Education

Avoiding The Trap Of The ‘Sticky Floor’: Women In STEM Share Their Secrets To Success

By Kevin Hattori

Anne Kitzmiller, right, who grew up in the United States and made aliyah with her husband, Adam Cohen, left, is studying for a second master’s in the Technion Aerospace Faculty. Outside of academics, Kitzmiller fosters Hope, a guide dog puppy-intraining from the organization Seeing Eyes for the Blind in Israel. (Courtesy of Ann Kitzmiller)

Even 20 years later, the words ring loud and clear in Hila Rubenstein’s ears.

“You got in? But you’re not good at math!”

As a sixth-grader, Rubenstein studied hard to test into a prestigious private school. She was elated when she learned she passed the tests and was accepted. But that joy quickly faded when she told her math teacher.

Today, Rubenstein is completing her doctorate at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology after earning a bachelor’s and master’s degree at the Technion and serving in the Israeli Defense Forces’ Intelligence Elite Unit 8200. Yet it was clear that her sixth-grade teacher’s surprise and derision stings to this day.

Rubenstein shared her story as a Steve and Ilene Berger Visiting Fellow, a speaking series that highlights the soul of the Technion: its students. Half of this year’s inaugural class of fellows are women pursuing careers in aerospace engineering, chemistry, and biotechnology.

Their visit provides an inspiring glimpse into the lives and minds of those who will help shape the future of Israel and the world. Yet the stories of Rubenstein and her female colleagues also highlight the challenges women still face in pursuing STEM careers — as well as the inspiring ways that women are overcoming the barriers to pursue those dreams.

While more women than ever are pursuing careers in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), less than 30% of the world’s researchers are women, according to a World Economic Forum study. Financial considerations, professional ambitions, and family obligations no doubt play a part. But for too many women, it’s subtle or not-so-subtle bias and discrimination, like Rubenstein’s skeptical math teacher, that can be the biggest hurdle between them and a STEM career.

The Technion knows that education is the best way to prepare the next generation of global leaders and innovators — and that generation must include women’s voices. To ensure that women pursuing STEM careers are supported at every stage of their career, the Technion provides scholarships and wraparound support for women at every stage of their education.

Some of that support happens in more formalized programs, like Prowoman, the brainchild of Technion students. Prowoman offers support, guidance, networking, and training for female students at the Technion. It’s supported with funding directly from the Office of the President, as well as from Microsoft.

But support often happens in more informal ways. Anne Kitzmiller is currently completing her second master’s degree in the Technion Aerospace Faculty and writing software and flight algorithms for a rocket project.

Kitzmiller notes that the aerospace industry, like many STEM fields, is very hierarchical and competitive. Often her presentations to professors would get ripped apart.

“That’s OK, though, because it encouraged me to think about what I was going to get asked and make bulletproof presentations,” she says. “People who didn’t believe in

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Here’s A (Jewish) Way To Redirect Your Pandemic Despair Into Purposeful Living

By Alan Kadish and Michael Shmidman

When life sometimes can seem like one long slog, the Jewish intellectual tradition offers an alternative that can bring with it happiness and a sense of accomplishment. (PaulCalbar/Getty)

This last year of pandemic living has not been easy. Over 500,000 Americans have died, including countless members of our own Jewish communities, and a return to normalcy still feels distant.

In these difficult times, we would like to propose an alternative to despair and suggest a path forward that offers not just hope for the distant future, but strength and a sense of purpose for today and tomorrow.

This plague is hardly the first time we have been challenged as a people. Consider this story from the period of expulsions of Jews from the Iberian Peninsula between 1492 and 1497. Rabbi Abraham Saba, a scholar and preacher who lived in Spain’s Castilian region, was among those forced to leave his lifelong home. He fled on foot to neighboring Portugal, where he continued writing his rabbinic and biblical commentaries.

But several years later Portugal’s Jews were subject to an expulsion decree. Saba again attempted to flee. Nearing Lisbon, he became aware of the decree issued against possession of Hebrew books. Saba buried his trove of manuscripts, but he was thrown into prison and never recovered them.

Eventually Saba escaped to Morocco, where after struggling with an illness he resumed his life’s work, rewriting his lost manuscripts from memory. His commentaries on the Pentateuch and the books of Ruth and Esther are still studied today, five centuries later. Determination and dedication had defeated disruption and despair.

Saba’s dogged persistence in studying and writing despite the obstacles he faced was remarkable. But in the annals of Jewish history, it was not extraordinary. Jewish history is filled with figures, from Maimonides to Albert Einstein, who achieved outstanding levels of intellectual accomplishment despite challenging circumstances, from plagues and expulsions to pogroms and Nazi persecution.

The challenge of our current period is different, but trying in its own ways. We are isolated from other people, stalked by an invisible threat that has sapped our energy and many of the joys of daily life. We struggle to find purpose and motivation.

This is where the Jewish intellectual tradition can serve as an invaluable guide. For centuries, Jews have clung to a few basic principles that have helped us lead purposeful lives even in times of political, social and economic distress.

This tradition of learning and achievement initially was derived from Torah study, but it has become more universal. Transmitted overtly or inadvertently by a system of education and by a cultural milieu, it has been effective at fostering achievement and offers guidance to Jews and non-Jews alike.

Especially these days, when life sometimes can seem like one long slog — each day bleeding into the other, with real life replaced by a simulacrum of screens and social media and endless binge-watching that somehow never seems to satisfy — the Jewish intellectual tradition offers an alternative that can bring with it happiness and a sense of accomplishment.

In our study of some 3,000 years of Jewish history, we have discerned a few guiding principles, which we outline in our new book, “The Jewish Intellectual Tradition: A History of Learning and Achievement.”

These principles include respect for tradition combined with creativity and innovation; the primacy of education for young and old; logic and intellectual honesty in pursuit of truth; and living a purposeful life.

We extracted from these principles specific recommendations for the circumstances of our age.

Surround yourself with the written word. Reading is enriching like no other medium. Just because you’re no longer in school doesn’t mean you should stop learning. Self-development through learning should be a lifelong pursuit.

Set goals for yourself and don’t be distracted from your determination to accomplish those goals — whether it’s learning something new, mastering a particular skill, creating something in the woodshop or at the writing table, helping your children achieve their goals, or tackling Shakespeare, the Talmud or quantum physics. Assume that impediments, major or minor, will crop up along the way. Push through.

Find a mentor who can help you toward your goal. Seek out experts as your companions, whether online, in person or in books. One silver lining of the pandemic has been the unprecedented access to learning opportunities. It’s possible to log onto Zoom classes happening anywhere around the world, to find a study partner through any one of a number of matching services, to connect remotely to Jewish events and services.

Bring your family along for the ride. Talk to them about your goals and why they’re important.

Your children will pick up the values you exemplify. Don’t just leave their education to school. Show them what’s important in life by modeling that behavior.

Learn collaboratively. Find peers who share your goals with whom you can consult, partner and even argue. This is the classic Jewish mode of “chavruta” learning: oneon-one study and argumentation with a friend. Studies have shown that cooperative learning not only advances educational achievement but promotes self-esteem, healthy relationships and more positive attitudes toward learning.

And don’t be afraid of argument or intellectual challenges, so long as your argumentation is conducted in good faith, with respect and in pursuit of truth. Judaism embraces analytical and even disruptive thinking.

The unique feature of Jewish intellectual achievement is that it continues even at times of great challenge. That’s because striving for a higher purpose actually helps us overcome day-to-day stresses rather than adding to them. Our salvation won’t come from mindless activities but from determined pursuit of our goals.

A life lived daily with a sense of purpose, with the firm belief that your actions and the values you exemplify and transmit make a difference, can ennoble and elevate you and those around you.

Just because you’re no longer in school doesn’t mean you should stop learning. Self-development through learning should be a lifelong pursuit. (Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)

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me made me who I am.”

Mentorship gave Kitzmiller the support she needed to nail her presentations — and excel at the Technion. Today, amid her master’s studies and designing software for rockets, she serves as a mentor for undergraduate students.

“I tell students to find what they’re passionate about and give it everything you’ve got,” Kitzmiller says.

The opportunity for formal and informal mentorship and networking is one of the reasons Kitzmiller was drawn to the Technion. Kitzmiller received her first master’s degree from Washington University in St. Louis. When thinking about where to study for her second degree, she chose the Technion because of its deep ties with the aerospace industry.

“Industry advisers help with projects, and students work while studying for their degrees,” she recounts. “There’s a stronger connection between students and industry, which is really important and exciting. In undergraduate programs, students don’t always know what it’s like to work for industry.” For women pursuing STEM degrees, such experience can be a game-changer, providing the experience and connections necessary to flourish in their chosen career path.

Rubenstein is also paying it forward as a teaching assistant in her lab.

“I majored in chemistry because I loved my high school chemistry teacher, but I wasn’t very good,” she admits. “I had to work very hard to get good grades. By the time I graduated high school, I loved chemistry because I had to go so in depth to understand things.

“So I know how stressful it can be. I’m really trying to help Technion students as much as I can because you never know what’s going on in their lives.”

As Professor Ayelet Fishman, Dean of Students at the Technion and head of the Laboratory of Molecular and Applied Biocatalysis in the Faculty of Biotechnology and Food Engineering, notes, the problem is not so much a glass ceiling for women in STEM, but what she calls a “sticky floor.”

“We can’t listen too much to sixth-year teachers like the one Hila had that tells her she’s not good enough,” she says before sharing some of her own doubts as she rose through her career at the Technion. Ignoring those doubts is key to avoiding the “sticky floor” and pursuing a successful career.

“I believe anytime you are given an opportunity you have to take it,” Fishman says. “Women can do anything — but we must be determined.”

This is a paid post. JTA’s editorial team had no role in its production.

Visit ats.org to learn more about the American Technion Society and how the Technion is powering Israel and changing the world. 

Hila Rubinstein is working on her doctorate in chemistry at the Technion, where she is developing air-quality testing technologies, among other projects. (Courtesy of Rubinstein)

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It is this persistence that has made the Jewish contribution to the world so significant, in fields from science and law to philosophy and social justice. Now, particularly when times are tough, our role in helping improve society must not be neglected. Whatever the circumstances, we can proudly uphold that tradition.

Dr. Alan Kadish is the president of the Touro College and University System. Dr. Michael Shmidman is the dean of Touro’s Graduate School of Jewish Studies.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

This story was sponsored by the Touro College and University System, which supports Jewish continuity and community while serving a diverse population of over 19,000 students across 30 schools. This article was produced by JTA’s native content team.

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