Building Confidence for Women in STEAM

All right, Stephanie and Haley, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m so excited that you’re both here.

Thank you. I’m excited too that we get to share in this conversation.

Absolutely, yes. So for those who might not be as familiar with your work and with you, can you give us a little bit of an overview about both of your backgrounds and your work thus far?

Sure, I’ll jump in. I’m Haley Haas. I’m currently the co -founder and executive artistic director of Anastasis Theater Company. Our mission is to lift unheard voices in our community. Our plays bring together diverse groups to highlight the beauty of our differences and to reveal the common thread of our humanity. And how I got here is I grew up in a small town in South Dakota, Yankton, right on the river, and right away was drawn to theater. I’m severely dyslexic, and I think theater was a place where I could excel, even though I couldn’t read well, because I memorized everything really quickly. I have a good auditory memory. So it was a place that I excelled. And as I grew in my theater education, I realized that while I loved performing, I wasn’t interested in Broadway tours or anything like that, I really was interested in how theater could be used as a tool for education, for community building. And so right out of school, I started with a couple of touring theater companies, one of which I started because Stephanie was already there. I went to Creighton University and that’s where we first met. And so as I was graduating, my primary work was with Respect, a touring educational theater company that focuses on using theater to teach healthy relationships. So we did everything from bullying, teen dating violence, workplace relationships… and that was great. I did that around 15 years. I was their training education director and an actor. And we used a lot of role play. So we’d get into a community, maybe show them a skit or a short play, and then invite them up on the stage to practice some of the skills that maybe they haven’t had a chance to practice in a safe space where they can time out and say, I don’t know what to do next or let me start over. And I think  the way it started to kind of merge with the idea of STEM or STEAM was I was lucky enough to do quite a bit of work with healthcare folks help them learn communication skills through theater games, through practice. And I also worked for Creighton University as a standardized patient for their medical school, their PT, nurses, again, using forms of role play so that they could practice their interpersonal skills in a safe space, get feedback. So it’s always been kind of merged for me, but w hen I made the leap to leave Respect, I was really lucky and met Michael Garces from Cornerstone Theater out of LA that does community-engaged work. And I said, I think you’re doing exactly what I want to do. So he invited me and another artist from here in Omaha to come train there, and we did. And I came back, and shortly after, I co -founded Anastasis with a playwright, Colleen O’Doherty.

Not too long after that, Stephanie jumped onto our board to help support our work. And yeah, that’s me.

That’s amazing, wonderful. And Stephanie, let us know a little bit about yourself and your work.

Stephanie Kidd 

You bet.

I am Dr. Stephanie Kidd and professionally I am the communication strategist at an organization called the UNeTECH Institute. We are housed under the University of Nebraska Medical Center and our role is as a tech translation office. So we take the great inventions that come out of the University of Nebraska Medical Center and also the University of Nebraska Omaha and when those inventions have the potential to become commercialized businesses. Oftentimes, the staff members and researchers here that invented those things, they don’t really want to be the people that turn them into businesses. And so our job is to match community members to serve as the entrepreneurs and CEOs of those businesses with that technology. And then here at UNITEC, we provide all of the support that is needed to take those inventions from the idea phase into commercialized success. So it’s so fun. My job here is really to lead both communications and programming. And one of the programs that I developed here is called Opportunity Core, which is… it’s a program that’s based loosely on the National Science Foundation’s Innovation Corps program. And that program was designed by the government as a way to teach scientists how to run their own businesses if they wanted to. The idea being that scientists spend all their time in the lab and they don’t really know how to be entrepreneurs. What Opportunity Corps does is teach entrepreneurs who have ideas in any kind kind of innovation, how to become successful entrepreneurs if they face barriers. So the programs we’ve developed here are for women in the STEAM industry and also for black and African American entrepreneurs. And the program is intentionally designed for those specific communities because we know that they do face barriers in entrepreneurship where Haley comes in is that Women in STEAM program potentially has mentors as a part of the program, one in each of the STEAM industries. So science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics. And I recruited women leaders to fill each of those roles each year. We’re in our third year of Women in STEAM now serves as the art mentor and has the opportunity to work with a group of women and femmes who are interested in entrepreneurship. And she’s been fantastic. So one of the things I love so much about leading Opportunity Corps is I have the opportunity to work with so many amazing women who are leaders in entrepreneurship in the STEAM industries. And I can bring all these great women that I know into these positions within

that program to come in not just as mentors but also as panelists, keynote speakers, to share their stories, to share their successes and some of the barriers that they faced. And Hailey who is my best friend, also gets to come in and talk about her experience and serve as a mentor. So that’s been really special for me. And she mentioned I have been on the board for Anastasis for a good long time. I started out as the secretary of the board of directors and I now serve as the president. It’s fantastic. It’s all the things that I love about theater being able to create storytelling, but also as Amistasis’ mission has really focused in on working with criminal justice reform and that specific population that’s near and dear to my heart as well. And so it’s been really special to be able to do that work alongside Haley and because we’ve been friends for so long.

It’s incredible and there’s such synergy between the work that you’re doing that maybe people wouldn’t necessarily see right off the bat, but it’s certainly they flow and work is such a symbiotic relationship together, I think, based on what you’re doing. Like, Haley, I remember the most impactful health classes I ever had in high school were when the theater troupe came in and allowed us to seriously practice a difficult situations that we’d be in as teenagers or as upcoming college students. And I think like that was so meaningful for me because when as you know awkward teenagers do you actually have opportunity to practice a situation and when you get into one and you don’t know where to go next to be able to hit pause for a moment in a play in a skit and be able to adjust. think you know that was super helpful for me and I know for my entire class that was the that was the class that you wanted to go to was the day that that happened so that you could participate and know, 30 years later, I still remember that. You know, and I think that’s something we don’t talk about nearly enough. And I also think Stephanie, as an entrepreneur myself in business around steam, I wish that I had known about your incubator and in your region like 10 years ago when I started this because.

It is incredibly challenging and you’re right, coming from a field that was not entrepreneurship originally as an educator, having to figure out all of those pieces, it has taken me a decade to do it, you know, even with my mentors and everything. So having a space where you can connect those folks who are doing the research and the people who want to be involved as an entrepreneur and having them work together, I mean, what a gem. That’s amazing. So this is exciting.

So for the both of you, I want to talk about the inclusion of A in STEM in particular, because that is so hotly debated. mean, you go on any kind of online board and there’s 200 comments about how it’s ridiculous and another 200 that are like, no, no, no, this is the future. So from your perspectives in both of your areas of expertise, why is integrating the arts in traditional STEM areas crucial for modern education and innovation? Or is it?

It definitely is. Each one of those disciplines that is listed in STEM has an element of creativity. We talk to scientists, mathematicians, engineers, and they think they have no creativity, but they absolutely do. I actually just had a conversation with my mom. Her brother is an orthopedic surgeon, and we were talking about something, and he’s a natural storyteller, and about his creativity and work. And I paused and was like, well, what do you mean? And she said, well, he imagined new ways to treat bone cancer. No one had ever thought, like, let’s take a whole section of the bone out and replace it. That took creativity. And I was like, you’re right. I fell into the trap of it’s just science. So that was just recently that occurred to me. My husband’s an engineer.

And while again, he thinks he has no creativity, he’s asked to solve problems every day that, you know, there’s not a written rule for. I know a few years ago, there was a, he’s a transportation engineer. There was an area here in Omaha that flooded a street, but it’s really hard to tell how deep it is. And so they were like, we need some sort of warning system that will go on automatically because, you know, workers won’t necessarily know to run out there and turn on a sign. It can happen fast. And so he thought and thought and then came up with the idea of creating something almost like a toilet, the way it shuts off, that buoyant piece that comes up when the water fills to a certain degree, it’ll hit a button and then it turns on the lights. And that was a really creative and simple, inexpensive solution. So putting the arts in helps those folks who maybe have been stuck very much in the box of just intellectual, scientific method to open up, you know, those creative parts of their thinking. And then also just communication. You can’t communicate your thoughts and ideas well it’s gonna be really hard to be successful in any STEAM career.

Agreed

One of the things we talk about a lot when we are coaching our business leaders on two different ways. Either they come from the STEM fields and they take over these technologies and they’re the new CEOs. Or they come from like an MBA, very traditional business field.

A lot of them have this very traditional training using the scientific method is a great example, but also very traditional idea of this is what a pitch should look like when I’m trying to pitch to someone. It’s a very structured idea of how to tell a story.

When we include someone from the arts on that team, and Haley’s going through this right now because we get ready on Friday to do our big pitches for Opportunity Corps. When we include someone from the arts on that team, suddenly it’s the idea of just viewing everything from a different lens even. Because when you go through traditional education and you think about storytelling, we learn,

We learn like Aristotelian storytelling method, right? So you come in and you learn here is the hero’s journey of you. You learn who the hero is and then you have like some plot points at the beginning and then it’s the whole idea of like this is what the story looks like until you get to the climax and then there’s the denouement at the end, right? If you do a pitch presentation that way, it is very boring and the structure of that pitch presentation you will lose the interest of your judges, right? If you think about Shark Tank, which is the samples that we use for our folks that are a part of Opportunity Corps, you have to start with something that is so exciting to get the attention of your judges, and then you have to put all the exciting stuff at the beginning, right? So that they stay interested at the beginning, and then at the end, you have to make sure that you still have something exciting because that’s when you’re giving them to ask of this is how much money we want from you. That is not traditional storytelling. And you need someone super creative on your team to help you figure out how to do that in a way that is structurally going to make sense and not be a crazy jumble of nonsense. But you also need those folks on your team that are going to understand the practicality of it and be able to give you all of the science information and the technology information and the financial information. You need all of those folks together as a team. But if you don’t have that creative idea person and also the artistic person that can make the pitch in a slide deck look really fun and engaging, right? It takes all of those different types of thinking and those different types of learners and that different type of ideation to work together to make that happen. And it’s rare to have someone who is both a mathematical or science thinker that can also hold all of the weight for those other parts of learning as well.

Yeah, absolutely. And I’m thinking like, especially now, and where we are with technology, where we are in the world in general, in terms of our attention span, you know, our tick tock generation with last 30 seconds. What worked as a pitch, even 10 years ago, no longer works, right? You have to be you have to be innovative, you have to be different. And who best to do that? But artists, I mean, that’s, that’s what you’re doing constantly, right? You’re trying to figure out a new way to engage an audience to participate with you in some way, right? Fantastic. So, Haley, as a mentor for the Women in STEAM program at UNITEC, what are some unique challenges that you’re seeing women facing in these fields and how does the program specifically address them?

So almost all over the last two years, I’ve had two teams and almost every one of them, when I asked them, yeah, in our one -on -one mentorship, you know, what are you interested in exploring in improving your skills? They all talk about confidence and most of them want help with public speaking because again, we teach all sorts of things in school and you might have taken a speech class at some point, but we really don’t give people a lot of practice in how do I talk in front of a group? And it’s just kind of a natural human thing that if you haven’t done it, it’s intimidating. So I think those two things are universally most of the women are looking at. And it’s unfortunate that confidence comes up so often, you know, everybody who makes it into the program is highly intelligent. A leader in their field absolutely should be able to dominate a room and feel great about their contributions. But, a lot of them kind of second guess at the beginning of the program, some of them get overwhelmed even and say, well, maybe I’m not supposed to be here. We’re like, no.

It’s competitive. You were chosen for a reason and you need to step into that leadership that we see already living in you. And so to see that trajectory of a little bit timidness into, you’re right. I understand this. I can do this. We do, when I teach stuff about the speaking and kind of communication part, one of the things we do is like a power pose. And it feels very silly, but I make them all do kind of a hands on the hips, superhero type pose, know, shoulders back, head up and hold it. And it’s proven that that will increase all those hormones and things that make you feel jazzed, confident. And it’s a lot, those things that a lot of men have been socialized to naturally feel like my voice absolutely needs to be heard and I have a place at this table. And I think we are slowly making progress for women to feel that too. But it’s not just knowing it, it’s practicing how to do it physically, vocally, all the ways. also the networking that happens I think is essential.

I’ve gotten to meet women in fields I would have never intersected with and found so much in common, found new things to be passionate about, and just it’s really expanded my worldview and I feel like every person who comes to the program feels the same way.

Yeah, and I’m so excited that you’re talking about and sharing the common issue, I think, that the imposter syndrome almost that comes up for women in this industry, because it’s not talked about very often. I mean, we all talk about imposter syndrome, but we don’t talk about the effects that that actually has on the bottom line for women who are actually trying to make something work. And I’ve had that same experience.

I have a lot of experience in performance. I have a lot of experience in leadership. You would think that, you know, I walk into a room and I’m pretty confident, but I will tell you that there have been situations where I’ve had to be in a room with all men, all men pitching this business or pitching something else that I’m trying to advance, right, for our community or something. And in those scenarios, I am often shut off or I’m looked at as, you’re just a woman, you didn’t make as much as I did this year, like men will tout their numbers. I find that to be extremely crazy. Like they’ll tout their numbers all day long. I just sold this and I just did this when it comes to business stuff, you know, and I think women get intimidated by that. And I was certainly, there was one experience that I had that I walked into a room, somebody had me there to advise them on social media and marketing.

And this guy walks in and he’s known as the entrepreneur in residence at a local university. And comes in and he was like, I just sold my third business today. I was, you know, and so I was providing some advice. He was like, yeah, you don’t know what you’re talking about because you certainly haven’t sold a business yet. I’m like, no, but I made a million dollars last year. What’d you make on your sale? You know what I mean? Like, and in that moment, and I only said it because I was angry, right? But in that moment, he totally got quiet. And I realized, it’s a numbers thing. It’s being confident enough to say and own what you’ve got, right? And I don’t think that women are trained in that. We don’t, because we’re trained to be, no, you don’t ever talk about that. That’s impolite, right? Or that you don’t want to be known as the witch in the room, right? And yet, women have every capability of stepping into that because they have just as much power and right to be there. And so I love that you’re training them to do that, to step into that power pose, to understand you are exactly where you need to be. Own it, right? I love that. Stephanie, you’re developing programming for entrepreneurial women in STEAM and working on BIPOC incubator at UNeTECH. Can you share more about those initiatives?

Alongside the Opportunity Corps for Women in STEAM, we also ran a program called Bell Jewel that was for Black and African American entrepreneurs. Obviously, I didn’t teach that one. We partnered with some folks here locally that were at the head of that program. We’re looking for funding to be able to run additional years of that program. Then, UNeTECH would love to expand to intentionally develop programs just like these two for other identified underserved communities. We’re looking into developing a program that would be for veterans. We’re looking to develop a program that would be for rural communities in Western Nebraska for the barriers that they face. For all of those, we would find partner organizations who would probably be at the front of the classroom. We would help develop the curriculum with those partner organizations. It’s really important to UNeTECH as we work on developing educational programming for these identified communities that we can be the administrative leaders, but we also understand really completely that there are going to be programs that we develop where I shouldn’t be the one teaching, right? That these types of programs are going to be best heard from within the communities that the programs are for.

That’s the way that Bell Jewel was developed. We used the curriculum and then had someone else teach the program with very specific examples in mind for that community.

It’s just at honestly at this point, it’s a matter of us writing some grants and partnering with some organizations so we can get funding for them. The other thing that’s really crucial for us is we want to be able to offer stipends for everyone who’s involved in the program. So with Women in Steep, for example, there’s no application fee or a cost for the women that are involved in that program. In fact, we offer them a stipend when they complete the program.

Just yeah, just like we offer stipends for everyone who’s a part of it. Anyone that comes in and is a keynote speaker, a panelist, our judges for the pitch competition, all of those folks are compensated. We want to be able to know, really acknowledge that they’re doing work for us and they are part of that community that faces those barriers. And so that’s part of that grant that we got from the Coughlin Foundation out of Kansas City. So we use that grant funding to compensate everyone who’s involved. Yeah.

Amazing, amazing. So along those lines, in terms of arts and education, what strategies do you find to be most effective in engaging diverse populations and communities in STEAM -related activities?

I’m on it.

as as getting folks to apply.

Yep, and participate. Yes.

Well, here’s a little secret as far as getting the art folks in our community to apply. Haley and I are very much in the trenches in the arts world here in Omaha. And so we do specific outreach and we really have a high population of art folks in entrepreneurship that we know. And so our targeted outreach just within our community means that we have a lot of entrepreneurial artists who apply for the program. And that was true in Bellejoule as well. And not just in our theater world, but we know a lot of graphic artists, a lot of theater artists, a lot of music artists, a lot of, gosh, I would say we also included artists, folks that would be writers. So we have a high population in the art world that apply.

And then once you get a connection like Stephanie’s so good at networking and UNeTECH in general has a real footprint in every entrepreneur circle. are in so many different organizations look to UNeTECH and connect with them. So when they put out the call, it’s not just on their website, their social media, it spreads to organizations all across Nebraska and they share it.

You know, the universities share it. And the messenger matters too. Like, once we’ve had some of those folks from the different communities, they are great advocates. like, hey, I learned so much. know three, you know, I know three people who should also apply. And I know us mentors, anybody who’s working as a mentor, we send out to our circles. So it’s a real team effort to make sure that all kinds of people are aware of the opportunity. And then I know the application process, they’re very intentional about not just looking for people who have traditional education. That’s great. Like I’ve worked with some scientists who are finishing doctoral work at UNMC. But then we also have some folks who have more like lived experience within a particular field, but maybe they don’t have all the fancy job titles on their resume yet, but they have potential. And so we do a mix of those things. And I really admired how Stephanie and her team are so good about looking past just the typical things people.

We have great partners also, Susan. So our partner this year is Nebraska Tech Collaborative powered by Xarbin. And they were really great too about using all of their connections and everything because they have some great partner organizations as well. Our first two years, BioNebraska was our partner and they were really great about helping spread the word. And Haley’s right. You know, I mentioned that we hire so many folks and contract out so many folks. Well, once you’ve done that and you’ve pay really fairly, people are more than willing to share our application information within their network. And Omaha has an incredible, incredible amount of women who work in the steam industries. And we are a hub for, we’re a hub for technology, we’re a hub for science and being a part of the Med Center here is, that helps immensely also.

Of course. So speaking of that, if for anybody who is a young woman who might be listening and they want to get into the STEAM field, what is your best advice or insights that you would offer on how to navigate that experience?

We are huge on mentorship, huge on mentorship. So there’s a lot of research that says that women in the STEM fields especially, but also in the arts are hesitant to seek out mentorship. And they are hesitant to seek out mentorship, especially from other women because the assumption is once again, we are nice, we are nice women and we don’t want to bother anybody and we make a lot of assumptions about other people and what they value and how they don’t want to spend their time. So women are, statistics show that women are less likely to ask for mentors and they are less likely to especially ask other women to mentor them. We have one of our mentors, Amisha Dahl, does an incredible presentation on the different definitions of mentorship and the way that you can view mentorship as you’re going through your career. That we don’t always have to view mentorship as the only type of person that can be a valuable mentor for me is someone who works in my field, structurally above me in my career trajectory. That you can have successful mentorships with folks who are your colleague, with folks who even might be what you would consider below you in your career field, folks who work in different industries than you. There are all different types of mentorships that can be valuable for you. Haley and I both have mentors who are generationally much older than us. My mentor is 82 years old. Her name is Sandy. I’m 45. She is significantly older than I am and it is the most delightful mentorship we learned from each other. She’s retired. We did not work in the same field by any means, but we have a fantastic mentorship where we both acknowledge that we learn from one another. I chose her because she’s artsy. She’s retired and artsy, but I don’t work in the arts anymore. Mentorships can come in all different shapes and sizes.

One thing Amisha talked about that I had never considered was micro -mentorship. So she said, you know, get on LinkedIn and if you see someone who’s, you know, doing exactly, you know, the path that you want to go but you don’t think you have time or maybe you don’t have a close enough connection to them to ask for a long -term mentorship, asking, hey, I want to learn just a little bit more about your story. Can we have coffee just one time? And then have your list of questions. What degrees did you go for or what kind of educational opportunities did you use? Were they helpful?

If you could go back, what are the different things that you might do? And just that little micro mentorship can be really helpful. And then that person knows you. And when things come up down the road they might send something your way just because they think, you know what, I do know somebody who’d be good for that job or to sit on this board. I know I do that with folks. Somebody I met at a conference this last year reached out and he’s a student, a grad student at Iowa, and he said, hey, I need to make some more connections. I’m hoping to move back to Omaha, who can I talk to? I right away fired off some intro emails and said, hey, this young person is finishing up a really prestigious degree. I think you should meet. that was a neat, it took five minutes. But hopefully it’s really helpful for him. So those little ways too are, we kind of forget what a big impact they can have.

Yes, absolutely. Well, ladies, this has been such an insightful conversation for me. And I just I’m so excited for our listeners to learn from you as well. Where can people learn more and stay in touch with you?

Well, for Anastasis Theater Company, it’s pretty easy. It’s AnastasisTheatre .org. And I always have to look to spell it. So Anastasis, people often ask, what is that? Where did that come from? It’s from the Greek word that means to rise up because we’re looking to lift communities, lift voices. So Anastasis, A -N -A -S -T -A -S -I -S. and then theaterwithanre.org. And then my email’s on there. I love to talk to people about our work and find new partnerships. So reach out.

And Stephanie?

Two ways. One is Opportunity Core will accept applications for our next year later this fall. And you can learn about that on our UNeTECH website, UNeTECH.org. The other thing that I would love to tell you about is that other program, iCore, that I mentioned. Opportunity Core is based on. That is available to any from any region. It’s not just for women in STEAM. It’s for anyone who has an invention and our version that we do at University of Nebraska Omaha is unique in that way. A lot of the I -Corps programs you have to be connected to a university. We don’t. We get special funding from First National Bank of Omaha and FISERV and that means that any community member can do that program. It’s online and when you complete that program we give you a thousand dollars for going through the program. So if you are interested in learning more about that program, you can email me and I will tell you all about it. And my email is Stephanie, S -T -E -P -H -A -N -I -E dot kid, K -I -D -D, at UNeTECH .org. And I would love to share more information with you.

Fantastic. Yes, and we will put all of those links and your emails and everything in the show notes to make it super easy for people to get in touch. Stephanie, Haley, thank you so much for your time today. It has been a pure joy.

Thank you. Thanks for having us. We were so excited to chat with you about Women in STEAM and about entrepreneurship in general.

Wonderful. Yeah.

Thank you.