Matthew Leingang

Our second meet up was graced upon by Dr. Miriam Masullo and Dr. Meryl Price of IBM Watson Lab

Our speakers
Dr. Miriam Masullo
Dr Masullo has made major contribution towards the digital libraries and its use for education. She believed that a delay in access of certain documents may kill the curiosity in the person looking for it. She pitched the idea to NSF for digital video on demand and digital videos for education, went around Washington to get permissions and videos from various institutes.
NASA offered videos of the Hubble readily which were extremely helpful.
In Dr. Masullo’s words-

” If I had a tablet then, I would have changed the world”

Digitalization improved teaching and it is Dr. Masullo’s idea to do this at every level in every grade.
A remarkable thing here, Dr Masullo’s proposal was taken to congress and the telecomm act was revised. The subsequent Washington post headline was “Wow”! Dr. Masullo published her work and also presented it in Singapore
It is Dr. Masullo’s magnanimity that she never patented her work because she wanted her idea to be open to who wanted to implement it and bring improvement to digitization of education. The project was titled “edu port”
Dr. Masullo worked at Verizon but felt like there is more she had to do. She was the only person back then who could work with a combination of AI and mainframe.
Dr. Masullo also ran for congress and senate, is a powerhouse of women empowerment and an inspiration to all the aspiring women in science.
She says:

“Through my attempt to digitize libraries, I made enough noise to last a lifetime”

Dr. Meryl Price, a writer at IBM, Dr. Masullo’s dear friend also honored us with her gracious presence. Dr Price’s price and Dr. Masullo’s common dedication towards education brought them together and they worked to introduce the first ever teaching tool for first and second graders called the IBM PC junior

Our day started with hot chocolate and coffee and the famous lawyer joke from Dr. Price
Dr. Masullo recalled her experiences about being a woman in science. She says, publish everything you do. It should be something useful and significant. But also remember you cannot always please everyone.
She shared statistics about how women number in stem is rapidly growing and that it is a great improvement.
The most important thing which Dr. Masullo pointed out is that 75% of all the growing jobs depend on mastery of mathematics.
Some excerpts from our meet-up

You will constantly be competing.

You should not be intimidated.

If you hold your own skills and believe in your talents, you will be a part of the change in reality
You should also mentor others and share your skills by being their role model and giving them hope.
Emotional intelligence:
Dr. Masullo pointed out some interesting facts about women, we are not emotionally intelligent and tend to stress ourselves out and take failure really hard. She says people with emotional intelligence tend to succeed better.
The day progressed with many more of such important facts Dr. Masullo pointed out and shared with us
In conclusion, Dr. Masullo concluded with the inspiring words, leaving us all soaked in warmth of hope courage and renewed belief in ourselves.

Be the change you want to see

If not you, then who?

If not now, when?

We had a lot to take away from our honored guests and thank them from the bottom of our hearts for spending time with us

Our first Alumni meet was presided over by distinguished alumni of MIT who have joined us to share their experiences about being Women in Science and also about their life at MIT.
Speakers: Dr. Anni Coden from the IBM Thomas J Watson research center and Dr. Nupur Garg from MIT and Yale School of Medicine shared their stories and about how MIT changed their lives.
Dr. Anni a computer scientist is currently working at the Thomson Research Lab on insider threat detection. She shared some really interesting insights into her field of research.
Then she talked a little about applying to schools and what are the important things one must consider. The first being that your application should stand out. What have you done differently. She says it is most important that everyone must consider

“You are special”

“You are great”

Dr. Anni came up with an interesting exercise called Brag Sheet and made our alumni to each talk something great about themselves.
The girls found it surprisingly hard. Eventually they all came up with some good points about themselves.
This exercise left us all feeling inspired and that we can make a difference and that we have it in us to achieve something great.
Dr. Nupur Garg, Resident in the Emergency Medicine at Mount Sinai hospital brought in a lot of energy and enthusiasm to our day.
She shared her experiences as a Woman in Science and gave us some insights into the difficulties she faced during each stage of her career.
She then gave us some important steps and suggestions while applying for schools. The first things she told us was to queation ourselves. Why do want to do this? What has inspired us to take this up. She says

If you have the initiative, Do it even if you think its crazy

She says team work is really important.

Find your opportunities, passions and follow them

The other interesting thing she shared, which I think the girls will find very useful is

” Don’t talk if you cannot sell yourself”

Our morning session went really well and the girls were left feeling inspired and enthusiastic

We then departed for a tour of Research Labs at NYU POLY.
We visited the Dynamical Systems Lab of Dr. Maurizio Porfiri and Mechtronics Lab of Dr. Vikram Kapila and Organic Electronics Lab of Dr. Kalle Levon.
The tour was informative and inspiring.

We at GSTEM would like to give our gratitude to Dr. Anni Coden and Dr. Nupur Garg for spending time with us.
Dr. Porfiri, Dr. Kapila and Dr. Levon for the tour. Jared and Paul for taking time off their work to show us around the labs and Dr. Mark Saul and Dr. Matthew Leingang for GSTEM and to the Alfred P Sloan Foundation for their generous support in making this possible.