Join us and Bridget Jones, the Founding Sister of Smart Sister Finance, for the below events! Bridget believes strongly that through financial knowledge and conscious choices, you can reach any life goal. Follow Smart Sister Finance on Instagram and LinkedIn to learn more!

A junior high school science project first sparked Carla Frieh’s interest to pursue a career in STEM. As an Engineering Director at ComEd, Carla is focused on upgrading and modernizing ComEd’s smart grid to deliver more resilient and reliable energy to approximately 4 million customers across northern Illinois. ⚡ A smart grid is an electric system enhanced with innovative digital technologies like smart substations and smart switches that detect problems on the electric grid, so customers experience improved reliability and better service. Helping customers understand the smart grid and how it improves reliability and service is one of Carla’s favorite things to do! You can read more about the smart grid and Carla in the article below:

What does it take to be a coder? Fancy degrees? Expensive software? Nope! Learning to code is as simple as opening a PDF. Girls Who Code has a library full of free online coding resources to learn how to code, no matter what level you're at. 💻 You can stand up for mother nature by creating a public service announcement with code to teach others about an environmental issue, create your own digital art, or even program a game! Check out all of these activities and more below to learn to code this summer! 🌞

GirlCon is an event for high school womxn in tech, organized entirely by students for the fourth year running. This virtual event, June 27-30, features breakout, professional development, and keynote sessions from numerous companies and backgrounds, giving attendees the opportunity to learn and make connections. 👩‍💻 Panelists from the National Nuclear Security Association, DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, and DOE’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory will share their role in government, and how they’re working to apply artificial intelligence to energy, climate, and nuclear weapons, as well as sustainable energy and national security. Tune in and register for this free event here!

Congratulations to the Exelon Foundation STEM Leadership Academy Alumnae Scholarship Recipients! 🎉

If you are a STEM Leadership Academy Alumnae and are interested in applying for the 2022 STEM Leadership Academy Scholarship, please stay tuned as information on how to apply will be communicated to you later this year.

The United Nations, aware that the protection and improvement of the human environment is a major issue that affects the well-being of people and economic development throughout the world, designated June 5th as World Environment Day. 🌳 Celebrate our environment and learn more about taking action to restore and protect it with the below resources. ⬇️

People and the planet are only as healthy as the ecosystems we all depend on. 🌎 Bringing degraded ecosystems back to life - for example by planting trees, cleaning up riverbanks, or simply giving nature space to recover - increases their benefits to society and biodiversity. Without reviving ecosystems, we cannot achieve the Sustainable Development Goals or the Paris Climate Agreement. But ecosystems are also complex and highly varied, and their restoration needs careful planning and patient implementation. To encourage the revival of ecosystems everywhere, United Nations Environment Program has published a practical guide to ecosystem restoration. You can take action now and become a part of #GenerationRestoration, a global movement to restore ecosystems everywhere for the good of people and nature! Check out the playbook below to get started:

The Field Museum recently recognized women leading the way in scientific research, conservation, and education during their 2021 Virtual Women in Science Program. The Keynote speaker, Kristine Tompkins, is considered one of the most successful national park-oriented philanthropists in history. She’s helped to protect over 14 million acres and played a key role in creating 11 national parks in Chile and Argentina! 🌳 In the hour long program, Kristine was interviewed by conservation leader Wendy Paulson. You can see the program below to learn all about Kristine's journey and conservation! Access the video using the password: FieldMuseum.

NASA has assigned Kayla Barron to serve as a mission specialist for the agency’s SpaceX Crew-3 mission to the International Space Station, which is targeted to launch as early as Oct. 23. This will be the first spaceflight for Barron, who became a NASA astronaut in January 2020 after completing two years of training. Barron was born in Pocatello, Idaho, but considers Richland, Washington, her hometown. She earned a bachelor’s degree in systems engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 2010. She earned a master’s degree in nuclear engineering from the University of Cambridge, in England, in 2011, as Gates Cambridge Scholar. You can read more about the mission and Kayla here!

In the high Norwegian Arctic, the Svalbard Satellite Station is made up of 100 geodesic domes. From outside, there seems to be little going on. But each dome shelters a dish antenna precisely aiming at satellites as they rise above the horizon and collect data from them. SvalSat, as the station is known, is a crucial, behind-the-scenes workhorse supporting scientific research as it collects data for NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the European Space Agency. Located just outside the town of Longyearbyen in the Svalbard Archipelago, it is 800 miles from the North Pole, making it the northernmost satellite station in the world.

Maja-Stina Ekstedt has worked at SvalSat for 10 years and is the first female director of the ground station. She manages a staff of about 40 who operate the antennas and repair and maintain equipment. They are working at a place that plays an important role supporting science. “It’s really amazing to understand what you are part of,” Maja-Stina said, “when you know what all these images and data are used for in the world.” Read more about the station and Maja-Stina here!

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