UH physics professor Donna Stokes and Allison Master, an assistant professor in the UH College of Education, were recognized by the Biden Administration for excellence in STEM fields. Photos courtesy UH.

Allison Master, an assistant professor at the University of Houston, is the first from the college to be awarded the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Master, who works in the Department of Psychological, Health and Learning Sciences at the UH College of Education, is one of 400 scientists and engineers to receive the honor from the Biden administration. The award recognizes those who “show exceptional potential for leadership early in their research careers,” according to a statement.

“This award speaks volumes about Allison’s dedication, ingenuity and innovation in educational sciences,” Diane Z. Chase, UH senior vice president for academic affairs and provost, said in a news release. “Her groundbreaking work embodies the university’s commitment to advancing knowledge, fostering equity in education and shaping a brighter future for students and educators alike.”

Master’s research in the Identity and Academic Motivation Lab at UH involves how societal stereotypes contribute to gender gaps in motivation to pursue STEM. Her study also explored ways to counter the stereotypes through educational strategies that make students feel that they belong, what drives children’s interest in STEM and the role of social connections. Her efforts resulted in millions of dollars in grants from the U.S. Department of Education’s Institute of Education Sciences, the National Science Foundation, and other organizations, according to UH.

Established by President Bill Clinton in 1996, PECASE recognizes innovative and far-reaching developments in science and technology, expands awareness of careers in STEM fields, enhances connections between research and its impacts on society, and highlights the importance of science and technology for our nation’s future.

“This is something that was on my radar, sort of like a ‘pie in the sky’ dream that it would be amazing to win it, but I didn’t know if it could ever be possible,” Master said. “I am very grateful to the University of Houston for providing such a supportive environment for innovation, collaboration and meaningful research that made this achievement possible.”

In addition to Master’s honor, the White House also recently recognized UH physics professor Donna Stokes for outstanding mentoring in STEM disciplines with the Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

Stokes’ previous awards include the UH Teaching Excellence Award, the 2023 UH Honors College Outstanding Fellowship Mentorship Award, the 2011 UH Provost Academic Advising and Mentoring Award, a National Science Foundation Career Award, and a National Research Council Post-Doctoral Associateship Award. The National Science Foundation manages the PAESMEM awards, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy selects honorees.

PAESMEM award recipients will receive $10,000 and the opportunity to attend professional development events in Washington, D.C.

“Spotlighting STEM educators, researchers and mentors is important to demonstrate the critical role they play in developing and encouraging students to pursue STEM degrees and careers,” Stokes said in a news release. “It is imperative to have STEM educators who can foster the next generation of scientists to address local and national scientific challenges.”
It's time to devote more attention and focus on closing the gender gap in STEM, according to this University of Houston expert. Graphic by Miguel Tovar/University of Houston

Houston innovators: Mentoring women in STEM should be your new year's resolution

Houston voices

Researchers and scientists can give girls a ‘leg up’.

According to Allison Master, assistant professor of psychological, health and learning sciences at the University of Houston: “Stereotypes that STEM [science, technology, engineering and math] is for boys begin in grade school, and by the time they reach high school, many girls have made their decision not to pursue degrees in computer science and engineering because they feel they don’t belong.”

Stats for STEM

The statistics are not encouraging. According to the U.S. Census: “Women made gains – from 8 percent of STEM workers in 1970 to 27 percent in 2019 – but men still dominated the field. Men made up 52 percent of all U.S. workers but 73 percent of all STEM workers.”

“But there are huge disparities between STEM fields in the representation of women,” said Master, whose new paper looks at the emergence of gender gaps among children and adolescents. “Fields like computer science (25 percent of computer jobs are held by women) and engineering (15 percent of engineering jobs are held by women) have some of the lowest percentages of women among STEM fields. On the other hand, women are overrepresented in health fields (74 percent of health-related jobs are held by women).”

Her research specifically looked at computer science and engineering fields. “We wanted to gain a better understanding of why there is such wide variation among STEM fields, and what we can do earlier in the pipeline to encourage more young girls to enter these fields.”

Off to an unfortunate start

“We find that children start to believe that boys are more interested than girls in engineering by age six (first grade), and that children start to believe that boys are more interested than girls in computer science by age eight (third grade). The more that young girls believe those stereotypes, the less interested they are in those fields,” said Master. “If girls believe they won’t belong in fields like computer science and engineering because those are fields ‘for boys,’ then they may miss out on opportunities to try those kinds of activities.”

Master decided to conduct a study on stereotyping gender roles.

“In one study, we told eight and nine year-old children about two computer science activities. When we told them that ‘girls are much less interested than boys’ in one of the activities, we found that girls became much less interested and less willing to try that activity (compared to another activity for which we told them ‘girls and boys are equally interested.’) These stereotypes can shape that choices that young girls make, opening or closing doors to different career pathways,” said Master.

Narrowing the gender gap

How do we turn this around? Mentoring elementary-age students is one way we can increase the percentage of girls who are ushered into STEM fields.

Stem Like a Girl is an initiative that aims to encourage young women to enter the STEM fields. Their website states: “We believe girls need to see strong women in STEM fields to feel supported in pursuing their own science and engineering interests.” An IBM initiative in India has a similar aim. There are lots of terrific organizations working to connect women in STEM as role models for younger girls (e.g., Society of Women Engineers, Black Girls Code, National Girls Collaborative Project, etc.),” Master adds.

Many higher education institutions hold STEM camps for girls exclusively. For instance, University of California-Davis has a program called STEM For Girls – which boasts a student demographic of 79 percent ethnic minorities. The University of Houston Hewlett Packard Enterprise Data Science Institute holds a summer camp each year called the Middle School Girls Coding Academy. This program is focused on middle school girls (rising 6th–8th graders) who learn Scratch, HTML, Game Design, and Python programming. The Academy runs another camp for high school-aged girls.

The big idea

It’s January – time for New Year’s resolutions. How about becoming a mentor or volunteering to give a presentation or teach a camp for young girls in STEM? Master goes on to say that even men in STEM should mentor young women.

“Role models are important because they help girls believe, ‘People like me can succeed,’ and ‘People like me belong here.’ But the most important thing that all role models can do (women and men, because men can also be very effective role models for girls in STEM) is to be relatable and make their work seem interesting and meaningful,” Master says.

So, does your institution have a program in robotics or coding just for girls? Or if you feel like you could benefit from a mentorship program yourself, you can apply at organizations like Harvard Women In Technology +. Harvard WIT+ helps to connect women early in their STEM careers with seasoned mentors.

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This article originally appeared on the University of Houston's The Big Idea. Sarah Hill, the author of this piece, is the communications manager for the UH Division of Research.

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7 can't miss Houston business and innovation events for July

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Editor's note: While many Houstonians are flocking to vacation destinations, there are still plenty of opportunities to network and learn at tech and business events for those sticking close to home this month. From an inaugural biotech summit to the 12th edition of a local pitch showcase, here are the Houston business and innovation events you can't miss in July and how to register. Please note: this article might be updated to add more events.

July 10 - Out in Tech Mixer 

Out in Tech Houston provides an inclusive networking space for LGBTQ+ people and allies working in tech. Check out this relaxed, social-mixer event, hosted on the second Thursday of every month.

This event is Thursday, July 10, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. at Second Draught. Register here.

July 14 – Latinas in Tech Coworking Day 

Connect with fellow Latinas in the industry at Sesh Coworking. Network or work alongside peers, board members and community leaders in a shared office environment.

This event is Monday, July 14, from 9-11:30 a.m. at Sesh Coworking. Find more information here.

July 17 – UTMB Innovation VentureX Summit

Attend the inaugural UTMB Innovation VentureX Summit, where innovators, entrepreneurs, researchers and investors will dive into the future of biotech. Expect panel discussions, fireside chats, a technology showcase and networking opportunities.

This event is Thursday, July 17, from 7:30 a.m.-4 p.m. at The University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston. Find more information here.

July 17 – Open Project Night 

Collaborate on solutions for some of Houston’s most pressing issues at this month’s Open Project Night at Impact Hub Houston. Hear from guest speakers and listen to open mic pitches. July’s theme is Decent Work & Economic Growth.

This event is Thursday, July 17, from 5:30-7:30 p.m at Impact Hub Houston. Register here.

July 24 – NASA Tech Talks

Every fourth Thursday of the month, NASA experts, including longtime engineer Montgomery Goforth, present on technology development challenges NASA’s Johnson Space Center and the larger aerospace community are facing and how they can be leveraged by Houston’s innovation community. Stick around after for drinks and networking at Second Draught.

This event is Thursday, July 24, from 6-7 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

July 30 – Ion Bike Club

Join Bike Houston at the Ion for a 45-minute guided cruise through the Ion District and Midtown. Afterward, enjoy a complimentary beer and network with like-minded riders at Second Draught.

This event is Wednesday, July 30, from 5:30-7:30 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

July 31 – Bayou Startup Showcase

Hear pitches from startups and small businesses from Rice University’s OwlSpark and the University of Houston’s RED Labs accelerators at the 12th annual Bayou Startup Showcase. Read more about this year’s teams here.

This event is Thursday, July 31, from 3:30-7 p.m. at the Ion. Register here.

Houston researchers: Here's what it takes to spot a great new idea

houston voices

Having a “promotion focus” really does create a mental lens through which new ideas are more visible.

Key findings:

  • New ideas can be crucially important to businesses, driving innovation and preventing stagnation.
  • Recognizing those ideas, though, isn’t always easy.
  • Nurturing what is known as “promotion focus” can help managers spot fresh ideas.

Whenever the late surgeon Michael DeBakey opened a human chest, he drew on a lifetime of resources: the conviction that heart surgery could and should be vastly improved, the skill to venture beyond medicine’s known horizons and the vision to recognize new ideas in everyone around him, no matter how little formal training they had.

Appreciating new ideas is the heartbeat of business as well as medicine. But innovation is surprisingly hard to recognize. In a pioneering 2017 article, Rice Business Professor Jing Zhou and her colleagues published their findings on the first-ever study of the traits and environments that allow leaders to recognize new ideas.

Recent decades have produced a surge of research looking at how and when employees generate fresh ideas. But almost nothing has been written on another crucial part of workplace creativity: a leader’s ability to appreciate new thinking when she sees it.

Novelty, after all, is what drives company differentiation and competitiveness. Work that springs from new concepts sparks more investigation than work based on worn, already established thought. Companies invest millions to recruit and pay star creatives.

Yet not every leader can spot a fresh idea, and not every workplace brings out that kind of discernment. In four separate studies, Zhou and her coauthors examined exactly what it takes to see a glittering new idea wherever it appears. Their work sets the stage for an entirely new field of future research.

First, though, the team had to define their key terms. “Novelty recognition” is the ability to spot a new idea when someone else presents it. “Promotion focus,” previous research has shown, is a comfort level with new experiences that evokes feelings of adventure and excitement. “Prevention focus” is the opposite trait: the tendency to associate new ideas with danger, and respond to them with caution.

But does having “promotion focus” as opposed to “prevention focus” color the ability to see novelty? To find out, Zhou’s team came up with an ingenious test, artificially inducing these two perspectives through a series of exercises. First, they told 92 undergraduate participants that they would be asked to perform a set of unrelated tasks. Then the subjects guided a fictional mouse through two pencil and paper maze exercises.

While one exercise showed a piece of cheese awaiting the mouse at the end of the maze (the promise of a reward), the other maze depicted a menacing owl nearby (motivation to flee).

Once the participants had traced their way through the mazes with pencils, they were asked to rate the novelty of 33 pictures — nine drawings of space aliens and 24 unrelated images. The students who were prepped to feel an adventurous promotion focus by seeking a reward were much better at spotting the new or different details among these images than the students who’d been cued to have a prevention focus by fleeing a threat.

The conclusion: a promotion focus really does create a mental lens through which new ideas are more visible.

Zhou’s team followed this study with three additional studies, including one that surveyed 44 human resource managers from a variety of companies. For this study, independent coders rated the mission statements of each firm, assessing their cultures as “innovative” or “not innovative.” The HR managers then evaluated a set of written practices — three that had been in use for years, and three new ones that relied on recent technology. The managers from the innovative companies were much better at rating the new HR practices for novelty and creativity. To recognize novelty, in other words, both interior and external environments make a difference.

The implications of the research are groundbreaking. The first ever done on this subject, it opens up a completely new research field with profound questions. Can promotion focus be created? How much of this trait is genetic, and how much based on natural temperament, culture, environment and life experience? Should promotion focus be cultivated in education? If so, what would be the impact? After all, there are important uses for prevention focus, such as corporate security and compliance. Meanwhile, how can workplaces be organized to bring out the best in both kinds of focus?

Leaders eager to put Zhou’s findings to use right away, meanwhile, might look to the real-world model of Michael DeBakey. Practice viewing new ideas as adventures, seek workplaces that actively push innovation and, above all, cultivate the view that every coworker, high or low, is a potential source of glittering new ideas.

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This article originally appeared on Rice Business Wisdom.

Jing Zhou is the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Management and Psychology in Organizational Behavior at the Jones Graduate School of Business of Rice University. Zhou, J., Wang, X., Song, J., & Wu, J. (2017). "Is it new? Personal and contextual influences on perceptions of novelty and creativity." Journal of Applied Psychology, 102(2): 180-202.