Attendance high at GGRL Tech expo

Three students were awarded 2016 GRRL Tech scholarships, receiving $4,000 per year for four years. From left to right, Dean Libutti, vice provost for enrollment management at the University of Rhode Island, stands next to scholarship winners Sophie Girard, of North Kingstown High School; Yanelly Tejada, of The Greene School; and Viviana Barrientos, of William Davies Career and Technical High School. JoAnn Johnson, Tech Collective’s manager of youth and education programs; and Naomi Thompson, associate vice president for the Office of Community, Equity and Diversity at URI, also are shown in the photograph, taken at the GRRL Tech expo on March 24 at URI. / COURTESY TECH COLLECTIVE
Three students were awarded 2016 GRRL Tech scholarships, receiving $4,000 per year for four years. From left to right, Dean Libutti, vice provost for enrollment management at the University of Rhode Island, stands next to scholarship winners Sophie Girard, of North Kingstown High School; Yanelly Tejada, of The Greene School; and Viviana Barrientos, of William Davies Career and Technical High School. JoAnn Johnson, Tech Collective’s manager of youth and education programs; and Naomi Thompson, associate vice president for the Office of Community, Equity and Diversity at URI, also are shown in the photograph, taken at the GRRL Tech expo on March 24 at URI. / COURTESY TECH COLLECTIVE

SOUTH KINGSTOWN – The University of Rhode Island hosted more than 550 female high students and 63 educators from 33 high school and career and technical centers recently as part of the 15th annual GGRL Tech Interactive Technology Expo to raise awareness about STEM careers in science, technology, engineering and math.
Tech Collective’s annual interactive expo, held March 24, also featured a keynote speaker from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, Kimberly Kowal Arcand. In addition, three scholarships were awarded.
The scholarships – valued at $4,000 per year for four years – were awarded to:

  • Yanelly Tejada, The Greene School
  • Viviana Barrientos, William Davies Career and Technical High School
  • Sophie Girard, North Kingstown High School

Scholarship winners were selected based on essay submissions and high school transcripts by the GRRL Tech Selection Committee.

GRRL Tech, which stands for Girls Reaching Remarkable Levels, also allowed students to choose two out of 31 workshops designed and conducted by female industry professionals and college faculty.
Workshops focused on everything from bioscience, animal science and oceanography to engineering, chemistry, personal finance and computer science.
More than 90 female industry professionals and university volunteers participated in workshops and helped facilitate the day.
“Two decades ago, I was studying biology and computer science on this very campus and I would have loved to have had such an opportunity as GRRL Tech beforehand,” Arcand said in a statement. “Programs such as this provide insight into real-world applications that are invaluable to so many different kinds of careers in STEM and beyond.”
Arcand is the visualization lead for NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, a telescope specially designed to detect X-ray emission from hot regions of the universe such as exploded stars, clusters of galaxies and matter around black holes.
JoAnn Johnson, manager of youth and education programs at Tech Collective, said the response to this year’s GRRL Tech was “amazing,” as participation was higher than ever before.
“Every year we continue to add many cutting-edge STEM workshops including cosmology, nuclear science and artificial intelligence, which raises student and educator awareness of career opportunities in these growing and in-demand fields. We are very grateful to URI, our sponsors and volunteers for their continued participation and support,” Johnson said.

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