When most of us think of Google, our immediate thought is of the search engine that answers our every question, the massive tech giant with the enviable work environment, or the creeping Big Brother collecting our data. But the company is also making a name for itself as the go-to resource for promoting diversity in on-screen depictions of STEM fields.

Many economists call the current era of technology growth a boom era, not unlike previous gold rushes such as the Dot-com bubble. But the thing about bubbles is, they usually pop. And that has some people concerned. Is another bust on the horizon? It's not only tech employees who are paying attention to these patterns. In higher education, the number of computer science bachelor's degrees follows market trends in finance and technology in particular-growing when times are good and plummeting when economies crash. Since 2010, computer science majors have again been increasing, going from about 39,000 to more than 64,000 in 2016. And the Computer Science Research Center claims that the current enrollment surge has in fact exceeded previous CS booms. But what have we learned from these patterns? And what can it tell us about the future?

Tech Women/ Tech Girls Committee has anaunced three recipients of it's 2018 awards that will be honored at a special event on April 4. Three distinguished women with the designations of TechStudent, TechProfessional and TechTeacher of the Year will be honored at the annual TechWomen|TechGirls Awards Luncheon at the Bedford Village Inn on Wednesday, April 4 from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. The annual event honors women who work in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) who have advanced the role of women and girls in New Hampshire's technology sector. The event also features a keynote address by Jessica Gelman, CEO of Kraft Analytics Group.

The era of human computers didn't begin with the West Computers or the Bletchleyettes. Toward the end of the 19th century, Harvard College Observatory drafted in dozens of women to take on one of the most unique mathematical computing jobs in its 178-year history: to unravel the mysteries of the heavens by calculating the positions of the stars.

The ride-hailing company commits to a third-party audit of employees to ensure it doesn't have pay discrepancies based on race or gender. Uber has also promised pay equity. Lyft is following the lead of some other tech giants in promising equal pay for equal work. The ride-hailing service said Tuesday it's committing to an annual third-party audit to make sure everyone at the company earns the same amount as their peers and there aren't any discrepancies based on gender or race.

A tech giant with a campus in Silicon Beach is also doing their part to bring more diversity to the tech and media industries. Through relationships with Hollywood and other content creators, Google finds creative ways to introduce fresh perspectives on technology inspiring diverse stories and characters in TV shows and digital platforms. They have worked with shows like Silicon Valley, Miles from Tomorrowland and the Powerpuff Girls.

For almost 40 years, women have outnumbered men on U.S. college campuses. They're accepted to the same schools as men, study in the same degree programs and graduate at higher rates than men. So when female graduates enter the labor force, you'd expect that they would at least find the same opportunities as their male peers, if not better ones. That hasn't necessarily happened, though. Male and female graduates of the same college majors tend to veer toward different types of jobs, according to a Bloomberg analysis of American Community Survey data of educational attainment, occupation and income. Women are less likely than men to have careers aligned to their field of study. The jobs many women take typically have lower career earning potential. The data capture occupations and pay for people at different stages of their career, whether someone graduated from college last year or 30 years ago. But the trends are clear. Even in traditionally pre-professional fields, such as business, science and economics, equal educational attainment doesn't always correspond to similar career choices by men and women.

The era of human computers didn't begin with the West Computers or the Bletchleyettes. Toward the end of the 19th century, Harvard College Observatory drafted in dozens of women to take on one of the most unique mathematical computing jobs in its 178-year history: to unravel the mysteries of the heavens by calculating the positions of the stars.

Back in 1962 when ''A Wrinkle in Time'' was first published, smart, young females who liked science were scarce. But author Madeline L'Engle was nothing if not a visionary, and so was her book's main character, Meg Murry. The glasses-wearing, science-loving girl who ends up saving her father has captivated girls and boys alike for decades. Now, she's set to rule the silver screen come March 9, 2018 when the Disney film hits theaters. Even better than the diverse star-power behind the film (the cast includes Oprah Winfrey, Reese Witherspoon and Mindy Kaling, among others), is the message Meg continues to send to girls and women today that science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) careers are decidedly not the boys clubs they once were. In fact women made up 24 percent of the Americans employed in STEM occupations in 2015.

''Publish or perish'' is tattooed on the mind of every academic. Like it or loathe it, publishing in high-profile journals is the fast track to positions in prestigious universities with illustrious colleagues and lavish resources, celebrated awards and plentiful grant funding. Yet somehow, in the search to understand why women's scientific careers often fail to thrive, the role of high-impact journals has received little scrutiny. One reason is that these journals don't even collect data about the gender or ethnic background of their authors. To examine the representation of women within these journals, Jason Webster and Yuichi Shoda, delved into MEDLINE, the online repository that contains records of almost every published peer-reviewed neuroscience article. They used the Genderize.io database to predict the gender of first and last authors on over 166,000 articles published between 2005 and 2017 in high-profile journals that include neuroscience, our own scientific discipline. The results were dispiriting.