The Society for Advancement of Chicanos/Hispanics and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) gathers scholars and industry leaders in STEM for an annual conference of networking and community building. This year, SACNAS explored the unique challenges that women face in the STEM arena at a lunch panel at National Harbor in Maryland on Friday.
Industry leaders Dr. Deborah Frincke, director of research at the NSA; Romelia Flores, engineer and master inventor at IBM; and Dr. Mary Jo Ondrechen, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Northeastern University, spoke at the panel.
In her introductory remarks at the start of the panel, Ondrechen commented, “Probability says I shouldn’t be here.” Ondrechen, a member of the Mohawk Nation, was alluding to the small number of Native Americans in the STEM fields.
Hispanics and American Indian and Alaska Natives are highly underrepresented in the STEM disciplines. According to the National Science Foundation, a total of 35,360 STEM doctoral degrees were awarded in the U.S. in 2012. Of those degrees, only 4 percent were awarded to Hispanics, and only .3 percent was awarded to American Indian and Alaska Natives.
Ondrechen said she overcame an imperfect education in K-12 to get to where she is today. She described her public school system as the sort “where you don’t learn much.” Despite the circumstances, Ondrechen’s talent shone through, and she was offered a scholarship to Reed College in Portland, Oregon.
” I was hopelessly behind everybody else, but I was too naive to understand that I was so far behind,” Ondrechen said.
After graduating from Reed in 1974, Ondrechen obtained a Ph.D. from Northwestern University in 1978. She attributed her success in part to her mother’s encouragement. According to Ondrechen, she always “told me I could do anything I wanted if I worked at it.” She said she also had the “teachings of [her] elders” to guide her.
