Ramla Qureshi wanted a platform for females in engineering fields to empower each other, but she was not able to find it in Pakistan.
So she founded a non-profit organization called Women Engineers Pakistan. Qureshi, a first-year graduate student in civil engineering, started the organization by a Facebook page dedicated to connecting female engineers in Pakistan.
Soon after Qureshi started the Facebook page, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad invited her to a presentation given by a visiting NASA scientist. After meeting with the scientist, Qureshi was inspired to look for more opportunities to connect people who could help with her project.
On Wednesday evening, Qureshi attended UB Schmoozin’ for Women in STEM Fields at Davis Hall. UB Alumni Association and UB Career Services co-hosted the event for STEM – science, technology, engineering and mathematics – majors. The event brought students and alumnae from different STEM fields and gave students a chance to network with other female STEM students, similar to Qureshi’s group.
A month after Qureshi came to UB, she met with staff from the Alumni Association about her project. She also received feedback from UB’s Gender Institute, Pakistan and Muslim Student Associations.
“They were very interested to help me with this project and invited me to today’s event to talk to more people about finding virtual mentors to young female students in Pakistan,” she said.
Qureshi hopes to start hosting online mentoring sessions by next summer.
In a report issued in 2013 by the National Science Foundation, women received 18.2 percent of bachelor’s degrees awarded in computer science in 2010, 18.4 percent of engineering bachelor’s degrees and 43.1 percent of mathematics and statistics bachelor’s degrees.
Kristi Fields, a career planning and development associate at Career Services, said UB Schmoozin’ for Women in STEM Fields is a networking opportunity for current students who are in or interested in STEM fields.
Alumnae of different positions of STEM, including IT risk and assurance advisory, senior research scientist, co-director of gene targeting & transgenic facility at Roswell Park Cancer Institute, attended the event.
“We want students to know that the UB family is out there to help and open doors for more opportunities,” Fields said. “Eighty percent of jobs and internships are found through networking, so we want students to practice their networking skills and build relationships.”
Fields said the Alumni Association and Career Services tell alumnae to “stay connected and hire an UB [student].”
Katherine Czerniejewski, a junior biomedical engineering major, and Dana Voll, a junior electrical engineering major, wrote an academic paper about what inspired them to pursue careers in the engineering field after meeting last year with Liesl Folks, dean of UB’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
Czerniejewski and Voll had the opportunity to present their paper, “Perceptions of University Recruitment Strategies by Female Students in STEM,” at the annual IEEE STEM Education Conference at Princeton University.
“There are a lot of misconceptions on having more women in STEM fields,” Czerniejewski said. “First of all, people assume engineering is hard without knowing anything about engineering.”
A student, who wished to remain anonymous, said undergraduate experience in STEM is different than working in a STEM field in real life, and used the GamerGate controversy as an example. GamerGate has caused such a controversy, the student didn’t even want her name tied to it.
GamerGate is an online debate that partially focuses on harassment and marginalization of women in the video game industry and community. Many people who speak out about the issue have received threats from online community members.
“People say it’s a good time for females to join STEM fields but still I feel the power of politics tends to be worrying for females,” the student said. “Change will not happen in a night. It will take the society a while to treat women and men equally.”
Despite problems outside of the academic world, there are still programs that try to foster STEM interest in younger students.
Czerniejewski and Voll were part of a high school program called “Project Lead the Way,” which teaches students the basic mechanics of how machines and gadgets work.
“We were lucky to discover basics of engineering science when we were still in high school,” Voll said. “But this program was only limited to certain schools and they don’t even teach the same class in every school. One class offered in a school may not be available for another. There is little encouragement in high schools to attract students to these fields.”
UB Schmoozin’ for Women in STEM Fields is not only for decided majors, said Clay Connor, engagement assistant for UB’s Office of Alumni Engagement.
“During our events we also have stations for undecided majors where they can bring their resumes for reviewing and having a conversation,” he said.
Czerniejewski said there is a lot of emphasis on women in STEM fields. But she wants to highlight her success is due to her hard work and not because of her gender.
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