Female Students Encouraged To Break 'Science Stereotype'

More than 50 high school students aspiring to study math and science attended an exclusive workshop at the on Thursday.

Dr. Melanie Will-Cole, a senior research scientist at the Army Research Laboratory, arranged leading female scientists to speak at the event after her 17-year-old daughter, Alexandria Will-Cole, wanted to learn more about the lives of female scientists. Guest speakers included a veterinarian, the president of CCL Biomedical, a Johns Hopkins University postdoctoral research fellow and a public health analyst.

"There is a definite stereotype—at least when I was growing up—that women who do math, science and engineering generally do not participate in normal things," said Cole. "We want to give these girls the opportunity to meet the real women behind the scientists, the engineers, the mathematicians, the technologists and see exactly what their path was."

The students who attended the event are part of The Science and Math Academy at