in less than a year,” according to the New York Times.     Dr. Karikó and Dr. Weissman have been researching mRNA for almost twenty years. In 2005 they published findings ..read more

By audrey lin We’ve all heard it before — #womeninSTEM, bridge the gap. It’s no surprise, after all, that’s what All Girls STEM Society believes in! But why is it so important to advocate for women in STEM and bridge this gap? Well, in 2020, as reported by the American Association of University Women (AAUW), women still continue to makeup only 28% of the STEM workforce, despite being 50% of our nation’s population. Not only that, but despite the upward trend in lucrative and highly sought after STEM fields such as computer science, the gender wage gap between men in women is more prevalent tha ..read more

​Women in STEM Spotlight Throughout history, women have made many incredible achievements in the science and mathematics fields. Though their contributions have often been overlooked and overshadowed,  without many of these women we would not be where we are today. Among others, women’s developments in space travel, gene editing, and computing programming have changed the world indispensably. To give these women the recognition they deserve, here is a  spotlight on three influential and inspirational women in STEM! 1. Katherine Johnson (1918-2020)  Born in Virginia, Katherine ..read more

By Mia Gover After being an AGSS volunteer last year, creating and co-leading my own workshop this year gave me an inside look at how much time and energy goes into the final workshop that everyone experiences. So, this is an overview of our process, specifically using the example of the scratch workshop, for anyone considering volunteering or just wondering how the process runs within AGSS. The first step for any volunteer who wants to lead a workshop is to create a workshop proposal, most of which are presented at our annual summer volunteer meeting (for current 8th graders interested in vo ..read more

Join The All Girls STEM Society at UVA and Girls Who Code at UVA as we take students grades 5- 8 into the interwebs. Learn basic coding and website development with hands on activities, and come out having successfully coded your OWN webpage! Advanced topics such as CSS and bootstrap will also be taught. No coding experience required - all you need is access to a laptop and lots of enthusiasm! Admission is always free and open to all. Zoom Link: Will be provided via email! All volunteers are members of The All Girls STEM Society at UVA or Girls Who Code at UVA and are UVA students. Please emai ..read more

By Mira Gowda Women have been undervalued and underrepresented in STEM fields for too long. Despite decades of efforts to increase numbers, women still only occupy about ¼ of STEM careers. The issue is that we have been trying to solve the problem too late in life. Representing women in science, technology, engineering, and math starts with raising girls to become a part of those fields. Studies have found that the majority of girls become interested in science or math around age 11, but that interest fades by 15. Why? Because there is a serious lack of female role models within ..read more