Boston University TODAY, April 24-30, 1995 Leading Girls Down Pathways to High-Tech Careers by Marguerite Lamb Close to 300 girls from area high schools came to Boston University recently to explore career options in science, engineering and mathematics. The occasion was Pathways '95, the University's second annual conference designed to inform young women of the opportunities available to them in a variety of high-tech ( and traditionally male-dominated) fields. Pathways founder and CLA Assistant Professor of Physics Elizabeth Simmons says that the number of students attending the conference has quadrupled since last year, when about 70 girls from 30 different schools came to the event. "I am pleasantly surprised and delighted by the number of girls who are interested in math and science," says Professor Simmons. "if the interests is there, it means all we really need to do is reach out to these girls and let them know that we want to help, that we want to offer them advice and inform them of the different career paths that are available to them." Prof.. Simmons began thinking about organizing a science and mathematics conference - conducted by women for women- when she was still a doctoral student at Harvard University. "As a graduate student I had attended a number of conferences dealing with women in science," she recalls. "But all of them focused primarily on career and social issues." "It occurred to me that instead it would interesting to set aside a day when women scientists could come together and talk about their work...It's important to discuss family leave and day care, but I wanted to organize a conference that would really focus on science. Shortly after joining Boston University's faculty in July 1993, Prof.. Simmons attended a Women's Guild meeting where she met Cynthia Brossman, then Administrative Assistant for the University's Center for Science and Mathematics Education. (Ms. Brossman is currently a grant administrator for the College of Liberal Arts science and mathematics departments.) "The science and math education center runs conferences for high school students," explains Prof. Simmons. "My idea for a conference was to include women of all levels, from high school students up through college faculty, so that women of different generations could meet and talk about science. So when I by chance met Cynthia, it just clicked and we organized the first Pathways Conference in the Spring of 1994." This year's conference, held in the George Sherman Union on April 11, was sponsored by the College of Liberal Arts, the Science and Mathematics Education Center, Teradyne, Inc., the Ellis L. Phillips Foundation, and Harvard Medical and Dental School's Joint Committee on the Status of Women. The success of Pathways '95, says Prof. Simmons, is a credit to the more than 60 women scientists - the majority of them Boston University faculty members - who lent "tremendous support" for the event. Biology Associate Professor Mary Erskine, Mathematics Associate Professor Emma Previato, and Assistant Professor of Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering Ann Stokes delivered research presentations during the conference's morning session. Other faculty members led participants on tours of various campus laboratories. Still others conducted a poster session, introducing participants to this traditional means of presenting scientific research results. The conference also included a discussion panel on women in science and roundtable debates on the effect of medicine on human evolution. Prof. Simmons and her colleagues' efforts have not gone unappreciated by Pathways '95 participant and Brookline High school student Corinne Lofchie. "Pathways makes me feel like there is community of women scientist out there," she says. It will nice to go into a field knowing that I'll be welcomed as a member of a community." "It's great to be able to talk one-on-one with women who have been successful in science," adds Brookline High School sophomore Kate Stephens. "It lets us know that the door is open to us." With partial funding for three future Pathways conferences guaranteed by the National Science Foundation, Prof. Simmons and her fellow colleagues will be able to roll out the welcome mat for hundreds more high school girls in the years to come.