Elevating Women in STEM

I began working with the DoD in 2014, and have had a variety of government roles and positions since then.

Below is a piece I wrote during my time with the Recruitment Office at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, as their Recruitment Communications Program Manager.

The article was first posted to my LinkedIn on November 30, 2020, and the original piece can be found on here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/elevating-women-stem-brittany-l-reid/

Elevating Women in STEM

(Olay's 'Her Future is STEM-sational'​ Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade float | Screenshot from Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade YouTube Video: https://youtu.be/lFVQHr2hfIw)

Written by Brittany L. Reid, Program Manager for Recruitment Communications

NGA Talent Acquisition Center

     It is no secret that there has been a nationwide push to increase the percentage of women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) roles across the United States. This year, National STEM Day fell on November 8, 2020 and on that date, the Census Bureau released statistics regarding the status of STEM and STEM-related occupations by sex and median earnings across the United States. According to the data spreadsheet on www.census.gov, as of 2019, approximately 47.7% of American women are employed, with 26.7% working specifically in STEM occupations.

     The movement to elevate the pressing need to tighten the gender-gap in STEM work roles has caught the attention of businesses across the country, including a cosmetic company that chose to use its platform to bring awareness to the issue during the Thanksgiving holiday.

     This year, millions tuned in to the 2020 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade from the comfort of their homes. Just over an hour into the event, between the La Bamba dance performance by members of the Danza Fiesta New York Puerto Rican Folk Dance Company and NASA’s Snoopy balloon honoring the 50th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, the Olay company debuted its very first Macy's Thanksgiving float: Her Future is STEM-sational. The piece featured an African American female astronaut looking ahead to the future, surrounded by a double helix, computer coding, a robotic arm, and mathematical symbols—all representing STEM fields. Upon the float, Colombian reggaetón singer Karol G sang her Spanish song, “Ay, Dios Mio!”

     A clip of the performance, and the float in all of its splendor, can be viewed below:

(Above: Karol G's performance of 'Ay Dios Mio' atop Olay's 'Her Future is STEM-sational' float during the 2020 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade)

     The visage strongly reflected key aspects of Olay’s current initiative to: "Make space for Women in STEM." According to https://www.space.com, Olay aims to double the number of women in STEM roles, and to triple the number of multicultural women in science and technology fields, by 2030. With this in mind, what better way to uplift the significance of Women of Color than by having multicultural, female representation symbolized both in song and in the float’s overall structure during the 2020 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?

     In the same article, space.com references how Chris Heiert, senior vice president of Olay, relayed that last year, Olay announced its aim to leverage the 2020 Super Bowl as the stage to debut its initiative of making space for women in STEM, "...because we wanted that message to reach as many consumers as possible. As we continue our mission to face the STEM gap, we saw the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade as another great, large scale opportunity to spread the message that women can face anything, and that we are here to support them in doing so." 

(Above: Olay's 2020 Super Bowl commercial promoting their initiative to 'Make Space for Women in STEM', featuring Taraji P. Henson, who played the iconic Katherine Johnson in the film 'Hidden Figures.')

     Like Olay, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is also pushing to decrease the gender gap of women in not only STEM roles, but leadership roles as well. Upon navigating to the NGA company page on the Power to Fly website, one can meet some of these stellar women and get to know more about NGA as an agency: from GEOINT Analyst Cartographer, MaryAnne Tong, to Chief of the Commercial GEOINT Discovery Division, Ichesia Veal, to Director of Research, Cindy Daniel.

     One can even visit the NGA.mil website to learn about the agency’s second-in-command, Deputy Director Dr. Stacey A. Dixon. According to her profile, “Dr. Dixon holds both a doctorate and master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Stanford University. She was also a chemical engineer postdoctoral fellow at the University of Minnesota.”

     NGA serves as a passionate advocate for gender and cultural diversity across the agency, and continues to provide STEM work roles for candidates to pursue via the Job Search tool on the agency's IntelligenceCareers.gov page, such as the Software Developer position that is currently open for those interested in the Computer Science field. 

     To search this and similar positions, and to learn more about NGA, visit https://www.intelligencecareers.gov/NGA/index.html.