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Karina Hershberg

Girlstart’s Women in STEM weekly series highlights various women who are making a difference in STEM. Be inspired as these incredible women describe how they became interested in their field, provide insight into a day in the life, and share learnings from their experiences.

Karina Hershberg

Technical Associate @ PAE Engineers

Karina is a Technical Associate at PAE Engineers because of her passion and love for STEM. As a young girl, she was inspired to pursue a career in STEM when she saw a space shuttle launch. She inspires young girls to be confident in pursuing their dreams and to break barriers. We are thrilled to have Karina on our blog today and excited for you all to hear about her journey in the STEM field!

What would you like to tell girls who are interested in pursuing a STEM career?

Do it! Something I’ve loved about working in STEM is there are so many areas to work in. I went into STEM thinking I would work in space exploration and instead ended up working on sustainable design to preserve Earth’s environment. I love being in a career that is both interesting and impactful.

Was there a specific person, program, or event in your life that led you to your STEM career?

I saw a space shuttle launch when I was 15 and decided I wanted to work for NASA. Even though, I eventually decided to focus my engineering career on helping this planet, it was an interest in space exploration that initially motivated me to pursue an engineering degree. I also had great family support since my dad and brother are also engineers!

Briefly describe your career.

I work in sustainable building design and renewable energy systems.

What are your favorite things about your career?

I love working on problems that are interesting and impactful. Right now, buildings are a problem for the environment but I think that with innovative design and engineering, they can become part of the climate solution. By working to create sustainable, innovative solutions for the building industry, I am part of a larger community working towards solving the climate crisis.

What projects have you worked on?

I’ve led the electrical engineering design on four Living Building projects – the most sustainable building type in the world. The latest project is expected to be the largest of its kind in the world!

What is your greatest accomplishment?

One of my favorite career accomplishments so far has been helping to design the world’s largest Living Building!

What sparked your interest and made you want to volunteer with Girlstart? 

We need all the best minds working on solving the world’s environmental challenges. Women bring so much value to this work and I want to ensure girls are getting access to these career fields and are able to move past the historic barriers we’ve faced.

Why is confidence in STEM important for girls?

Unfortunately, women do still face barriers in STEM fields and the building industry is no exception. We bring great value to the field and deserve a seat at the table but sometimes we still have to fight for that seat. Carrying the confidence of knowing we are valuable contributors is sometimes needed to make sure our voice is here.

Karina is also a member of AstraFemina, a non-profit organization of women who are leaders in STEM fields, with a mission to Inspire Today’s Girls to Become Tomorrow’s STEM Stars by sharing their stories.

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Inspirational Notecards

One of the ways volunteers have helped this year is by writing inspirational notecards to program participants. Volunteers from all over the country shared inspirational quotes, words of affirmation, and even fun doodles. Volunteers embraced the challenge and it was so great reading all of the positive notes and seeing so much creativity. As a result, we were able to provide notes to 750 campers and we look forward to sharing more of these notes with participants this upcoming school year.

Thank you for helping inspire and encourage girls in STEM!

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Cognizant Foundation Donor Spotlight

Cognizant Foundation Donor Spotlight Q&A

Please share a little about the Cognizant Foundation.

The Cognizant Foundation was established in 2018 to inspire, educate and prepare people of all ages to succeed in the workforce of today and tomorrow. We believe the tech industry can serve as an engine to unlock economic opportunity and expand equity in communities around the world. But that won’t happen unless we rethink existing talent pipelines and create more accessible pathways into high-paying STEM careers—that’s why our work focuses so heavily on supporting historically excluded and underrepresented populations.

 

Why is Girlstart, or other organizations like us, important to the foundation?

We know that early identity plays a powerful role in the jobs and careers we ultimately have. To expand and diversify the pipeline into fields like technology, more people need to be able to see themselves in the work—and that needs to start early on. Girlstart’s work is so important, because its programs successfully introduce girls to STEM concepts and career awareness at the ages where we find inspiration for our future.

 

What change does the foundation wish to see in the STEM field, and how do you plan to be a part of that change?

According to a recent AAUW report, “Women make up only 28% of the STEM workforce, and men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM fields in college. The gender gaps are particularly high in some of the fastest-growing and highest-paid jobs of the future, like computer science and engineering.”

Our approach to address these alarming trends is to amplify, empower and accelerate the growth of proven models of community led programs—such as Girlstart. With partnerships like ours, we aim to unlock human potential and create more robust talent pipelines starting in a student’s early education years. As the girls impacted by Girlstart’s programs progress throughout their academic and professional careers, we hope they have access to the tools, resources and networks to realize their full potential.

 

Why does the foundation think it is important for girls to have positive experiences in STEM education?

As technology transforms work in just about every sector of the global economy, these advances continue to create unparalleled opportunities for many—however, far too few have access to the quality STEM education, training and opportunities required to improve their economic mobility in a changing landscape.

Starting at an early age, girls are discouraged and deterred from STEM topics in elementary school—this is one reason for the stark gender imbalance in our workforce. To combat this, foundations like ours must make strategic investments to break flawed systems and build new ones so that at every point in a girls’ learning journey, they have the tools, resources and networks necessary to develop competencies in scientific inquiry and reasoning—and in turn, a deep interest in STEM and computer science fields.

 

How is the foundation helping bridge the gap in representation in the STEM field for women of color?

In addition to support for organizations like Girlstart, offering young girls the opportunity to engage with STEM concepts from an early age—we are proud of other grantee partners, such as Break Through Tech and Reboot Representation and their tireless work to remove barriers and create innovative opportunities for women (especially women of color) to secure and thrive in STEM academic programs, internships and high-paying tech careers. We recently highlighted these two organizations and their work on International Women’s Day, as we detailed the foundation’s commitment to challenge the barriers facing women in STEM.

 

In the past year, what steps have you taken to diversify the STEM workforce pipeline in North Texas?

Girlstart is a longstanding partner to both Cognizant and the Cognizant Foundation, and we know the girls who experience Girlstart’s programs successfully go on to pursue education and career pathways in STEM. In addition to this partnership, we have additional grantee partners working to diversity the STEM workforce in Texas—such as NPower Texas, which prepares veterans and their families for tech careers; as well as CodePath, Flatiron School and Turing School, all providing historically excluded students with STEM and digital skills training, certificates and career opportunities.

 

Anything else you would like to share about the Cognizant Foundation?

We just want to echo how proud we are of our partnership with Girlstart and how excited we are to continue our work together. If anyone is interested in connecting with the foundation, please feel free to follow us on Twitter and on LinkedIn.

 

Girlstart is so grateful for the support of the Cognizant Foundation! Thank you for making STEM learning possible for so many girls!

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COVID-19 Policies

Girlstart’s top priority is the safety and well-being of our participants, staff, volunteers, and the communities we serve. We also believe that continuing our mission of providing hands-on STEM learning meets a vital need for children and families.

As we go into the school year, we have a responsibility not only to deliver meaningful, informal STEM education programs, but also to keep our Girlstart community as safe as possible– especially our participants who are under 12 and not yet vaccine-eligible. 

Therefore, Girlstart is instituting the following policies for all upcoming in-person events and programming:

• Masks must be worn at all times by all visitors age 2 and older. (For school-based programs, masks will be strongly encouraged if not required by the district.)

• When possible, events will take place outdoors.

• Space will be monitored to allow for social distancing.

• All Girlstart staff members will be fully vaccinated.

We are an organization dedicated to STEM education, and following the CDC, the National Afterschool Association, and state and local health department recommendations, we believe everyone who is eligible and able to do so should get vaccinated. Vaccines are the best tool we have to help control and mitigate the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Girlstart will continue to monitor community spread numbers, and use guidance from state and local health departments and the CDC as resources. We will update our policies and plans accordingly as needed. Please join us in doing all that we can to protect our friends, family, and the entire country.