Numerous events of 2020 have placed a national spotlight on the inequities and inequalities that are present in K-16 education and society at large. In this conversation, Dr. Nicki Washington discusses how her personal journey in computing influenced her research on identity in computing, including the development of her "Race, Gender, Class, and Computing" course and why "teaching is political."

How does one generate wealth? A look at the Forbes Billionaire list tells a compelling narrative that wealth is predominantly generated through either entrepreneurship or investing. While entrepreneurs like Oprah Winfrey and Jeff Bezos, and investors like Warren Buffett and Abby Johnson are extreme outliers in their profession, this occupation breakdown would look similar for centimillionaires, decamillionaires and millionaires. There has been a great deal of discourse about the gender pay gap, in that female workers overall earn 82 cents for every dollar that a white male earns. While this is incredibly problematic, there’s been less attention and analysis of an even larger problem - the gender wealth gap. Overall, women own just 32 cents for every dollar a man owns, and Black and Latinx women own just pennies, which includes savings, resources that can be turned into investments like a home or business and resources you can pass onto the next generation. Sallie Krawcheck, Founder and CEO of Ellevest, references some of the main reasons for this gap including: debt, investing, real estate, the pink tax, life events and earnings/wages. Over the past 200+ years, thousands of companies have gone public on the New York Stock Exchange (or NASDAQ), yet only 20 of those that are currently public were founded and led by women and only 7.4% of the Fortune 500 CEOs are women. This lack of female-led public companies and Fortune 500 companies starts at the earliest stages with less than 3% of all venture funding going to female-only founded companies. It also permeates throughout the leadership ranks of a company as just one in five corporate board seats are held by women.

The article presents short biography and the working career of Grace Hopper. She was a computer programmer who pioneered the development of the compiler, which paved the way for her creation of the COBOL computer programming language. Hopper was also a rear admiral in the U.S. Navy. She was born in 1906 in New York City and died in 1992. In 2016, President Barack Obama posthumously honored Hopper with the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

For generations, Black voices and influencers have been suppressed and overlooked. Black people and Black communities are constantly fighting for an end to racial, social, and economic oppression. It is the responsibility of non-Black communities to hold themselves accountable and to educate themselves on what is happening in our world. Together we can uplift and amplify Black voices that cannot be heard or are refused to be listened to. With Wonder Women Tech’s online and global platform, it is one of our goals to support and amplify Black business people, Black speakers, Black entrepreneurs and Black people who innovate in STEM and the Arts. Wonder Women Tech is highlighting 179 influential Black speakers who have spoken and shared their accomplishments, aspirations, successes, and stories with the public on the Wonder Women Tech global stage. These innovators each come from different parts of the world, various industries, and all have a unique perspective on how we can work together to share ideas, cultivate belonging and propel change.

Astronaut, engineer, physician and the first American woman of color in space Mae Jemison spoke to a packed crowd for the Martin Luther King Memorial Lecture Tuesday in Union South.- Jemison proposed a question to the audience - When was the last time you looked up? Jemison said looking up has inspired her since her childhood, eventually leading her towards her position as an astronaut, but it also connects her to the legacy of Martin Luther King. Jemison said looking up connects people, and she said she hopes it inspires everyone to cultivate their own talents and use them to spread hope and do good. Jemison said she believes the most important part of Martin Luther King’s legacy is a question he prompted - What do we do with our place at the table?

Once they hit middle school, girls often move away from STEM-related careers. School counselors can help middle and high school girls keep all their options open. Careers in STEM exert significant influence and power, shaping nearly every aspect of our lives. Yet, women (diverse in race, ethnicity, class, age, gender identity, abilities, and other historically marginalized identities) are underrepresented in the field. And, even when present, they may find themselves in unwelcoming cultures that impede their participation as innovators, leaders, and researchers who are shaping the future. Most college students majoring in STEM make that choice during high school. Unfortunately, despite the increasing demand for professionals in the field, some young women don’t automatically think of STEM careers when planning their future.Students who lack a strong STEM role model in their life or who haven’t had access to adequate STEM learning may not automatically consider a career in STEM. Further, self-doubt can arise for students who don’t have confidence in themselves and their abilities. Questions - “Can I be competitive with peers in this major? Is there a place for me in this field?” - may loom in their minds. Such students’ paths can be influenced by the help of a school counselor.

The Nature’s 10 list explores key developments in science this year and some of the people who played important parts in these milestones. Along with their colleagues, these individuals helped to make amazing discoveries and brought attention to crucial issues. Nature’s 10 is not an award or a ranking. The selection is compiled by Nature’s editors to highlight key events in science through the compelling stories of those involved.

With a new campaign out in time for Computer Science Education Week, Girls Who Code is painting a picture of what the internet would like if every line of code written by women disappeared. The campaign, Missing Code, features a short video showing familiar internet destinations -- Instagram, Pinterest, Netflix, Teen Vogue -- glitch out in an artful yet chaotic way. The Netflix URL splits in half, Gmail turns into gibberish, pins on Pinterest melt away. And a headline from The New York Times explains that 26% of all code has vanished from the internet, to match the statistic that women made up 26% of computing jobs in 2020.

As head of the educational outreach arm of the Florida State University-headquartered National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, Roxanne Hughes has overseen dozens of science camps over the years, including numerous sessions of the successful SciGirls Summer Camp she co-organizes with WFSU . In a new paper published in the Journal of Research in Science Teaching, Hughes and her colleagues took a much closer look at one of those camps, a coding camp for middle school girls. They found that nuanced interactions between teachers and campers as well as among the girls themselves impacted how girls viewed themselves as coders.

No academic catalog is going to define an undergraduate class as a ''weed-out'' or ''gatekeeper'' course. But these courses can come to define individual career paths, pushing some students out of STEM fields entirely. The weed-out effect impacts students of all backgrounds, but students from marginalized groups, especially Black and Latinx, are particularly hard hit, and experts say these weed-out courses are part of the systemic racism underpinning the diversity challenges that chemistry and the sciences overall face. In addition, these same students may struggle to develop a sense of belonging in STEM. That general chemistry and organic chemistry courses at many institutions fit this description should come as no surprise. In their analysis of the course offerings at six institutions, the authors of Talking about Leaving Revisited found that 22% of the courses meeting their criteria of weed-out courses were chemistry courses. A study by the Gardner Institute of introductory chemistry courses at 31 institutions, including community colleges and public and private 4-year colleges and universities, found an average DFWI (including incompletes) rate of 29.4%. The DFWI rates for Black and Latinx students in introductory chemistry at the 31 institutions were above 40%. This disproportionate effect happens because students from marginalized groups are more likely than other students to have attended high schools where advanced math and science classes weren't offered, experts say. Such students with an interest in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) majors lacked opportunities that students in high schools with more resources had.