The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will host the 8th annual STEM Career Showcase for Students with Disabilities on Tuesday, Nov. 17, 1:00-3:30 p.m. The Showcase is a free educational event where students in grades 6–12 meet role models with disabilities who have thriving careers in STEM fields.
This year’s showcase will be an entirely virtual experience that will feature remarks from keynote speaker Gina-Maria Pomann and the opportunity for students to engage with several panelists. Attendees will learn about how the panelists’ lived experiences and diverse perspectives shaped their unique approaches to navigating and pushing boundaries in their fields.
The main program will take place on YouTube. Breakout sessions will take place on Zoom for students to ask questions of the speakers. You will have the option to choose to attend the breakout sessions closer to the date of the Showcase.
Please visit this link to register. ASL interpretation, live captioning and audio description will be provided for the entire program and for each breakout room. Please contact Jessie Rassau at accessibility@naturalsciences.org or by phone at 919-707-9976 to request additional accommodations. Or visit https://naturalsciences.org/stem for more information.
About the Keynote Speaker
Dr. Gina-Maria Pomann is a statistical research scientist and the Director of the Duke Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design Core. She works with the interdisciplinary network of clinical investigators conducting research at Duke by providing expertise in study design, implementation of statistical methodology, and interpretation of results. Under her leadership, the Core has developed an array of training programs, and facilitated the development of over 40 collaborative teams that work across the university. Dr. Pomann received her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University, with a dissertation on MRI analysis and Multiple Sclerosis. She is an expert in the fields of experimental design, image analysis and functional data analysis, and has collaborated on research projects related to cancer, urology, cardiology, hospital medicine, orthopedics and surgery. She is a recipient of the Association of Clinical and Translational Statisticians Early Career Award.
The Panelists
About the Moderator
Ed Summers is a blind software engineer and an accessibility specialist. He has a BS in computer science and 25 years of professional experience as a software developer and a development manager. His personal mission is to enable people with disabilities to realize their full potential in the classroom and the 21st century knowledge economy. He fulfills that mission as a leader in the software industry and disability-related not-for-profit organizations. Summers is Director of Accessibility at SAS, the market leader in analytics software and services. The SAS accessibility team enables people of all abilities to access the power of analytics. He also serves on the Advisory Council for the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences and the North Carolina Board of Education Advisory Council for the Governor Morehead School for the Blind.
Watch highlights from last year’s event here.
adapted from an announcement from the NC Museum of Natural Sciences
about the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources
