St. Pierre with LEGO robot. Photo: Emily Agopsowicz.By Emily Agopsowicz
As the coordinator for Women in Engineering and Computer Science, Anissa St. Pierre wears many hats.
“Some days I need to take students to the Equity and Human Rights Office to get advice for how to help them, some days I’m doing LEGO robotics workshops with young kids, and some days I’m drafting proposals for how to make systemic changes,” says St. Pierre.
Her job is to encourage more women and girls to consider computer science or engineering as a career and to support them in their studies at UVic. Part of the job includes making changes to the culture and teaching methods so that these fields are more attractive to women.
St. Pierre has a BA in math and computer science from UVic. She was born in Iran and lived in Chad until she was 13 years old. “Chad is a difficult place for women. That has fuelled some of my interest for doing this job; I see what the needs are,” she says.
St. Pierre’s day-long workshops for middle-school students give participants both the hands-on engineering work of building a LEGO robot and the computer science experience of programming it.
“A lot of research has been done about what happens to minorities—when somebody feels like they don’t belong to the majority, that lack of social support results in grades dropping. That immediately results in isolation,” says St. Pierre.
“A lot of the work I’m doing is about bringing about inclusivity and trying to raise awareness, so that the students who graduate from this program are also socially respectful. Mostly, I talk to people about what the issues are and where the changes need to be made,” says St. Pierre.
St. Pierre, mother of a four-year-old girl, spends her spare time teaching children’s classes for the Baha’i faith. For one hour a week, St. Pierre teaches children from 5 to 11 years old about things like generosity, unity and justice through songs and rhymes. “It brings the language of virtue to children,” says St. Pierre.
Sometimes, St. Pierre can’t help but take her work home with her. When she was asked to bring her robot workshop to her daughter’s preschool class, it ended in a robot dance party. “We put the robot in a circle and made it dance. And this robot, if you touched his toe, he would go ‘Ow.’” The next day, St. Pierre had parents ask her, “Are you responsible for having our kids walk around like robots all day and having us touch their toes and say ‘Ow’?”
|
