www.diversityinsteam.com Diversity in STE A M
23 COVER STORY
Mayim Bialik
Going Full STEAM Ahead
By Brady Rhoades
M
ayim Bialik, best known as the current host of Jeopardy! and as Dr. Amy Farrah Fowler in the smash series The Big Bang Theory, is an honest-to-goodness Renaissance woman. She's a neuroscientist, a mother, an animal rights activist and mental health advocate. An author, actor, game show host and, with the release this spring of As They Made Us, a movie director. And shes not done yet.
The Renaissance Woman
In the tradition of Renaissance women from all eras, Bialik is ever diversifying her ambitions, her skill-set, her scope. Theyre grounded in science, technology, engineering, the arts and math. Bialik said she didn't take to science until her teens, when a tutor helped her build a model of a cell out of Styro- foam. I could touch that Styrofoam cell, she told ScienceNewsfor- Students. It was just amazing. It was amazing that it thrilled me the way looking at art thrilled me. Nowadays, she added, I try to put a positive face on STEM and a female face in STEM. Bialik, 46, who is modern Orthodox Jewish and a strong supporter of Israel, earned a bachelor of science degree in neuroscience and a doctor of philosophy degree in neurosci- ence from UCLA. Her dissertation was titled, Hypothalamic regulation in relation to maladaptive, obsessive-compulsive, iliativeandsatietybehaviorsinPrader-Willisyndrome. We'll break that down later. She started her acting career as a teen, with roles in Pump- kinhead and Beaches, as well as guest appearances on The
PHOTO BY KEVIN MAZUR/AMERICAN BROADCASTING COMPANIES INC VIA GETTY IMAGES
Actress Mayim Bialik attends Stand Up To Cancer (SU2C) biennial fundraising telecast, staging its fifth biennial fundraising telecast at the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Hollywood.
Previous Page