The Women in STEM Speaker Series, which runs through Sept. 30, will be streamed via Facebook Live every Wednesday at 11 a.m.

By Emery Malachowski

Photo of Dr. Rachel Levine courtesy of Gov. Tom Wolf via Flickr. Dr. Levine will speak on July 29* as part of the Carnegie Science Center’s Women in STEM Speaker Series.

The Carnegie Science Center will host virtual speaker sessions over the next several months dedicated to highlighting the voices and work of women scientists.

Sessions for the Science Center’s Women in STEM Speaker Series will be available via the Science Center’s Facebook Live every Wednesday at 11 a.m. through Sept. 30, 2020. Recordings of the conversations will be available on YouTube following each of the livestreams. 

The first speaker in this series, featured on July 15, was Dr. Wendy Bohon, a geologist and science communication specialist at Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS). Bohon studies tectonics and works to improve communication to minimize the dangers involved in geological disasters. She is also on the board of 500 Women Scientists, which works to “make science more open, inclusive, and accessible, and transform society by fighting racism, patriarchy, and oppressive societal norms,” according to the organization’s website. Bohon also serves as an IF/THEN ambassador for the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), through which she serves as a role model for middle-school girls.

Liz Engler-Chiurazzi, Ph.D, research assistant professor at the West Virginia University Department of Neuroscience will speak on July 22.

Dr. Engler-Chiurazzi is also an AAAS IF/THEN ambassador. She says in an article for WVU’s School of Medicine news: “Where we really need to focus are 11- to 13-year olds, especially girls and those kids from underprivileged backgrounds, because that’s the age where they can lose interest in the STEM trajectory.” Dr. Engler-Chiurazzi has studied gender medicine and the neurobiology of aging, and cofounded the West Virginia Rodent Behavior Core, which she calls a “shared research instrumentation facility dedicated to the accurate, efficient and ethical conduct of rodent behavioral assessments.” 

Dr. Rachel Levine will speak on July 29.

In addition to her role as the Secretary of Health for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, Levine is a professor of pediatrics and psychiatry at the Penn State College of Medicine. She is also a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine, and the Academy for Eating Disorders, and she is the president-elect of the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). According to the Pennsylvania Commission on LGBTQ Affairs, Levine has “provided critical information to keep us safe from this dangerous virus [COVID-19],” while continuing to hold “poise and the highest degree of professionalism” in the face of transphobia. 

The full speaker series is listed below, and is also available on the Carnegie Science Center’s website.

• Wed., July 15: Dr. Wendy Bohon, Geologist & Science Communication Specialist at Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology
• Wed., July 22: Dr. Liz Engler-Chiurazzi, Research Assistant Professor at West Virginia University Department of Neuroscience
• Wed., July 29: Dr. Rachel Levine, Secretary of Health for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
• Wed., Aug. 5: Dr. Roselin Rosario-Melendez, Associate Principal Chemist and Project Leader at L’Oreal
• Wed., Aug. 12: Dr. Rika Wright Carlsen, Associate Professor of Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering at Robert Morris University
• Wed., Aug. 19: Ellen Bachman, Inside Sales Engineer at Eaton
• Wed., Aug. 26: Kay Savage, Senior Data Scientist at Spotify
• Wed., Sept. 2: Dr. Chavonda Jacobs-Young, Administrator of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Agricultural Research Service
• Wed., Sept. 9: Dr. Sandhya Rao, Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Pittsburgh
• Wed., Sept. 16: Angela Cupelli, Pediatric Oncology and Bone Marrow Transplant Nurse
• Wed., Sept. 23: Mercy Shitemi, Senior Systems Analyst at Zimmer Biomet
• Wed., Sept. 30: Dr. Natasha Tilston-Lunel, Postdoctoral Associate at the University of Pittsburgh Center for Vaccine Research

*Editor’s note 7/22/2020: Dr. Levine will speak on July 29, not July 27 as originally stated. We regret the error.

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