As Hispanic-Heritage month approaches, it’s important to recognize the influence of Hispanic Americans on the history, culture, and achievements of the United States. It’s especially important to reflect on the contributions Hispanic women have made in the STEM community.
In fact, only 27 percent of STEM professionals and workers are women and only 2 percent of that represents Hispanic This blog will focus on only 3 STEM Hispanic women, but they are very important and serve as a reminder of what the STEM world needs more of!
In no particular order, here are 3 Latinas who have changed the STEM world:
1. Dr. Ellen Ocha
Credit: NASA
Ellen Ocha is an astronaut and a scientist from California. Over her course as a student, she obtained not only her bachelor’s degree in physics but a masters and her doctorate in electrical engineering. While she worked as a research engineer for NASA she helped invent 3 patents for optical inspection systems, an optical object recognition method, and a method for noise removal in her images. Her greatest accomplishment, though, is becoming the first Hispanic woman to go to space in 1993. In addition, she has since become the first Hispanic and second female director of Johnson Space Center.
2. Vanessa Galvez
Vanessa Galvez is a civil engineer working in New York City. She works with the New York City Department of Design and Construction to oversee the construction of bioswales to minimize pollution and reduce stormwater runoff. She became interested in civil engineering after watching a documentary about Hurricane Katrina in high school. She also credits the memory of “seeing children play
in dirty water” during her visit to El Salvador as something that motivated her to use engineering to help improve the quality of life.
3. Stephanie Castillo
Stephanie Castillo is a Chicago native focusing her time on encouraging Latinas to get involved in technology at a young age. She is the founder of the organization, Latinas Girls Code, which provides young Latinas with education and resources in technology. Stephanie recognizes the statistics mentioned above, and she is hoping to improve the numbers with her organization. Her organization is similar to NSTEM’s, which is also dedicated to providing young children the resources to be involved in STEM.
Wow! Aren’t those women amazing? These 3 women individually paved the way for the Hispanic community to gain more recognition in the STEM world. It is inspiring to see their impact on inclusion and diversity.
If you liked this blog, you can read more about Hispanic-heritage month at https://www.nstem.org/blog/!
Written by: Kathryn Cottingham
September 25, 2021
