ARGONNE, Ill. (April 24, 2000) — Argonne National Laboratory’s 13th annual “Science Careers in Search of Women” conference will be held on Friday, May 5. The goal of the event is to inspire high school girls to explore career options in scientific and technical fields by providing a scientific “community of women” to interact with the students.

Lisette G. de Pillis, Associate Professor of Mathematics at Harvey Mudd College and winner of the Argonne Maria Goeppert Mayer Distinguished Scholar award, is the keynote speaker. Her areas of expertise include numerical analysis and applied mathematics, and she has a great interest in applying math to real life scientific problems.

Students will attend one of two panel discussions in the morning. “Having a Science Career and Having a Life” and “College and Beyond” will feature both Argonne employees as well as scientific and technical employees from other organizations. Employers represented include the University of Illinois at Chicago, Lucent Technologies, ABC Pediatrics and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

After this morning panel, students will be grouped by their area of interest and have lunch with a woman scientist in that field, providing an opportunity for more informal one-on-one conversation.

There will be 15 different afternoon laboratory tours to various departments at Argonne, followed by a visit to the career booths set up at Argonne’s Advanced Photon Source Conference Center.

Maryka Bhattacharyya, initiator for Argonne’s Women in Science and Technology program and coordinator of this year’s conference, will provide closing remarks at the end of the day.

Announcements about the conference are sent to the math, science, and counseling departments in many northern Illinois high schools. Teachers and counselors are asked to select highly motivated female students who have an interest in science, technology or engineering. Preference is given to sophomores and juniors and those who have not attended previously.

Suburban schools are asked to select four students to attend, and Chicago public schools are allowed to select nine students. Argonne provides transportation for the Chicago schools to make the event as accessible as possible. In past years, up to 50 schools have participated, and student attendance has reached 400.

Schools scheduled to participate in this year's conference are Adlai E. Stevenson High School, Lincolnshire, Benito Juarez High School, Chicago, Best Practice High School, Chicago, Bogan High School, Chicago, Bradley-Bourbonnais Community H.S., Bradley, Carver Area High School, Chicago, Downers Grove North High School, Downers Grove, Downers Grove South High School, Downers Grove, Dunbar Career Academy, Chicago, Dundee-Crown High School, Carpentersville, George Washington High School, Chicago, Glenbard West High School, Glen Ellyn, Glenbrook North High School, Northbrook, Harold L. Richards High School, Oak Lawn, Homewood Flossmoor High School, Flossmoor, Hubbard High School, Chicago, John F. Kennedy High School, Chicago, Joliet West High School, Joliet, Lake Park High School, Roselle, Lake Zurich High School, Lake Zurich, Lane Technical High School, Chicago, Lincoln Way Central High School, Frankfort, Lincoln Way East High School, Frankfort, Lisle Senior High School, Lisle, Lockport Township High School, Lockport, Luther High School South, Chicago, Maine West High School, DesPlaines, Marengo Community High School, Marengo, Naperville Central High School, Naperville, Naperville North High School, Naperville, Oak Lawn Community High School, Oak Lawn, Oak Park/River Forest High School, Oak Park, Paul Robeson High School, Chicago, Peotone High School, Peotone, Rich East High School, Park Forest, Roycemore School Evanston Simeon Vocational High School, Chicago, Taft High School, Chicago, Tinley Park High School, Tinley Park, Westmont High School, Westmont, Wheaton Warrenville South High School, Wheaton, Whitney Young High School, Chicago, Wilmington High School, Wilmington, Woodstock High School, Woodstock, and Yorkville High School, Yorkville.

The conference is sponsored by Argonne’s Office of the Director and the lab’s Division of Educational Programs, as well as the Educational Outreach Program of the Science and Technology Center for Superconductivity.

The nation’s first national laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory supports basic and applied scientific research across a wide spectrum of disciplines, ranging from high-energy physics to climatology and biotechnology. Since 1990, Argonne has worked with more than 600 companies and numerous federal agencies and other organizations to help advance America's scientific leadership and prepare the nation for the future. Argonne is operated by the University of Chicago as part of the U.S. Department of Energy's national laboratory system.

For more information, please contact Donna Jones Pelkie (630/252-5501 or djpelkie@anl.gov) at Argonne.