Latinas and science

It’s hard to be a scientist and a Latina at the same time. People can never correctly guess what I do for a living. If I tell them that I have my own business, they assume that I have a restaurant. I don’t really know how to cook, but I have owned and operated an engineering applications company since the early 1980s.

I constantly battle people’s preconceived notions of what a successful Latina looks like or looks like. A lot of people think Latina and they think Jennifer Lopez. Sorry I don’t look or sing about her like her. Early in my life, my mother told me, “Honey, she studies math.” She, you see, she couldn’t sing, but she was excellent at math and science. So I followed her advice.

I started college when I was 16 years old, on a full scholarship, and graduated with honors with a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Puerto Rico. The biggest challenge I faced was being a young woman in a predominantly male field. Mind you, only 10% of our class were women. Several professors were downright hostile about having women in their classes. One of them was known to say: “Women belong to the house and must keep barefoot and pregnant.” That was in 1972. However, I did not let their prejudices stop me from continuing my studies. Instead, I became the president of the school chapter of the Society for Women Engineers and created programs to highlight the positive roles of women in engineering.

I also took advantage of the fact that there were so many men in my class: I met my husband Germán, another chemical engineering student, on the first day of university and we have been together ever since.

When I go around talking to younger women and they ask me if I’m happy with my career choices, I tell them this:

• An engineering degree opens up many career options. With my degree in hand, my first assignment was to do computer simulations for the then largest company in the world, Exxon Corporation. Several years later, my engineering degree caught the eye of New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, and he personally interviewed me for the position of Director of the New Jersey Small Business Division in the late 1980s. top of his administration.

• In a recent Charlotte Observer article titled “A Bidding War for Engineers,” the columnist wrote that “Even though the economy is cooling, engineers are in high demand and competition for them has become fierce… But with graduation rates are down 20 percent in the last two decades, there’s not enough to go around.” Due to limited supply, engineers will be needed en masse for years to come.

• An engineering education taught me better how to learn on my own. Among other subjects, I have taught myself financial and investment strategies, thus maintaining my competitiveness in business.

I also explain to the girls why people can never guess my profession: There are so few of us! Census data indicates that 4% of all science and technology professionals in the country are Hispanic, and that number includes both men and women. In 2003, according to the National Science Foundation, Latinas represented only 1% of all employed scientists and engineers.

But we need more. Everywhere I go, I praise the values ​​of a career in science, technology, math, and engineering. And I can see the results of this preaching in our daughters. My oldest son graduated with honors from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) with a degree in Mechanical Engineering and now works at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He speaks four languages, has traveled extensively, and has won robotics competitions in the United States and Europe. My youngest son is studying Chemistry and Forensic Science at the University of Science (USP) in Philadelphia. She was a top 20 student in her high school class and is also an accomplished pianist and artist.

Both serve as a reminder that any woman with the right support, role models, and opportunities can break stereotypes, make an impact, and transform the world of science as we know it today.