(Newer)
When Alena Wicker realized the racial and gender gaps in the STEM directions, she went to work. The 12-year-old in Texas told her mother, “I want to create this culture of brown girls in STEM, because that’s the whole void, and I just want to do something,” Good Morning America reports. In fact, the Pew Research Center found that only 9% of STEM workers are black people, and only 7% Spanish. The result of Alena’s effort is a website, thebrownstemgirl, for girls of color. Her other efforts include writing a children’s book and starting a podcast, which is a few weeks away from its debut, in which ‘women and girls from STEM’ will ask and answer questions. “She intends to lead by example.
“I’m going to be the youngest black girl to ever work for NASA,” Alena would tell her mother. She will begin remote classes at Arizona State University in May, once she completes high school. Alena plans to double the major in astronomical and planetary science and chemistry on her way to becoming an engineer. NASA honored its first black female engineer, Mary Jackson, earlier this year by naming her its Washington headquarters. Alena hopes one of her podcast guests will be another pioneer: Mae Jemison, NASA’s first black female astronaut. The prodigy himself is on his way to break ground; she and her mother, Daphne McQuarter, said NASA contacted Alena. (Read more uplifting news reports.)