Tamara Robertson

Tamara Robertson: I was born and raised by two Marines. We were lucky in our county if people graduated high school, let alone going on from there. I grew up tinkering, building, doing everything with my dad. I joined all of the groups that as a girl you're supposed to be in. It was something that led me to the point where, two years before I graduated, I thought I might wanna pursue college. I took the ASVAB, which is the aptitude test for military enlisted branches to figure out where you would fall. And because I scored high, I had a lot of recruiters talking to me about ROTC and academies.

TR: I think for me that there was that a-ha moment, I can do what I love doing and make money. That was kind of neat. I wish that I had realized that there had been more exposure to engineering because mechanical engineering would've been a space that I would've been way happier in. I love chemical biomolecular engineering, don't get me wrong, but the one thing that I miss more than anything is getting to be mechanically challenged.

TR: Right now, there's about a 6% annual increase in the number of girls going into STEM programs. But even then, we're seeing such a large exit rate once they're in. It's one of those things that I tell people, like the issue of getting STEM women into STEM careers. It isn't a systemic issue, it's a pipeline issue. So, we're losing them in elementary school. We're losing them in middle school, we're losing them in high school. I would say, don't be worried about what everyone else thinks, because at the end of the day, everyone is different, and it's those differences that we have to celebrate.

PHOTO CREDIT: Tamara Robertson by Beyond Productions

TR: Seekers of Science is an amazing project that has been a lifelong goal of mine as a comic lover. I've always wanted to be part of a comic. Tracy and I met on MythBusters and we realized that we both really wanted to change the world. She's always been more geared towards inspiring the older generation and letting them know that you can always restart, and I'm always trying to get young women excited about STEM. It's an interesting thing because comics are a more male gendered consumer product. So, for me, the importance of having us as female leads, is we’re using real world science to solve real world problems to showcase what women are capable of.

TR: It's hard, right? My parents had no idea what to do with me when I was taking stuff apart. Aside from giving me more things to take apart that were more mechanical. Just like with any skill, getting a coach, getting a mentor is so helpful. If they are excelling in math or science, I guarantee if they go up to one of their science teachers and are like, “Hey, I wanna learn more,” the teachers are going be so excited to be able to talk to them and mentor them. I would say to parents, reach out to your resources.

PHOTO CREDIT: Goodluz/Shutterstock

electrical engineer back at Penn State before there were any women in engineering. She was the first and only female engineer in her four years of college. I was very fortunate that I had her as a mentor to say, you know, it is okay and good for women to be in science and technology.”

The interesting thing about STEM is that you’re not necessarily locked into one career path. Many, many people bounce around in life, working in multiple career paths — and it’s more common than ever.

According to the Lumina Foundation, it is estimated most people will change jobs 12 times in their adult life. Nearly one-third of all Americans change their career path entirely at some point in their lives, with 21% entering an entirely new field.

“If you look at industry surveys around specific types of industry, like gene therapy, for example,” said Mullan. “I was just looking at a report today and I think the projected growth rates are something on the order of double digits per year for the next 5, 6, 7 years. Yeah, that's a relatively new industry, but there's so many new things coming out that each one of these haven't even been developed or thought about yet. And so, each one of those ideas can become a whole new industry underneath the broader industry, but a whole new industry with massive growth rates.”

The same can be said of industries like quantum computing, viral treatments for cancer, and age reversal, among many others. All of those are new fields just scraping the surface of what they will likely become.

Even video game design and recording engineering are STEM career paths — it’s not just lab coats and pocket protectors anymore. So, to say that it seems limiting is actually quite a misnomer. With the continuous proliferation of new technology and developments in existing industries, these opportunities will only continue to broaden.

Following that last point, many also believe the opportunity for growth just doesn’t exist. This largely goes back to the idea that all the STEM career paths are simply for “lab rats” who do the same thing forever.

That couldn’t be further from the truth.

Just like every other industry, these industries are