Published – 03/02/21 – 08:00 AM |

After America’s first woman in space retired from NASA, she had plenty of opportunities to capitalize on her celebrity, but she preferred to keep a low profile.

Then in 2001, while teaching physics at UC San Diego, Dr. Sally Ride decided the time was right to use her famous name for a cause she cared about — narrowing the gender gap in science and engineering. She would do it by cofounding a company called Sally Ride Science. Ride and her cofounders knew what research proved later, girls are easily disenfranchised from pursuing science because they don’t think science is for girls.

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… Library NExT: Through a partnership between San Diego Public Library and Extension, Sally Ride Science presents free workshops in library branches around the city. The workshops started in 2017 in six library branches and gradually expanded to 23 branches before the program went online due to the pandemic. Nearly 4,500 students in grades 3-12 have taken part.

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“I felt that this was something that was really worth using my name and using the visibility that I could bring to it,” Ride said later. “It felt worthwhile.”

From article…

Source: San Diego Community News Group – Celebrating 20 years of Sally Ride Science at UC San Diego