The Brightside: Sarah Adewumi, STEM Advocate

MARYLAND – While an emphasis on the STEM field is growing each day, one woman is making it her life’s work to not only be a stand-out in the field of STEM, but to show other women who look just like her, they can do it too.

“I think for the stem industry, it’s so important for our young people and our young girls to be able to see that there are people that look like them within the industry,” says Sarah Adewumi, a young woman who’s making it her life’s mission to not only break barriers in the world of STEM but to encourage other women to do the same.

Adewumi tells us, “Oftentimes we see young girls especially, by the time they reach age 14, 15 they start to try to avoid math and science when they get to high school rather than pursue those studies or do those careers.” She adds, “They can pursue these careers, they can pursue these studies because there’s space available for them.”

It was at a young age that Adewumi found her passion for STEM after a trip to her father’s job for “Take your child to work day.” “Since that day, I kind of wanted to work in STEM, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do until I got into high school.” Adewumi adds, “I pursued aviation at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore in Princess Anne, MD. It was then I fell in love with the industry.”

While at UMES, Adewumi was a four-time NASA intern and converted to full-time upon graduation. However, she says it was the apparent lack of representation of women, especially black women in the stem industry that influenced her ultimate goal. “I think it’s just about amplifying their voices because there’s a lot of women doing incredible things making amazing advancements within the industry, it’s just about making their voices heard and their stories amplified.”

Adewumi now works at NASA at the Goddard space flight center in portfolio management, as well as a science communicator. It’s her leaps and bounds in the STEM world which landed her on a TED talk called “This is What a Scientist Looks Like.” “I think just finding that community was a challenge but it was the best thing ever and I was able to share my own experiences and we were all able to just bask in the feeling that there is space for us,” she tells us.

Not only does she continue to work in the STEM field, but Adewumi also started a non-profit called NEXTGen in STEM. It’s an organization that provides mentorship, and resources for the younger generation with an emphasis on young women interested in the industry. “I was also interested in fashion and pageantry and oftentimes people don’t realize that you can do both, you can do a whole lot of things while also being a scientist, tech, engineering or mathematics,” says Adewumi.

She also says, it doesn’t matter what your interests are, or what gender you are, if you’re interested in STEM, there’s a place for you, you just have to keep pushing on which is a lesson she learned from a professor. “He said the worst thing you can do is give up and that really just planted something within me that made me just want to continue and keep going and find that motivation somewhere within myself.” Adewumi adds, “So that our young people, our young girls can see that and realize hey she’s in it maybe I can do it too.”

Adewumi encourages parents of children to introduce their children to stem related activities to better gauge if they like it or not. You can find more information about her non-profit by visiting her website.