GEMS Light the Way for Girls in Math, Science

Sabina Maddila had a hypothesis. The Naperville Central student wondered what she could do to get more women involved in engineering.

Her solution: Start a group for girls just like her, who are interested in careers in engineering, math and science.

Throughout her high school years, Maddila, now a senior, had pondered the question that plagues so many students: What do I want to be when I grow up?

She considered law and medicine, both of which have groups geared toward up-and-coming students. But she soon realized those were careers that didn't interest her. Instead, she wanted to follow in her father's footsteps and pursue engineering.

Maddila said her father explained that when he was in school, most of his classmates were men.

"I always knew there was a problem," she said. "But until I decided to go into engineering, I didn't really think about it."

Not long after considering that problem of the lack of women in the engineering, math and science fields, Maddila approached her friends Jaya and Medha Parulekar, 17-year-old fraternal twins who live in Woodridge and attend Naperville North.

Maddila knew she wanted female mentors who were involved in engineering, and Jaya and Medha agreed. The three began to work on the challenge in April, and once school was out, they had the time to plan.

Maddila and the Parulekar twins decided to form a group that would allow girls to get the mentoring they sought. The trio began brainstorming, thinking up names and acronyms. They settled on GEMS: Girl Engineers Mathematicians Scientists.

"The name works out well," Maddila said. "Each girl can be a gem, and then it's up to them to light the way."

While other students were relaxing over the summer, Maddila and Jaya and Medha Parulekar were planning an event — a workshop in which girls could meet with a variety of women working in their fields of interest.

When the girls began approaching professionals, they were surprised by the number who wanted to help, Maddila said. With the help of their parents, local school districts and local news media, word spread about the GEMS event, which was held in August at the Illinois Institute of Technology's Rice Campus in Wheaton.

Planning the event took a lot of time, Jaya Parulekar said.

"We all worked so hard, day and night," she said

The girls worried that they would throw a party and nobody would attend, but those fears were unfounded. The event drew 140 attendees — including 80 girls—with some students from Chicago making the trek to Wheaton.

"It was spectacular and amazing that that many people came," Medha Parulekar said. "We were worried: Would we have enough space?"

The workshop allowed the girls to meet with a variety of professionals in an informal environment, Maddila said. The students learned more than what they might need to study for the different careers; they learned what an average day is like for the professionals and why the women love their jobs.

The students were invited to make visits to the various speakers' job sites, such as Fermilab and Argonne National Laboratory, and they each left with lots of business cards.

The group will continue to exist at Naperville Central, where a teacher has stepped up to be the GEMS sponsor, Maddila said. The goal is for a guest speaker to come in once a month for career advice.

At Naperville North, the process to add clubs is different. But the hope is that the club will continue next year, Jaya and Medha Parulekar said.

In any case, all three girls said they learned a lot from the experience of starting the group and planning the workshop.

"It was a good learning experience, not just about the science and engineering," Jaya said. "We learned about working together as a team. I know these things will help us in the future.

"I wouldn't change a thing. It was just a great experience."