Stockton, AAUW Celebrate 10 Years of Inspiring Girls
Tech Trek, a residential camp that selects female students from across New Jersey for a week of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) activities on Stockton University’s campus, is a collaboration between Stockton and the American Association of University Women.
Galloway, N.J. – Qori Ramos, an eighth-grader from Paterson Arts & Sciences Charter School, couldn’t think of a better way to spend her birthday than in a university lab exploring the physics behind circuit boards.
Ramos was one of over 40 eighth-grade girls who participated in Tech Trek, a collaboration between Stockton University and the American Association of University Women (AAUW) that selects female students from across New Jersey for a week of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) activities on Stockton University’s campus.
In one of the program’s workshops, Ramos and a lab of her peers explored the foundations of circuitry and soldering with Joseph Trout, professor of Physics at Stockton.
“I've always been interested in robotics and engineering and stuff. This camp is giving me the chance to use equipment that I've never used before and giving me the confidence to do it because we have top-level professors here teaching us,” Ramos said.
This year’s camp included classes on quantum computing, artificial intelligence and biotechnology; tours of both the Atlantic City campus and Sustainability Farm and nature surrounding the Galloway campus; and workshops on leadership development, FBI forensics and more.
One of the workshops utilized STEM Lingo, an online platform that engages middle- to high-school students with STEM-related projects, such as coding. Mithra Ramji, who attends John Adams Middle School in Edison and hopes to pursue a career in the technology field, said the platform quickly became one of her favorite aspects of the program.
“I love working with STEM Lingo. We started it yesterday, and I think that I developed skills when it comes to plugging in wires to, like, a breadboard and how the breadboard works in general,” Ramji said. “STEM Lingo connects to Arduino, which is a coding platform, and the tutorials have taught me a lot about coding and the basics of it, so it has been a really great experience.”
When the students weren’t in class, they participated in craft and vision board making nights, watching films and learning the art of networking at a professional mixer night.
For Liezelle Aldoz, a student at Charles A. Selzer Elementary School in Dumont, the best part of the program wasn’t just a food chemistry workshop in which her and her peers taste-tested chocolate with varying levels of cocoa. Rather, it was being inspired by both the staff facilitating the program (the majority of whom are Tech Trek alumnae) and the girls in her current cohort.
“It’s been very fun,” Aldoz said. “It was very inspiring to see a lot of other young girls like me be interested in STEM, as well as the counselors and professors who are helping us do all of these exciting experiments.”
Ramos and Ramji expressed similar perspectives on having the opportunity to meet and learn with budding STEM students like themselves.
“Going to this camp has changed me and brought me much joy, because I've been able to meet girls who have dreams like I do, and I've been able to go around a university campus,” Ramos said. “I hope other girls, if they ever go to this camp, will know that all the people here are very helpful and nice, and they're willing to help you change for the better.”
“It's awesome so far. I’ve met a lot of new people and made a lot of new friends,” Ramji said. “The staff are really nice and my dorm moms are so fun, so I'm really enjoying it so far.”
Thalia Arce, a junior Environmental Science major who has volunteered as a dorm mom for the last three years, has fond memories of her time in Tech Trek, recalling an “overwhelming and amazing feeling” as she made her way down Vera King Farris Drive.
It was her time at the camp that led to her decision to attend Stockton, where she is now inspiring the next generation of young women pursuing careers in STEM.
“I love it because it made me feel more confident in my journey throughout being interested in STEM, and it feels nice to be able to pass it forward,” Arce said. “We want to keep empowering them to want to challenge these statistics in male-dominated fields and be the ones to bring the numbers up.”
– Story by Loukaia Taylor
– Photos by Susan Allen
Youth Experience Wonders of Science at Tween Tech
January 6, 2025
Galloway, N.J. — Before helping each group of students complete their laser projects, Stockton University Physics Professor Joseph Trout asked the same question.
“Are there any future scientists here?”
Quite a few of the middle schoolers said yes, including Lilly Voss, an eighth grader from Galloway Township Middle School. She was one of about 150 girls from six South Jersey middle schools on Jan. 3 who participated in Tween Tech, an annual event to engage girls in fields in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
“I love how they are teaching us different things that we don’t really learn in school,” said Voss, who took Trout’s Lasers and Lissajous Figures workshop. She worked with a partner to build a device to display laser figures on a wall. “Like lasers, I haven’t done that in school.
“I also like how it’s all women. It’s super cool to see all the girls here.”
Each participant chose two of 11 different workshops ranging from building a wind-powered turbine and tapping sap in Stockton’s Maple Grove to investigating a crime scene and coding a spherical robot.
Claudine Keenan, a special assistant to the provost at Stockton, has organized the event since its inception in 2017 with the Atlantic and Cape May branches of the American Association of University Women.
-- Story by Mark Melhorn, photos by Susan Allen
In-Person Reunion or Bust: STEMinists Take Over Stockton
August 4, 2022
Galloway, N.J. — Did you know that you can make eco-friendly plastic using spoiled milk? Alumni of Tech Trek learned how to do that and more during a week-long reunion hosted by the American Association of University Women (AAUW) and Stockton University. The students were invited back to campus from July 24 to 30 to reminisce about their time at Stockton pre-pandemic and to meet and welcome the new cohort of girls who joined during 2020.
Tech Trek, a week-long empowerment program, selects female students interested in STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) fields from every county in New Jersey and invites them to campus to network, learn different aspects and careers within STEM, and get lifelong mentors.
Claudine Keenan, dean of the School of Education, collaborated with AAUW Atlantic County branch members to form the program in 2015. Through her work with the AAUW and collaboration with Stockton, Tech Trek expanded from 30 girls from either Atlantic or Cape May counties to 60 from both counties.
“The research that AAUW has done over the years indicates that, in seventh grade, many girls find that they might be the only one who is very interested in STEM, and it’s discouraging,” Keenan said. “As a seventh grader, you may not want to feel different from anybody. Rather, you want to be with people who are like you. So that’s our theory: We bring them all together and they get to meet girls just like them to form a sisterhood.”
-Story by Loukaia Taylor
-Photos by Susan Allen
