February 11 marks the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
This year’s theme, “Synergizing AI, Social Science, STEM, and Finance: Building Inclusive Futures for Women and Girls” has led me to reflect a bit on my journey in STEM.
As a kid, I was drawn equally to the arts, social sciences, and the pure sciences, even as others tried to place me neatly into one box or the other. I filled little notebooks with stories I wrote about how I saw the world, while also being deeply curious about the inner workings of my brother’s Commodore 64 computer.
As a teenager, I remained captivated by physics and the laws that govern the natural world. At the same time, I was deeply curious about societies – how power moves, how histories shape outcomes, and why systems work the way they do.
In high school, those interests lived side by side. I was drawn to leadership, serving in my school’s debating, press, and science clubs. I wrote essays for the school newsletter, and then work with friends in the science club to design and build machines.
The world around me seemed more comfortable telling me I did not belong in the “science” box. My father, however, encouraged me toward the sciences. That nudge mattered. I pursued mathematics, physics, and computer programming as my formal academic path, while continuing – by choice and conviction – to study political thought, sociology, and philosophy on the side. The questions I cared about simply refused to live within a single discipline.
Looking back now, I see that tension didn’t create confusion. It created capacity. It shaped how I think, how I lead, and how I navigate complexity.
Today, as we confront widening gaps in AI – gaps that risk reinforcing inequities and disadvantaging entire segments of the population – this year’s theme feels especially urgent. Technology alone will not deliver inclusive outcomes. People do. Governance does. Values do. And so does the ability to connect disciplines, perspectives, and lived experience.
So as we shape decisions and design futures, we should keep asking ourselves: Who is missing from the table – and what does that absence mean for the outcomes we create?