Top Organizations, Websites and Charities promoting Women in STEM
Without further ado; we’ve made a comprehensive and up-to-date list of organizations and charities that promote and celebrate Women in STEM. They’re listed below in no particular fashion. Each is outfitted with links to their website and social media.
TechWomen
Launched in 2011, TechWomen promotes collaboration between people in the U.S., Middle Eastern, and North African countries as a means of furthering science and technology, as well as fostering cultural harmony. With over 80 participants, the program focuses on underrepresented factions in STEM (women and minorities) to transcend borders, build and connect networks of global citizens, and expand access to professional training. The TechWomen Blog has great stories from around the world to inspire you, so check it out!
Image Credit: TechWomen
Association For Women In Science
The Association For Women In Science (AWIS) partners with organizations to provide high-quality policy solutions for increasing participation across all STEM sectors. Helping women achieve their full potential through professional development and leadership opportunities, AWIS addresses issues of women working in STEM fields and honors excellence in related fields by recording women’s contributions and impact on society.
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Association for Women in Mathematics
The purpose of the Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) is to encourage women to pursue mathematical studies and promote active careers within the field. Along with striving for equal opportunity, AWM shares the goal of equal treatment of women in the sciences. The organization currently has more than 3000 members (men and women alike!) representing a broad spectrum of the mathematical community from around the world.
Image Credit: Association for Women in Mathematics
National Center for Women & Information Technology
This organization promotes workplace diversity to nurture the love of information technology and combat the fact that in 2016, 26% of the computing workforce were women, and less than 10% were women of color. As a non-profit chartered in 2004 by the National Science Foundation, NCWIT convenes, equips, and unites organizations to increase the meaningful participation of all women–at the intersection of race, class, age, sexual orientation, and disability status–in the field of computing. NCWIT’s Women in IT: By the Numbers presents a ton of compelling statistics on women’s participation in IT on a single page. It’s definitely worth checking out!
Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine
Established by the National Research Council in 1990, the Committee on Women in Science, Engineering, and Medicine (CWSEM) is a standing committee that organizes events in order to coordinate, monitor, and advocate action to increase the participation of women in STEM.
ChickTech
ChickTech is a non-profit dedicated to increasing the number of women and girls pursuing STEM-based careers and retaining women in the technology workforce. They offer scholarships and STEM centric events like ACT-W.
STEMinist
Aggregating news, views, trends, and research, STEMinist was created in 2010 by Ann Hoang. The website aims to (1) increase the visibility of women in STEM, (2) promote and elevate the perspective of women in these unrepresented fields, (3) encourage younger women to pursue STEM careers, and (4) capture a social media snapshot of what’s trending for women in STEM.
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TechLadies
Not to be confused with TechWomen, TechLadies is a community of 15,000+ members that aim to connect women with each other and the right jobs in tech. They have events both offline and online, but the main draw is the online job board where companies can find the right woman for the job. Founder Allison Esposito, a former Google employee, believes in connecting women to the right job, not just any job. The list of TechLadies success stories shows that it works.
Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls
Founded by Amy Poehler and Meredith Walker, Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls initiative is perhaps one of the best STEM sites around without ever mentioning STEM a single time. Like Amy Poehler herself, the site is witty and informative, and is dedicated to helping young people cultivate their authentic selves. Encouraging intellectual curiosity over “fitting in,” Amy Poehler’s Smart Girls highlights women in STEM fields and far beyond.
The STEM Squad
Finding good, supportive communities can be hard. Check out the STEM Squad group on Facebook for a really great network of Women in STEM. Originally started on Instagram it's now 700 members strong on Facebook and 3000+ followers on Instagram.
Reddit: /r/LadiesofScience
Reddit is one of the most visited websites in the world and divided into various communities based on interest. Along with GirlsGoneWired and XXSTEM, the LadiesofScience subreddit is a great resource for women in STEM, as it both addresses and provides a forum to discuss current issues in various STEM fields. With over 10,000 members, LadiesofScience offers a wide range of perspectives that shed light on both the hurdles and the joys of being a woman in STEM.
VISIT LADIESOFSCIENCE ON REDDIT
Ada Lovelace Day
ALD’s namesake stems from Ada Lovelace, the English writer and mathematician who, in 1837, proposed the Analytical Engine–a mechanical general-purpose computer. Founded in 2009 by Suw Charman-Anderson, Ada Lovelace Day aims to combat the fact that there are fewer women than men in STEM fields and helps change that by raising the profile of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. ALD encourages people around the world to talk about the women they admire and helps people learn about the achievements of women In STEM, inspiring others and creating new role models along the way. This international day of recognition is celebrated on the second Tuesday of each October (so mark you calendars!).
Society of Women Engineers
With resources both online and in print, the SWE has given female engineers a voice within the engineering industry for more than six decades. The organization promotes education amongst girls and college students, along with celebrates the contributions of women in the field. Be sure to give their great magazine a read–it received the 2016 Award for Publication Excellence.
Women@NASA
The Women@NASA archive is an initiative to increase awareness and celebrate the many female contributors at the space agency. The website itself is an archive that highlights each woman with a description and video. You can also watch the many interviews as a playlist on NASA’s Youtube Channel.
TWITTER YOUTUBE
MentorNet
Paring up established female and minority science professionals with up-and-comers, MentorNet strives to provide all STEM students in the United States access to effective and empowering mentorships. They organization envisions a diverse “21st century STEM workforce” that encourages all citizens to innovate and prosper. MentorNet specifically focuses on developing a scalable mentoring platform that combines the technology of social networks and the social science of mentoring in order to impact STEM student success.
Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology
From grassroots to global, the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology was founded by 1987 by Anita Borg as a digital community for women in computing. ABI works with women in STEM in over 50 countries and partners with leading academic institutions for networking and promotional purposes to increase the positive impact of technology on the women’s world.
Women Who Code
Women Who Code is an international, non-profit organization dedicated to creating a world in which women are proportionally represented as technical leaders, founders, and software engineers. The group inspires women to excel in technology careers and provides means to enter the world of tech through teaching the necessary skills for professional advancement. With a current membership exceeding 50,000 people, Women Who Code is active in 60 cities across 20 countries. Find a network near you!
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Image Credit: Women Who Code
National Girls Collaborative Project
Bringing together organizations that are committed to informing and encouraging young women and girls to pursue careers in STEM, the NGCP strives to maximize shared resources and create gender equity in the many currently unbalanced STEM fields. They offer professional development programs via webinars and face-to-face training and have created a network of professionals, researchers, and practitioners have strengthened existing projects. To date, nearly 38,0000 participants have been served through 441 mini-grant projects.
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Million Women Mentors
Million Women Mentors is an organization propelling a movement that aims to support and engage STEM mentors (both male and female) in order to increase the interest and confidence of young women to persist and succeed in STEM programs. Through a variety of partnerships, Million Women Mentors focuses on mentoring relationships and is leading a call to action for corporations to support the engagement in STEM through an automated platform that helps to eliminate barriers faced by many women in STEM.
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Image Credit: Million Women Mentors
American Association of University Women
AAUW is an enormous organization that strives to achieve a wide array of goals, but it is their particularly superb STEM program that has garnered them a place on this list. Recognizing that not all STEM education takes place in a classroom, AAUW has created community programs that break down stereotypes about STEM and shows young women that intellectual skills develop over time, regardless of gender. The program fosters an environment that grows excitement for STEM through fun and educational activities
European Platform of Women Scientists
The European Platform of Women Scientists is an international, non-profit organization that represents the needs, interests, concerns, and goals of more than 12,0000 women scientists. Since its founding in 2005, over 100 networks of scientists and the organizations promoting them have joined the Platform. Working on promoting equal opportunities in research fields of all STEM disciplines and gives women a voice in European research policy.
Women in STEM
WiSTEM is one of the core Programs of MKF Impact, a non-profit and public charity that works to nurture the social, economic and intellectual potential of women. Women in STEM is the core program of MKF Impact, which runs several initiatives providing engaging platforms for Academia, Government, Corporate Executives, Entrepreneurs, and Leaders to interact, educate, mentor, guide, and inspire a global shift in the attitude towards Women in STEM.
Women in Nuclear
Women in Nuclear Global (WiN Global) is an international organization that supports and encourages women working in nuclear industries. As an association of women working professionally in various nuclear fields, WiN currently has around 35,000 members from 109 countries.
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Higher Orbits
Higher Orbits is a space-oriented non-profit that promotes Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM); along with leadership, teamwork, and communication. The initiative was founded by Michelle Lucas, a former Astronaut Instructor at NASA.
Image Credit: Michelle Lucas, Higher Orbits
Agora
Make sure to bookmark Agora as your go-to multimedia resource for the latest in women-in-STEM stories–including the L’Oreal-UNESCO Awards and upcoming fellowship opportunities
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ADVANCE
The aim of the National Science Foundation’s ADVANCE program is to increase the representation of women in scientific academia and STEM careers. WIth the hopes off creating a more diverse STEM workforce, ADVANCE encourages higher education institutions to further various aspects of STEM academic culture and institutional structure that affects women faculty and academic administrators. ADVANCE is part of a multifaceted strategy to broaden the STEM workforce and advance women in science and engineering.
Women in Engineering ProActive Network Knowledge Center
The WEPAN Knowledge Center is an online professional community full of resources, networking opportunities, and collaborative spaces to advance women in STEM. With tools available free of charge, this knowledge repository encourages and supports knowledge exchange at a global level for anyone interest in diverse communities of women in STEM.
STEM Equity Pipeline
Because women and minorities are underrepresented in the STEM fields, partnerships between the STEM Equity Pipeline and multiple national and local organizations strive to change that reality. The program works with teams to implement data-driven decision-making program improvement processes to increase participation of women across all STEM-related fields. Each month the program issues its e-newsletter, the Pipeline Press, as well as archived webinars that are a great resource!
Did we miss any resources, charities, organizations or other proponents of getting women into the STEM fields? Shoot us an email with your suggestion.
If you’re a STEM proponent and want to help raise the visibility of Women in STEM you should consider the Shenova STEMBASSADOR Program. The Women in STEM Collection features dresses and designs inspired by various STEM fields. Gain a whole new level of confidence by wearing your field and use it as an opportunity to increase awareness of what you’re passionate about.
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