SCWIST Quantum Leaps is a virtual career conference uniquely designed for girls from grades 8-12 interested in or curious to explore careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). This conference gives girls a glimpse into what women in STEM fields do in their careers.

During these events, girls can meet women professionals who have been successful in their STEM fields and meet other like-minded girls who have similar aspirations and interests. This event will help them know more about the STEM fields they are interested in and discover new STEM fields. Quantum Leaps also aims to aid students in the transition between high school and higher education.

This particular Quantum Leaps event will focus on women professionals working in careers related to Biotechnology and Engineering. Within Biotechnology, genetically modified genes associated with diseases such as Alzheimers will be discussed. Another topic will include potential alternatives to antibiotics and research of synthetically made peptides. Within engineering, software engineering will be discussed. Specifically, user-interface related frontend development and cyber security will be the focus.

Did these professionals in engineering have a fixed plan for what they would like to do five years after high school? How do they ease into changing their career focus? Did they know that they wanted to pursue these careers when they were in university? Girls will get the opportunity to interact with these women to get the answers they need at the event.

Susana Chung

Susana Chung is currently in her final year of the UBC-BCIT Honors in Biotechnology program. She has completed two co-op terms in academic labs as a research assistant and is now in her third and final co-op term in the biotech industry.

Her first placement was at the Hutter Lab at SFU, where she was involved in the C. elegans Gene Knockout Consortium project. In this role, she genetically modified genes associated with diseases such as Alzheimer’s in C. elegans worms. For her second co-op placement, she worked at the Hancock Lab at UBC. Her main project involved preparing and conducting assays with synthetically made host-defense peptides, aiming to identify potential alternatives to antibiotics.

Currently, Susana is working at STEMCELL Technologies as a Sales Operations Analyst Co-op student. Her responsibilities include creating reports and building dashboards to support the sales team.

Olessia Bourgart

Olessia is a senior software developer with Imperva, a cyber security company. Her specialization for the past 7 years of her software career is frontend development: she builds and improves user interfaces. Her interest in cyber security started in university, and although she has not pursued a career as a cyber security specialist, it has led her to become a security champion of her team in her previous role and choose a cyber security company for her new role. She feels very fulfilled to enable great user experience for a product that she knows helps mitigate countless cyber attacks and ultimately makes the internet a safer place for us all.