Education Technology

Meet the Women in STEM Twitter Chat Panelists

Posted 09/12/2018 by Kim Gonzales

On Wednesday, September 19, Texas Instruments Education (@TICalculators) is hosting a Women in STEM Twitter Chat! Our goal is connect you to the awesome #WomenInSTEM community, both as a source of inspiration and a well of resources. Our panelists are female engineers, scientists, and mathematicians – women who are already encouraging the next generation of STEM leaders!

Meet our lovely panelists:


Becky of @NASAedu

Becky Kamas

Becky Kamas is the Activity Manager for STEM on Station, a NASA Office of STEM Engagement activity dedicated to bringing space station related resources and opportunities to students and educators. She earned her Master's in Educational Technology and her Bachelor's in Mathematics from Texas A&M University and is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in STEM Education at Texas Tech University. Prior to joining NASA nine years ago, Becky taught high school mathematics in Central Texas. As an educator, Becky seeks ways to connect students and educators to authentic STEM experiences and to increase the number of underrepresented and underserved students in STEM fields.

Becky’s favorite quote: “Don't let anyone rob you of your imagination, your creativity, or your curiosity. It's your place in the world; it's your life. Go on and do all you can with it, and make it the life you want to live.” – Mae Jemison

Abigail of @AstronautAbby

Abigail Harrison

Abigail Harrison, popularly known as “Astronaut Abby”, is an aspiring astronaut with the goal to be the first astronaut to walk on Mars. In the pursuit of this goal, Abigail has devoted herself to personal development as a pilot, scuba diver, skydiver, marathoner, student of Russian and Mandarin Chinese, science communicator and research astrobiologist. Beyond that, Abigail has leveraged her passion to ensure that we as a society are ready to go to Mars within her lifetime by starting The Mars Generation, a 501C3 nonprofit which focuses on exciting and inspiring young people about STEM and space exploration while also supporting them to pursue careers in those fields. Abigail has been sharing her journey towards the red planet on social media ever since she was 13 years old and is now a well-known YouTuber and Instagrammer with over a million followers on her collective social media channels.

Abby’s favorite quote: “Young girls need to see role models in whatever careers they may choose, just so they can picture themselves doing those jobs someday. You can’t be what you can’t see.” – Sally Ride

Rafranz of @RafranzDavis

Rafranz Davis

Rafranz Davis has dedicated her career to empowering students and teachers to share their voices throughout their communities and the world. She uses her platform across the edtech ecosystem to advocate for STEM and creative learning through making while simultaneously challenging communities through the lens of digital equity and diversity.

Marie of @girlknowstech

Marie-Philippe Gill

Marie-Philippe Gill is a fourth-year software engineering student at École de Technologie Supérieure (ÉTS) in Montreal. She also holds a degree (DEC) in Computer Science. As a female in tech, she is passionate about sharing her experiences on her “Girl Knows Tech” blog and social channels. Marie has participated in 7 hackathons and is president of her university student club INGénieuses de l’ÉTS (English translation: women engineers). Their mission is to promote and encourage girls and women to pursue careers in engineering. Recently, Marie was a panelist at an International Women’s Day event and “Girls and Code, Montreal Movement”. Fun fact: English is not her first language, it’s French!

Estefannie of @estefanniegg

Estefannie

Estefannie is an embedded apps software engineering lead (makes apps for big robots) by day, and a YouTube content creator by night. During her day job, she programs in C++ and prototypes R&D tools for automated systems. For the rest of her waking hours, she plays with electronics, films it, and publishes the videos along with her computer science tutorials on her YouTube channel: Estefannie Explains it All.

Do you have a question for our panelists? Tag @TICalculators and use #WomenChatSTEM for the chance to have your question featured during the chat.