Table of Contents

The Future of Science is Female: The Brilliant Minds Shaping the 21st Century Introduction: An overview of the contribution’s women have made to science, why that’s important, and a look at some of the exciting new projects on the horizon. Chapter One: GREAT NAILS, GREAT MINDS Pree Walia has really great nails. Today, each digit features a different emoji. But she didn't pay a manicurist, and she's not very good with varnish — her tight talons are courtesy of the Nailbot, a portable printer that prints nail art via her cellphone. Sure, great nails won’t get you to The White House (even if they help, just a little) — but learning how to build a touchscreen printer and code in your designs will get you far in life. Walia’s using the Nailbot as a way to interest girls in technology — from here, she introduces users to the MakerGirl program and STEM initiatives. Chapter Two: FOOD OF THE FUTURE In 2017, 22-year-old Kimberlie Le was worried about the effect of overfishing and pollution on our oceans. But she wasn't prepared to wait around for someone else to fix it. Why don’t we take a plentiful natural resource and use that to make fish, she thought. She created a way to synthesize fungi into edible seafood; her first product was a salmon burger. The reason to get hyped about this is because her burger’s chock full of Omega-3 and digestible protein, meaning it’s a good replication of the benefits you naturally get from fish. The alt-fish space is growing. Another pioneer is 22-year old marine biologist Dominique Barnes. She grew up in a first generation immigrant family, very aware of the difficulties of healthy eating when on low income. When she heard about the dolphins and whales killed during shrimp farming, she saw an opportunity. The end result is a tasty plant-based shrimp alternative; it’s affordable, and at scale, it will save the lives of dolphins. Chapter Three: NATURAL DISASTER MASTER/ EARTHQUAKE WHISPERER It seems that every season the stories about people devastated by earthquakes, floods, and hurricanes are getting worse. The world is apocalyptic these days, and people are getting hurt. In grad school, computer scientist Nicole Hu, wanted to use her skillset to change that. Data could make a difference, she thought — even if it couldn't stop the disaster, it should be able to get people out of harm's way. At school, she met earthquake researcher Ahmad Wani, who was marooned for a week during the 2014 Kashmir floods. Using her AI skills and his know-how, she developed OneConcern, a platform that applied artificial intelligence to natural disasters. Her platform assesses what buildings need to be reinforced, the best routes for evacuation, and predicts damage on a block by block scale. One Concern is being used in California, Washington, and is expanding to Japan. “Our mission is saving lives and livelihoods,” she says. Chapter Four: WANNA PIZZA ME? Julia Collins loves pizza. Thin sliced with mozzarella, deep dish with olives and pepperoni, or Italian style, she loves it all. But making it isn't her jam — as a Gen X black woman, staying in the kitchen is not in her life plan. How she gets her pizza time in is via Zume, a pizza robot that can spread sauces, toss dough, and assemble pizzas to order. And it’s cost effective — the pizza is made in Zume’s delivery van, meaning it gets to the customer fresh out the oven — and they don’t have the overhead of a traditional restaurant. Next up; she’s working on another startup, this one focused on feeding the planet — while cutting down on the harmful emissions produced in food manufacturing. “I believe in the power of private companies to make a change,” she says. “I’m trying to feed the world and save the planet. That’s what gets me out of bed every day.” Chapter 5: PROGRAMS NOT PRISON We all know that today’s prison system is F*d up. It’s biased towards people of color, and runs on a model of punishment, not rehabilitation. And it’s hurting women — the number of women behind bars has risen more than 700% since 1980. Some people are trying to help — The Last Mile offers coding bootcamps to women in prison, and so on,— but all these separate companies don’t communicate well. That’s messed up, thought Clementine Jacoby. How do you know what’s working if you don’t talk to each other? In 2018 she co-founded the nonprofit Recidiviz, which analyzes programs across all of America, and open sources access to their data. Then there is Promise, a startup founded by Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins and Diana Frappier, which uses computer science to identify the 8.4 million people stuck in county jails every year — pre-sentencing, so presumed innocent — who can’t afford bail. “It's un-American and it's unjust,” says Ellis-Lamkins . “A person may have taken a plea to a charge they were not guilty of to get out of jail because they couldn’t afford to pay for their release and needed to get home to their kids or job.” Jay Z’s an investor. Chaper 6 highlights, in short entries (say 700 to 1000 words each), some other amazing female minds that are shaping our future. This list will be like mini-bios of the following girls to inspire the readers: - Alice Zhang - Hasini Jayathilaka - Greta Thunberg - Devaki Raj - Kroin Reid - Katharina Sophia Volz - Ewin Tang - Nasrin Mostafazadeh - Danielle Szafir Chapter 7 will be based around Women’s First in Science where you could highlight the glass ceiling breakers (past and present). - Laura Bassi - Marie Curie - First all-female spacewalk - Caterina Vitale - Dobrodeia of Kiev - Sophie Germain - Aglaonice - Cleopatra the Alchemist - Louyse Bourgeois - Maria Kirch - Émilie du Châtelet FINAL THOUGHTS: A look at what the future will hold, and how women are making it better.