Rutgers alumna Brittany Durgin took her first biology and
chemistry classes as a ninth-grader at Old Bridge High School, fell
head-over-heels for the subject matter, and never looked back.
Today a doctoral student at the University of Virginia,
Durgin is exploring the molecular physiology of plaque in arteries, research
that may one day help scientists prevent sudden death from heart attack and
stroke.
Last month, Shari Horowitz became managing editor of Tropical Fish Hobbyist magazine, three
years after receiving her bachelor degree in marine biology from Rutgers. The West Windsor resident shepherds the
112-page monthly, devoted to the science and art of fish-keeping, from
conception through finished product.
Two Rutgers graduates, two career paths, one common
denominator: Both women credit the Douglass
Project – formally, the Douglass Project for Women in Math, Science, and
Engineering – with encouraging them to recognize their abilities and follow
their passions.
“The project is incredibly valuable in empowering women in
fields that do not traditionally welcome them,” Horowitz says Durgin agrees: “It gives women an edge and
provides them with everything they need to succeed,” she says.
of the nation’s bachelor’s degrees in engineering and computer science, and about 40 percent of degrees in the physical sciences and math. The Douglass Project is working to increase those percentages.
Durgin believes even today – more than four decades into the
modern women’s movement – female students are subtly steered away from science,
technology, engineering, and math, the so-called STEM fields. From early childhood on, girls find few
mentors and even fewer opportunities to explore these disciplines, academics agree;
a recent New York Times article noted that women earn just 17 to 18 percent
of the nation’s bachelor’s degrees in engineering and computer science, and a
little over 40 percent of degrees in the physical sciences and math.
Since 1986, the project has aimed to buck that trend, not
only by identifying and recruiting potential majors, but also by offering
mentoring, tutoring, advising, and other support services to keep them from
dropping out before graduation.
To mark the program’s 25th anniversary, its leaders have
invited science writer Margaret Wertheim, set to serve as the first Discovery
Fellow at the University of Southern California libraries, to speak on the
relationship between science and the wider cultural landscape. The lecture will
take place on Monday, November 14, at 5
p.m. at Trayes Hall on the Douglass Campus.
A three-year, $123,500 grant from the state’s Department of
Higher Education launched the Douglass Project, with Ellen Mappen as its first director.
Now a senior scholar with the National Center for Science
and Civic Engagement, Mappen recalls strategizing in her small office in the
lower level of Voorhees Chapel, setting goals for what was one of the first
programs of its kind in the country.
“We were really in the forefront of trying to provide
support for women in science,” says Mappen. Her program would go on to win the
National Science Foundation’s 1999 Presidential Award for Excellence in
Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring, and the 1990 Progress and
Equity Award from the American Association of University Women.
Over the years, the project has received funding from the
corporate and foundation sectors, including the AT&T Foundation, Johnson &
Johnson, the Merck Institute for Science Education, and the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation.
Durgin, who graduated from Rutgers in 2010 with a degree in
cell biology and neuroscience, says her experiences as an undergraduate
provided some unconventional opportunities – to say the least.
Tuesdays would find Durgin in an operating room at Robert
Wood Johnson Medical Center, gowned and watching over the shoulder of Dr.
Michael G. Nosko as he performed neurosurgery on an open brain.
“You’re like, oh my gosh, how amazing is this,” she says of
the experience, which helped cement her determination to enter the field of
medical research. “
A similar Aha!
moment struck Horowitz as she steered a boat to an island off Australia’s Great
Barrier Reef to search out marine samples. The trip
formed the basis of her senior year honors thesis, which measured the effect of
ocean acidification (an aspect of climate change) on marine crustaceans.
“Everything we’re doing
is working toward creating an environment that’s positive, that reinforces the
students’ identity,” says Elaine Zundl, acting director of the project and an
assistant dean of Douglass Residential College. Too often, she observes, women
who come in as first-years committed to a STEM major fall out of the so-called
pipeline along the way.
Students in the Douglass Project can join 100 of their
classmates in the living/learning community at Bunting-Cobb Residence
Hall. Believed to have been the first of its kind in the nation, the
arrangement brings them together with others interested in the same
disciplines.
The fall semester of 2012 will see the launch of a similar residential
community for women in engineering, Zundl says.
Douglass Dean Jacquelyn Litt says the project reflects
the overall objectives of the Douglass Residential College.
