After more than twenty years of funding, programming, and research into diversifying the STEM workforce pipeline, we have seen great increases in girls' participation and achievement in K-12. However, there has not been as large an increase of women in STEM majors or workforce, especially in sectors outside of the biological sciences. Thus, more attention is being paid to engaging girls and families in new ways to foster key non-cognitive factors such as identity, confidence, and agency in science, engineering, technology, and math. The out-of-school time sector--also known as the "informal education" or "free-choice learning settings" field--have produced many resources, research-based practices, and anecdotal lessons about how to empower girls, their caregivers, and their teachers to develop STEM mindsets and skills.

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ABOUT THE PRESENTER

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Carol Tang, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Children's Creativity Museum

Dr. Carol Tang is the Executive Director of the Children's Creativity Museum in San Francisco and a Board Member for the Association of Children's Museums. Previously, she led the Out-of-School Time grantmaking strategy at the S. D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, was Director of the National Coalition for Science After School, and directed exhibition and museum programming for the 2008 re-opening of the California Academy of Sciences. She has a Ph.D. in Geological Sciences from the University of Southern California, was a Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellow at U.C. Berkeley's Department of Integrative Biology, was an Assistant Professor of paleontology at Arizona State University, and served as a co-Investigator in NASA's Astrobiology Institute. Tang was a recipient of the California STEM Learning Network's Leading Women in STEM award and has been a Board Member for the National Afterschool Association.