February 11th was recently celebrated as Women in STEM day. For the first time in 2016, the contributions of women to Science fields were celebrated. The hidden but obvious agenda of the celebration is to encourage women to pursue careers in science.

The event throws light on the main concern we need to address which is the number of women in the STEM fields. Although, due to innovations and developments in technology, there are more students pursuing fields like Computer Science and Engineering, there is little or no progress in the enrollment of female students in such majors. The factors that lead into the situation are:

• Under-representation of women in Science in media- We all know about the pretty and dumb stereotype women are usually attached to in media.
• Lack of female role models- In the era where world is obsessed with pop culture, there is a little to no female role models which women can look up to. As female scientists and engineers are not given enough representation, female students often don’t have role models which are strong and slaying in the male dominated fields.
• Lack of encouragement- The pop culture encourages young girls to fit into a stereotype which is pretty and has a perfect body. However, only a handful of TV shows such as "The Big Bang Theory" and "Grey’s Anatomy" have actresses portrayed as scientists.

I would like to this issue which is also prevalent on the UMass campus. I was one of the 5 girls in the class of 200 students in the Engineering class. The small number of women is overwhelming and less welcoming for girls. It leads to intimidation for young girls and usually doubting their own abilities as a student.

Hence, on this day, I want to celebrate the 5 women I admire in Science fields

1. Ada Lovelace (1815-1852)

Ada Lovelace was a British mathematician and widely held as the first woman computer Programmer. The Ada Lovelace is celebrated on 13th October to celebrate women in technology fields

2. Mary Somerville (1780-1872)

Mary Somerville was a Scottish Science writer and Polymath. She was one of the two women admitted into the Royal astronomical society

3. Kalpana Chawla (1962-2003)

Kalpana Chawla was an Indian born NASA astronaut and was among seven killed crew members in Space shuttle Columbia disaster.

4. Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958)

Rosalind Franklin was an English chemist. She had the key role in discovering the structure of DNA.

5. Marie Curie (1867-1934)

The Nobel prize winner was a pioneer in the research of radioactivity.

These badass women have brought walls of stereotypes and obstacles down in their careers and have created history. It is not a comprehensive list as there are thousands of great women scientists and Engineers in history. I would like the readers to remember their greatest women role models in science on the occasion of the Women in Science day.