



Q. Surveys show that about two-thirds of American girls in the fourth grade say they like science. But the numbers fall off steadily from there. What is going wrong?


If you Google for pictures of scientists you get a page of geeky guys who look like Einstein. There's no 11-year-old girl who aspires to that.



A. Role models are important, and medicine is a perfect example. There are female doctors on television. More young women were going through medical school and more people started having female doctors. The profession reached a critical mass, and expectations changed. Everyone accepts that women can be doctors, but that's not try about some other types of science professions.


A. The generation growing up today is very interested in the issues of climate change and energy. Girls and boys, eight, 10, 12 years of age, are so interested. It's palpable; they're driving the rest of us along.

So far, we haven't done a good job at linking that interest to work in science, technology, and engineering, where kids could have a huge impact. It's a matter of making that connection -- that science can help solve those problems.


A. I honestly didn't think about it one way or another. I was oblivious to it. That negative peer pressure didn't really have an effect on me. It did on a lot of my friends, though, and it still happens.

Q. Do you consider yourself a feminist role model?

A. It's very, very important for girls and young women to have role models and to put female faces on any profession they choose.

There have been many women in space, but I'm the one that people remember. That gives me a major responsibility to talk to girls, to young women -- to help them appreciate that these are careers that are wide open for women.

(Reporting by Ros Krasny; Editing by Patricia Reaney)