Hometown Jobs: 2024 STEM Goes Red event for high school students

ROANOKE, Va. (WDBJ) – Earlier this month high school students got the opportunity to explore different STEM career paths.

“Our goal was really just to inspire,” said Christie Steele-Garcia, Development Director for the American Heart Association.

More than 70 female high school students from Roanoke City Public Schools and Salem City Schools came together for the 2024 STEM Goes Red event at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute.

“The students are getting a crash course, essentially, in careers in STEM,” said Steele-Garcia.

“They’re doing a heart dissection and working on an anatomage table, which is essentially like a giant iPad that allows you to see human anatomy. There are lab techniques, where they’re learning pipetting and weighing. They have a laparoscopic surgery machine that actually residents train on, that allows them to kind of practice using hands, like as they would in surgeries. They’re learning suturing techniques,” said Jessica Pfleger, Assistant Professor.

The event was female-focused, since leaders of the event say it’s an underrepresented population in STEM careers.

“The American Heart Association has the Go Red For Women initiative, which is trying to get more women represented in science and medicine, and this is just as a kind of expansion of that, trying to get younger girls in the pipeline for STEM careers,” said Pfleger.

“Only 30% of heart research happens on women and by women and we feel like that’s a really uneven balance. So, the more we can do here to showcase careers in cardiovascular research, we feel like for future generations, we’ll hopefully have some more representation on the female side,” said Steele-Garcia.

It’s also a way to spark interest in STEM career paths that are available right here in our hometowns.

“That’s a great way for students to maybe see themselves in a path that keeps them in Roanoke and keeps them in the area. Or maybe they go somewhere else and then they come back,” said Steele-Garcia.

This was the second year for the event and the American Heart Association hopes to continue it year after year.

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