On Tuesday, January 28, the Women in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics (STEM) club hosted an afterschool zoom meeting with Vy Dong, a chemistry professor from University of California, Irvine to talk about her journey and to share some advice to club members.
The Women in STEM club invites a variety of guest speakers every year, both online and in-person, to help offer insight to those who would like a career in the STEM field. Although this is true, Dong was the first guest speaker that came to speak to the club as a chemist as opposed to an engineer like previous presentations. This gives club members the chance to look at different career opportunities other than just engineering while still being in the STEM field.
“As a STEM club, we hold the responsibility to make sure that we advocate for the other types of STEM that aren’t specifically engineering, and especially because chemistry is not a really common major that people go into, having someone talk about it helps encourage more people to [look into] it,” Women in STEM President Evelyn Naing (12) said.
The club members first learned about Dong through a Women in STEM panel at the Discovery Science Cube, where different people in the field of STEM talked about their professions and the importance of science in a male dominated field. After this event, the officers from the Women in STEM club got in contact with Dong to gain further understanding of her experience and understanding of chemistry.
“The Women in STEM club, or WISTEM’s, message overall is to make women feel more comfortable integrating into more men dominated fields in STEM, [and Dong] definitely contributed because she showed her excess of education, and she overall, just showed her success as a woman in the chemistry field, which is a male dominated field,” Women in STEM club Vice President Amanda Noguez (12) said.
Dong started her chemistry journey in college when she decided to take an organic chemistry course, and in that class, she fell in love with chemistry. She then described her experience in researching, getting her doctorate, and how she and her lab mates were able to earn the 2021 Nobel prize. She then studied more chemistry and became a professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto in Canada before moving back to be a professor at UC Irvine.
Dong then showed that with the atom carbon, her and her research group are able to understand how carbon binds to other atoms where new innovations are made to connect atoms for many different things. Her research team also partners with pharmaceutical companies to find new ways to fight cancer and other diseases as well.
Dong finished her presentation off by giving some advice to the club members. She wanted to show that it is okay to not always be passionate about something because not everything is going to be enjoyable every time. She encourages students to explore different options and also provided networking opportunities for members.
”I thought that the offer to provide networking opportunities and follow up advice from the speaker to our students was a very welcome opportunity, because these are professionals and they’re very busy,” Club Advisor Mr. Michael Collins said. “They’re not necessarily always a part of our community, but yet they’re still willing to engage with our students, and seek opportunities to help them.”
The opportunity to have Dong present to the Women in STEM club was a great opportunity for members of the club to decide what they would like to do with their lives. The advice that was given to them as well will take them well into their lives.
