Kay D. (Furman) Everett                                                                                               Jean Yang
BS Materials Science and Engineering                                                                     BA Computer Science
MIT Class of 2007                                                                                                          Harvard University Class of 2004
PhD Candidate in Medical Engineering, MIT                                                            PhD Candidate Electrical Engineering and     
                                                                                                                                           Computer Science, MIT

Tell us about yourself!

JY: I am a fourth-year Ph.D. student in computer science at MIT focusing on programming languages.  I finished my undergrad at Harvard in 2008 in computer science.  I have done internships at Google, a friend’s startup Instyll, and Microsoft Research.  My hobbies include running and yoga.

KF: I am a fifth-year Ph.D. student in health sciences technology - a joint program between Harvard and MIT.  I did my undergrad in materials science at MIT and interned at Boston Scientific and Medtronic - both medical device companies.  I recently married my boyfriend of 6 years, am finally figuring out what a Ph.D. is (!) and recently decided to pursue a M.D. after graduation to allow me more interaction and impact on patient care. 



How did you decide to get involved in GWAMIT?

JY: My first and second years of graduate school, I read the Feministing blog almost daily.  I did not know many women at school at that point and reading the blog was almost my way of getting my “woman fix”. 

KF: As a Harvard and MIT graduate student, I had the opportunity to be a member of Harvard Graduate Women in Science and Engineering (HGWISE) - a school wide, student run organization with programming specifically targeting women graduates.  After participating in their mentoring program and professional events, I wondered: why couldn’t this work at MIT?  So, I began calling informal, grassroots meetings with MIT women asking if they felt that a graduate women’s group at MIT was needed and relevant.  To my amazement, women responded that not only was such a group needed, but that they were willing to help formalize the group.  The rest is history.



What is your favorite GWAMIT event?

JY: I love the Empowerment Conference, which serves as a catch-all for events that do not fall under the professional development umbrella.  Events I’ve particularly liked are the panel on collaboration, the “power couples” panel, and the website workshop.

KF: My favorite GWAMIT program is the mentoring program - which matches graduate women with women faculty or alumni in 1:1 or groups of 2-3 graduate women.  Informal meetings each month allow unprecedented access to life stories, experience sharing, advice, and community which at MIT can be relatively difficult to initiate.  One of the participants summed it up nicely:

“This program... would give me an opportunity to ask questions about my career to someone who has had to deal with the same decisions I am dealing with. I often feel that I could use more advice on what paths to choose. Then hopefully one day I can be a mentor to someone else.”



When you are not being a scientista™, you are most likely…

JY: Doing yoga, out with my friends, or reading.

KF: Decompressing with my husband, weightlifting, or at a spinning class. 



Which woman in science inspires you the most?

JY: She is not quite a woman in science, but Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg.  She is a powerful woman who speaks out about developing more powerful women in the world.

KF: The women I meet each year in academia and medicine who seem to do it all - with apparently happy and conscious choices about their life path and priorities.  When I first started in science, I tried to collect all of these stories about career path and family choices and apply them to my life - in a very formulaic way.  But now I realize - there are infinitely many paths and ultimately to ensure our own happiness we must choose our own priorities and put these in practice each and every day. 



Why do you think organizations like GWAMIT and the Scientista Foundation are important?

JY: Successful people have said that one factor in their success is seeing people “just like themselves” achieving things.  It is important for women, especially women in male-dominated fields, to have opportunities to interact with other women who are ambitious, with it, and going places.

KF:  GWAMIT filled an unmet need at MIT that has existed for many years, and I believe it will be relevant into the far future.  The nature of our endeavor is unique in that we are entering historically or currently male dominated fields - while also juggling our personal and professional development.  In this formative time, having a sense of community, support, and shared experience is critical in providing a sounding board and access to resources that are key for success and also importantly key in thriving and enjoying the ups and downs of a career in science.  In this way, organizations like GWAMIT and WISE Words are instrumental in connecting women in science, providing access to resources that might not have otherwise been disseminated, and inspiring the next generation to continue along their discovery of a career in science. 



What do you think is the most important scientific research or discovery of today?

JY: I am excited by the work with mobile computing and how it allows people to learn from the wisdom of crowds.  I like the idea of technology as making people’s lives more efficient in the real world rather than tying people to codependency with a machine in their bedrooms.

KF: I am fascinated by the human body and the tremendous adaptations it is capable of - which we are only recently starting to understand.  Take, for example, heart transplants where someone else’s organ is surgically implanted into your own - and you live and live well!  What an incredible testament to the science of the human body and the ingenuity of scientists to push the limit of possibility.