70: Chemical Engineering and Author of the book “STEM Gems” – Stephanie Espy
Stephanie Espy earned a Bachelor of Science in Chemical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a Masters degree in Chemical Engineering from Berkley in California as well as a Masters Degree in Entrepreneurship and Marketing from Emory University. Stephanie worked at Merck for a couple of years but went on to pursue her own company MathSP. MathSP is an academic and test prep coaching company that has mastered the art of equipping students with a “math state of mind” while arming them with the strategies and insider “tricks” they need to ace standardized tests and attend the schools of their dreams.
Stephanie is also the author of the book STEM Gems targeted at high school girls looking at STEM and shares 44 stories from women in STEM all in different STEM fields.
[0:50] Stephanie started working at Amoco (now BP) and also did research at UC Berkley and was involved in Natural Rubber manufacturing.
[2:07] Describes what a Chemical Engineering Process Engineer would do.
[3:41] Why she chose Chemical Engineering over the other STEM/Engineering fields. She was a fan of Math and Chemistry and Chemical Engineering is a combination of both.
[5:51] Stephanie’s area of expertise: Plastics and Polymers along with Oil and Gas.
[6:45] What has her really fired up today – what can she do as a woman to help expose females to engineering careers. Which is why she wrote STEM Gems. Put in link…..
[9:04] You get your best products when you have diversity in the workplace. You may go to college and major in a STEM degree and there may only be a couple of women in the classes, and people may actually tell you, this is not the right career for you. Don’t listen to them! Find and organization that will support you, like SWE – Society of Women Engineers.
[12:08] An ah-ha Stephanie turned into success; being the only women at her workplace inspired her to write the STEM Gems book. Also, in graduate school she was tasked with how to get a natural rubber plant to produce higher quality rubber and better yield – this had never been done before. She spent 3-4 months tweaking an experiment to figure out the problem – she finally got it to work and was able to publish 2 papers on her results and was very rewarding. You have to persevere and just stick with it and don’t give up on yourself.
[16:20] Getting through college – Stephanie says here number one thing was how important it is to ask for help and not work alone. In high school she could read the book do the work and do just fine, that was not the case her freshman year in college. She did not even know that it was OK to ask for help in college.
[19:17] Best advice ever received is to “give yourself permission” and a personal habit for her success is to have a to-do list and write things down, use a planner and also live in the moment but also plan for the future. A book that she recommends of course is her book the STEM Gems – learn about 44 women in their unique careers STEM Gems.
[22:31] Parting piece of guidance – continue to work hard and seek help and be brave not perfect and always stay curious.
You can get a free book from Audible at www.stemonfirebook.com and can cancel within 30 days and keep the book of your choice with no cost.
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