Poly Prep hosted its third annual Women’s Innovation Symposium in Engineering (W.I.S.E.) for middle and upper school girls to learn about the field of engineering in workshops presented by women engineers and scientists on March 9. The event is open for free to all 7th through 12th grade female students in the New York City area.

Fleurette Turkenkopf (Science), W.I.S.E.’s founder, welcomed about 90 girls from Poly and other schools including Packer, Fieldston, and Stuyvesant high schools, and 10 area middle schools to the free daylong symposium as the day began in the Richard Perry Theatre.

Flora Gallina-Jones ’15 introduced keynote speaker Jasmina Aganovic, who earned a chemical and engineering degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Aganovic is founder and CEO of Bona Clara, a new skincare brand she launched online.

Aganovic told the girls that when she was their age, she heard negative comments about what girls were capable of doing that returned as a “ringing in my ears” at times when she doubted herself. “Women have a higher attrition rate than men in college in the sciences,” Aganovic said. “Seventy-eight percent of the women cite self-esteem and discouragement as reasons.”

Read more: https://www.polyprep.org/podium/default.aspx?t=204&nid=703544&sdb=1