5 Women In STEM Who Inspired Us This Year

Celebrating First All-Women Spacewalk with inspiring women in STEM

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Today is the day that two female astronauts, Christina Koch and Jessica Meir will complete an all-women spacewalk at the International Space Station. NASA TV will cover the spacewalk at 6:30 a.m EST. This is the first all-women spacewalk in NASA’s history. Currently, NASA has 38 active astronauts. Out of those 38 astronauts, only 12 are women. Needless to say, this is a momentous occasion for women in STEM.

In celebration of Christina Koch and Jessica Meir’s achievement at NASA, there are 5 women who are making waves in their perspective fields in STEM. These women are an inspiration to women and girls who are breaking boundaries by working and studying in STEM fields.

Michelle Zatlyn — Cloudflare Cofounder

Cloudflare is a web security company. If you have a WordPress website, Cloudflare is probably the company that provides you with website security. Michelle Zatlyn started this company with two Harvard colleagues. Cloudflare was valued at 4.4 billion when it had its IPO earlier this year. When asked about her best advice for women who aspire to build a billion-dollar business by Marie Claire, she responded with the below.

“Ask yourself, Am I working on a big, meaningful problem? Obsess over how you’re going to do all the things needed to build a product that solves that problem and how you are going to create a company that attracts and retains the best people. If you get those two right, the other things follow.” — Michelle Zatlyn, in a Marie Claire Interview

Maryam Mirzakhani — a former Stanford University mathematics professor

She’s famous for her work in mathematics in an area called moduli spaces. She won the Fields medal in 2014. This year, her collaboration with mathematician Alex Eskin from the University of Chicago won the 2020 Breakthrough Prize. When asked about her advice for students who are pursuing mathematics by the Guardian, she responded with the below.

I did poorly in math for a couple of years in middle school; I was just not interested in thinking about it. I can see that without being excited mathematics can look pointless and cold. The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers. — Maryam Mirzahkani in an interview with the Guardian.

Fei-Fei Li — Chief Scientist of Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning, Google Cloud

She’s a renowned academic in computer vision and an Associate Professor at Stanford University where she directs the Stanford AI Lab and Stanford Vision Lab. She built the ImageNet that powers deep learning and AI. In an interview with Forbes, she responded with the below.

“Technology could benefit or hurt people, so the usage of tech is the responsibility of humanity as a whole, not just the discoverer. I am a person before I’m an AI technologist.” — Fei-Fei Li, in an interview with Forbes

Gwynne Shotwell—President and Chief Operating Officer at Space X

Space X had a big year this year. It became the first private company to send a human-rated spacecraft “Crew Dragon Demo-1 Mission” to space. This spacecraft also autonomously docked on the International Space Station. It’s working on its Starship launch. Behind Elon Musk is a woman who is running the show, Gwynne Shotwell. She is responsible for day-to-day operations and growth. She worked as a mechanical engineer earlier in her career. When asked about her advice for the next generation of women in tech, she responded with the below.

“You have no control over whether you are going to be the smartest person at your company or even the smartest person in the room at any particular time, particularly at a company like SpaceX; there are a lot of smart people here. But, you do have control on how prepared you are, how hard you work and what kind of results you get.” — Gwynne Shotwell in interview with STEM Like a Girl

Esther Duflo — Winner of 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics along with her colleagues

She is the Professor of Poverty Alleviation and Development Economics at MIT who co-founded the Poverty Action Lab. She shares the Nobel Prize of Economics with her husband Abhijit Banerjee and Michael Kremer. When asked about women empowerment in an interview with the Federal Reserve of Minneapolis, she responded with the below.