Come in and let us help You Relax". Left Callie Nance, 15, center, and some of her high school classmates toured Professor Sayantani Ghosh's lab before the Dinner with a Scientist event. Nance and 55 other ninth- through 12th-grade girls from the Mariposa County Unified School District toured the campus and visited labs led by female scientists before sitting down for dinner with 14 women β some professors from UC Merced and some in science-related careers in the community β all of whom can be mentors and role models for the girls.
The FBI came with displays, but I noticed there were no women in the pictures. We can talk to them about how we got to where we are. The other is hosted by the Merced County Office of Education and is co-ed, but this one was only open to girls. Each participant applied and had to write about herself and her interests, and organizer Trish Gilger, who founded Mariposa Youth Impact Project, matched each girl with a scientist or a woman who works in science-related field, like Hartman.
Each woman had a table of four to six girls, and was encouraged to bring artifacts, props, pictures, brochures or other materials to help describe what they do.
The girls got to meet with two scientists they are matched with, and this year, Gilger and other organizers added a third round in which each girl got to choose a third scientist whose work interested them. Savanna Savage and Reese Radanovich, both 15, were initially matched with Sara Stock, a wildlife biologist with Yosemite National Park, because they are both interested in careers in veterinary medicine or working with wild animals.
Radanovich attended the event two years ago, and was excited to return. Left Professor Noemi Petra talked about applied mathematics with the high school students. UC Merced participants represented the schools of Natural Sciences and Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts , and included Scott , who researches early childhood and language development; Jing Xu , who researches molecular motor biophysics; Jessica Blois , who studies paleoecology; health psychologist Jitske Tiemensma ; cognitive scientist Stephanie Shih ; and mathematician Noemi Petra.
