Getting tenure as a professor takes many years. It’s hard and intense work and men and women are equally skilled and ambitious about this. However there is a point in the process where women start to drop behind or out all together, usually in their 30’s when they start to have children. Men traditionally at this point have wives at home to take care of the childcare but women aren’t so lucky. As a result, as in many professions, we have lost brilliant women because they just don’t have the capacity to excel in two jobs. In fact only 20% of fully tenured professors in STEM today are women. And the effects of this on our lives and our economy are wide ranging. Most of the devices we use today, from our phones to cars to the airbags that deploy in an accident, were all designed by men, for men’s bodies and how men think. 

Our guest today is a woman who is determined to change all this. Dr Carin Bondar is a Canadian biologist, writer, filmmaker, speaker and television personality and we are very proud to say, a recent She’s on Top member.  She is also the visionary behind STEM Angels, a registered charity that supports women continuing in the science and technology sector of higher academia. The STEM Angels Foundation is the first of its kind in the world so we were thrilled to learn more about this subject and to be able to share this information with you.

Some of the questions we ask:

1. What is STEM?
2. How did you get into STEM and why?
3. Let's talk about the crazy statistic on your website that only 20% of fully tenured professors in STEM subjects are women. Why is that?
4. Why does it matter? Why do we need women in STEM? 
5. What can maternal perspectives in science achieve?
6. How do we fix this?
7. What is the STEM Angels foundation and how can we help?
8. What have been some of your biggest struggles around getting recognition and having a seat at the table?
9. Advice is there for women who want to get into this field

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Learn more about Dr Carin Bondar and STEM Angels:

STEM Angels Foundation  https://stemangels.ca/

Dr Carin Bondar:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carinbondar/

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LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carin-bondar-6860a233/