Hidden figures no more: Women in STEM are the key to the future

In celebration of the United Nations’ International Women’s Day in Science, meet five women who have blazed trails in STEM and whose contributions have left or will positively impact the world.

1. Ayesha KhannaCo-founder and CEO, Addo 

“My first few startups failed spectacularly,” states Ayesha Khanna frankly. “My number one mistake was being too theoretical about consumer-centrism. We think we know what the customer wants, but we don’t ask them. I was building cool and interesting things, and I was being so smug about it, but the customer didn’t want or need them.” 

It was a lesson well-internalised because customers most certainly need what her global AI solutions firm, Addo, is offering now: data, AI, and cloud services that help businesses scale, optimise, and operate more efficiently. 

Her over 20-year love affair with data science is fuelled by its creativity and interdisciplinary aspects. “With AI, you can look at everything from saving people’s lives by predicting when they might get a disease to ensuring there are enough taxi cabs during rush hour. But it also involves social sciences because you have to think about AI’s governance and ethics,” she enthuses.

“So in a good AI team, everyone respects different fields — from design and sociology to law and hardcore math. That means anybody — and any woman — can have a place in a tech firm. All they need is the confidence to ask questions. It’s not as highly specialised as many people think.”

Of course, like most outspoken women in a male-dominated industry, Khanna had to contend with self-doubt when her curiosity and eagerness to share knowledge were frequently (and unfairly) criticised. Not that that ever stopped her from moving forward. Armed with degrees from Harvard, Colombia, and the London School of Economics, the Pakistan-born Khanna spent years as a tech consultant on Wall Street before moving to Singapore in 2012 with her husband to raise their two children. In 2017, she co-founded Addo.

“There is no age at which you should stop learning,” she stresses. “The only way to counter bias against women in tech is through skills, through showing people what you know. There is nobody else that can make you believe in yourself.” That’s why she also founded 21C Girls, a charity that provides free AI and coding workshops to girls in Singapore. 

As a self-professed futurist, Khanna is eager for us to “evolve into that sci-fi-like environment” someday. One pathway there would be to create a viable, properly expansive metaverse. “The immediate challenge is interoperability. If I bought a digital Nike shoe in one metaverse, I should be able to wear it in another. My little NFT wallet, profile details, and avatar should carry over with me. We need the equivalent of a metaverse passport containing our digital information,” she muses. 

Still, Khanna is cognisant of the nervousness surrounding how our digital footprints are being used. “And very rightly so,” she agrees. “We are seeing a move towards better data governance, especially after the European Union implemented its General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), with Singapore following suit in varying degrees. So data governance is something our clients demand, but also something we insist on. We have to be balanced with these things. We can’t be naively optimistic, nor can we be depressingly pessimistic.” 

2. Adeeba KamarulzamanPresident and pro vice-chancellor, Monash University Malaysia 

In today’s rhetoric, many bristle at the idea of being forced down a career path based on societal expectations alone. But Adeeba Kamarulzaman just went with the flow. After scoring well during her pre-university years on a scholarship to Australia, she picked medicine because “it was the thing to do.” 

Thankfully, it was something she quickly developed a genuine passion for, particularly in the field of HIV and AIDS. While training as a physician in Melbourne, it was the families, caregivers, and consultants of those infected with HIV/AIDS that inspired her to explore the pandemic more deeply. As there was no treatment for HIV back then, being involved in those early clinical trials to look for one was especially meaningful and exciting. 

“When I returned to Malaysia in 1997, the scenario was different. The disease was highly stigmatised, and although treatment breakthroughs were emerging, access to those drugs was non-existent because of the high cost,” she says. “Slowly but surely, I advocated for access to treatment and evidence-based prevention programs.” 

The results of her efforts have been profound. One of these is convincing the Malaysian government to implement the methadone and needle exchange programs. The former involves providing controlled doses of methadone to support individuals with opioid addiction, and the latter provides sterile needles and syringes to those who inject drugs, reducing the transmission of blood-borne infections like HIV/AIDS.

“At its peak in the early 2000s, the number of cases reported to the Ministry of Health was around 6,000 new cases per year,” she shares. “In the last few years, this number has reduced to 200 to 350 per year. The ROI on this program also revealed that it saved the government a substantial amount in health care costs.”

And she is unceasing in her work to better the world through science and medicine. In her previous job at Universiti Malaya, Adeeba was involved in drug policy reform and started the ROSE Foundation to eliminate cervical cancer in Malaysia. In addition to leading Monash Malaysia, she is still active in associations like the WHO Science Council, the IAS-Lancet Commission on Health and Human Rights, and the Malaysia AIDS Foundation. 

For Adeeba, diversity isn’t restricted to gender inclusiveness. “When I was dean of medicine at Universiti Malaya, I made sure that neither race nor religion was a factor in selecting staff or students. Merit was always at the top of my mind,” she states. “With that, I think we had a rich and harmonious environment reflecting Malaysian society.” 

In addition to finding a cure for HIV/AIDS, Adeeba is also anticipating a tuberculosis (TB) vaccine. “A successful TB vaccine will not only save the lives of people living with HIV, who are at a higher risk of getting TTB, but also millions of people who remain at risk of this centuries-old disease.” 

3. Anthea MulakalaSenior director, The Asia Foundation 

With a leading role in The Asia Foundation, an international non-profit organisation committed to improving lives and expanding opportunities across Asia and the Pacific, Anthea Mulakala has a birds-eye view of the obstacles women face in STEM in the region. In fact, a study done by the foundation in 2021 researched the “leaky pipeline” phenomenon of women leaving STEM fields in increasing numbers over time. Some of the biggest reasons include gender bias and discrimination, a lack of role models, work-life balance, limited access to networks, and unconscious bias from parents, teachers, employers, and society at large.

Mulakala herself admits to having had to deal with similar barriers. “Women have a disproportionate responsibility for caregiving, and at different points in my career, it has been challenging to manage children and ageing parents.”

As bleak as things have been in the past, there is hope for the future. She explains that early exposure and encouragement for girls in STEM will help address biases and stereotypes, but making STEM affordable, approachable and accessible to women at the policy and institutional level will be the real driver for change.

In the meantime, Mulakala is doing her part on the ground. In 2022, The Asia Foundation launched the STEM ConnectHER initiative as a pan-regional network to support early-career women in STEM through mentorship, speaker series, and leadership resources. “In its six-month pilot phase, the program reached 500 women in 11 Asian countries,” he says. “We have just launched the second phase and hope to target over 1,000 women.” 

Mulakala also co-led the foundation’s Future Skills Alliance (FSA), a platform and partnership model where corporates, governments, and NGOs can work together to leverage individual and collective assets to bridge the digital divide across the region. 

Her advice? “To believe in yourself and your abilities. Don’t let others’ views limit your dreams and potential. Connect with other women in STEM, both online and offline, as they can offer support, guidance, and valuable insights. Participate in conferences, workshops, and online communities to expand your network. Join the STEM ConnectHER program to find resources and mentors!”

But even the most well-thought-out programs are not immune to unforeseen challenges. “When we approached institutions to participate in STEM ConnectHER, we’ve sometimes heard, ‘Why don’t you engage the male cohort? Most of our students and employees are men,’” she quips.

“While this should have been an ‘Aha!’ moment for them, it often isn’t. This underscores the need to provide women with opportunities and inform those in the wider STEM industry about the importance and principles of diversity, equity, and inclusion.” 

4. Sierin LimProfessor of bioengineering/biotechnology, Nanyang Technological University 

If humanity ever fixes its plastic pollution crisis, we will have bioengineers like Sierin Lim to thank. “The project that’s currently keeping our lab very busy is the design and engineering of plastic-degrading enzymes and microbes that can convert plastic to paper,” she says.

This fascinating and promising technology was first pioneered by a team in Japan about 15 years ago when they discovered a bacterium capable of breaking down PET plastic. The only downside was that this enzyme, known as “PETase”, needed 450 years to do its work. “So we are on a quest to engineer a better version of PETase that will increase its activity by at least four times. So instead of taking 450 years, maybe we can do it in a hundred!” 

Lim has always enjoyed delving into the sciences, but she enjoyed seeing them applied in real life. During her chemical engineering undergraduate program, she took some biology courses because she found the intersection between physics, mathematics, chemistry, and biology “fascinating”. 

This multidisciplinary nature of biological engineering kept Lim keenly interested in finding more pragmatic solutions to real-world problems. One of these was developing a patented method to engineer protein nanocages as carriers for biomedical applications. This method would mean that skin formulations, for instance, could target specific cells that cause dark or white spots by loading active ingredients onto the nanocage for faster take-up.

For Lim, a love of learning is a vital trait. During a hike in Singalila National Park, she encountered a young girl walking up and down the mountain for hours each day to attend school. “That was dedication. I admired her determination to study,” she recalls. “Girls in Southeast Asia would benefit from training in STEM. It could be an equaliser. We just need to start providing them with a supportive ecosystem where they can thrive.” 

Lim is grateful for the supportive environments she grew up in, both personally and academically. “I was never told that I could not do STEM, and from there, I slowly built my confidence,” she shares. “But I still suffer from self-doubt, and when I realised that this was not unique to me, I spearheaded Women@NTU and the POWERS (Promotion of Women in Engineering, Research, and Science) programmes with a colleague to build a supportive ecosystem.”

But for those who find themselves in less encouraging situations, Lim suggests treating hurdles as an experiment. “Test your hypothesis on a small scale first. So try potential solutions with immediate colleagues and be ready to accept the results. If it works, great. If not, see the outcome before modifying it and trying again.” 

At present, the results that Lim is looking forward to are the possibility of using mRNA technology (famously used in the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine) outside of vaccinations. “Our body needs different types of proteins to maintain health, each in precise amounts and at the correct timing,” she explains. “Sometimes, these proteins may malfunction and cause disease. But what if we can provide our body with these malfunctioning proteins when needed and help our body heal from within?”

5. Wendy WangScientific office and curator of entomological collections, Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum at National University of Singapore (NUS)

Some people relish the idea of a simple 9 to 5, where both the money and the work are predictable and consistent. But for entomologist Wendy Wang, such a life would have been insufferable. “I couldn’t picture myself becoming a frazzled office worker confined to a cubicle, doomed to the daily drudgery of paperwork,” she declares. “I held on to this stubborn ambition that I was going to be a biologist, do research, and nothing else.” 

Her single-minded purpose and natural inclination toward the sciences led her to drop physics in favour of general biology after secondary school because she “couldn’t appreciate the abstract concepts that do not manifest as observable physical forms”.

While she was pursuing her PhD, practical reasons led her to the field of entomology for her dissertation. “It was relatively well-studied, reasonably diverse, but still easy to handle for novices of species identification. We decided on ants, which fit the criteria.” 

Today, Wang is the curator of entomological collections at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum and associate editor of the Raffles Bulletin of Zoology. She was also part of a landmark study published in 2022 that uncovered 409 species and 100 genera of ants in Singapore — placing our little island state as the city with the largest ant diversity in the world. “The list included notes on their ecology and taxonomy. That paper was almost a tome — 152 pages of text in total!” 

Her achievements were not without some misgivings and self-doubts in the early stages of her career. Not only was it a niche area that appeared to be dominated by men, Wang recounted instances where senior male scientists wouldn’t engage with her, instead preferring to take their lofty discourses to other men.

“I later heard that those veterans assumed I wouldn’t last long in this field as a woman because I would get married, have kids, and quit scientific research for a more stable desk job with higher salaries to support the family. So I wasn’t worth their time.

“There is nothing wrong with those life choices, but unwarranted prejudices stemming from societal expectations can be daunting to a female scientist’s psyche,” she shares. Fortunately, she has worked with “genuinely kind senior scientists” of both genders and believes institutions should implement policies supporting female scientists undergoing major life events.

Wang is currently excited by research involving obtaining viable genomic DNA sequences from aged museum specimens. DNA from such samples tends to be too degraded to a barcode, but new sequencing technology could finally unlock DNA information hidden in these aged specimens and vastly enhance their utility in present-day research. 

“I would advise other women to be kinder to themselves. Your dreams and aspirations may fade or change, but that’s alright. Do what makes you happy, and don’t be shaken by prejudice. If the environment gets too toxic, it’s okay to leave — with your principles and sanity intact.”