Irvington Girls in STEM and AAUW host the 11th annual Dine with a Scientist

By Staff Writers Scarlett Huang & Fiona Yang

Every year, the Irvington High School Girls in STEM club collaborates with the American Association of University Women (AAUW) to host the Dine with a Scientist event. Through this, students can immersively experience the STEM field through a casual dinner with professional scientists. Sponsored by Cargill, an international agricultural and food company, this event is the result of a long-standing mission to make STEM more accessible to students across the Fremont, Newark, and Union City districts.

Since 2014, Irvington has hosted the Dine with a Scientist event annually. This year, Dine with a Scientist took place at 6 – 9 p.m. on April 12 at the Irvington High School cafeteria with almost a hundred student attendees. Irvington High School Girls in STEM Activities Coordinator Junior Diya Dalal and AAUW Representative Fahria Khan opened the event with a welcome presentation, giving a brief introduction of the scientists at each table. Throughout the event, high school students and highly experienced scientists sat down together to discuss students’ burning questions about STEM and listen to inspiring career journeys. 

Profits from the admission fee goes towards local AAUW scholarships for Ohlone students as well as the Irvington Girls in STEM club. A project that Irvington Girls in STEM pursued using these funds was the creation of a student-designed satellite through the CubeSat program, making Irvington the ninth high school worldwide to launch a CubeSat into space.

AAUW, founded in 1881, aims to advance equity for girls and women worldwide, especially in education. By hosting this event collaboration, AAUW hopes to bring more opportunities for high school students to explore the domain of STEM by inviting them to learn more about scientists’ decades-long journeys and discuss ideas with students that share the same academic interests. “I really hope that they’re inspired by their scientists … I want [students] to see that … you have an opportunity to talk to someone, maybe that you haven’t talked to before,” Khan said. Khan also emphasized that the mission of AAUW as an organization is important to the significance of the event. 

In the beginning of the event and throughout dining, groups of students were assigned different tables, each with an attending scientist such as Lawrence National Laboratory physicist Tanim Islam and biotech company Microvi’s CEO Fatemeh Shirazi. Students and scientists were laughing and conversing, discussing STEM related professional questions and advice for students interested in pursuing the field. The casual atmosphere encouraged attendees to build real connections with one another and scientists, no matter their capacity. “I see my past self in everyone that was at the table and I know the challenges they’re going through right now … This event is really great because it gives real exposure to what science looks like,” BioNova engineer Grant Gechtman said. 

After dining concluded, students mingled with scientists and attendees from other tables. Students invited scientists to take pictures together at small photo booths set up by the organizers, and groups formed together to happily discuss further questions and experiences.  “For the scientist I was talking to, he said, ‘you don’t need to have a straight path of exactly what you want to do,’ … [and] seeing [that community college is] a viable path is really helpful for me,” Attendee Adlai Heckere said. 

As the event came to a close, it was clear that it was a great success, with students and scientists wrapping up inspiring conversations. Dine with a Scientist achieved its ultimate goal of encouraging students interested in STEM and helping them understand the career path. Since Dine with a Scientist is an annual event, students were encouraged to return or bring their peers to next year’s gathering. “We got to talk about the sorts of things we really enjoy … this event was really great for getting to know people and getting to know science,” Lawrence Livermore National Lab Mathematician Carol Myers said.