Massachusetts newspaper spotlights STEM Goes Red program

The Community Advocate published a story this week about the Young Women’s Health Innovator Challenge, an American Heart Association program designed to expose girls and young women to careers in science, technology, engineering and math.

The story focused on Westborough High School sophomore Olivia Yoonseo Lee, who, along with students from Worcester Technical High School, Weymouth High School and North High School in Worcester, conceptualized an app that would make it easier for older adults to schedule appointments to get the COVID-19 vaccine, as well as provide information to questions they may have about the vaccination and the coronavirus.

Click here to read the full article.

The challenge was developed as part of the American Heart Association’s STEM Goes Red initiative, which was launched in 2017. STEM Goes Red is part of Go Red for Women, an AHA campaign that aims to increase women’s heart health awareness.

Massachusetts newspaper spotlights STEM Goes Red program

Westborough High School student Olivia Yoonseo Lee

The challenge was sponsored by Dell Technologies and saw high school and college students from across the state team up to develop a concept for an app that could improve public health. Lee’s team took home first place in the high school category.

In the story, Lee credits her participation in the program to Christina Crowley, the chair of the American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women campaign in Greater Boston, for prompting her to apply to the program. Lee told the paper that she first learned about Crowley, who is a stroke survivor and an executive at Dell Technologies,  by reading a profile of Crowley that was published in the Community Advocate in December.

“She shared her personal experience after suffering a stroke due to a heart defect and inspired others like me,” Lee told the newspaper. “It was thanks to women like her that I had the courage to even participate in a project like this, and I am so glad I did.”