Agents of Change: Elsie MacGill’s Legacy in STEM

Shawna Pandya

Dr. Shawna Pandya is an inspiring Canadian Physician, Aquanaut, Martial Artist, Sky Diver, Speaker, Pilot-in-training, and Scientist-Astronaut Candidate. 

Dr. Pandya was inspired to pursue neuroscience as an avid fan of Dr. Roberta Bondar, the first Canadian women in space, who was herself, a neuroscientist, physician, and astronaut.  Dr. Pandya has achieved many first in her career including being part of the first crew to test a commercial spacesuit in zero-gravity.  Although she is a general physician, Dr. Pandya focused her studies on space while also earning certifications in solo sky-diving, advance, open water, Nitrox and rescue diving. To top it all off, she is a second-degree black belt in Taekwondo and has trained and competed in Muay Thai.

As a first-generation Indian immigrant, this Edmontonian has an awe-inspiring work ethic and dedication to her team that has helped her overcome systemic gendered and ethnic bias.  When she’s not kicking butt at work or in the dojang, Dr. Pandya is a passionate advocate for mental health and the importance of diversity in STEM and has lent her support for the DISCOVER THE COSMOS campaign that champions equitable access to education and employment and is raising donations to “charities working to inspire the innovators of tomorrow.”

Natalie Panek

Natalie Panek is an Aerospace Engineer, Pilot, Adventurer, Tedx Speaker, and advocate for women in STEM.  Natalie is passionate about our environment here on earth and above and has spoken openly about the issue of space junk – unused or broken satellites that take up our orbit space around the earth.  As a ‘leave no trace’ advocate – she’s using her genius for aerospace robotics to combat this outer space pollution and helping to bring awareness to this issue through her speaking engagements.

Natalie is part of the next generation of Canadian aerospace engineers working on our robotics and space exploration programs.  This work includes working on the Rosalind Franklin/ExoMars rover (now targeting a 2028 launch to Mars).

The only girl in her high school physics class, Natalie has been forging her own path since her early years.  Growing up in the Alberta Rockies, she’s spent her life literally climbing mountains.  Figuratively, she’s faced many hills and valleys, too, including spine surgery nearly two years ago. Despite these challenges, it’s her endless curiosity that continues to drive her personal life and career in STEM.  Each day offering a chance to explore “What if we…?” questions and ideas and live in a world of limitless possibilities.

As a speaker, Natalie shares an inspiring message of resiliency, inclusivity, and revolutionizing women in technology.  Over the past decade, Natalie has received many awards and accolades including CBC’s 12 young leaders changing Canada, Forbes 30 under 30 and Canadian Geographic’s Canada's Greatest Women Explorers. 

When she’s not knee-deep in science-y stuff, you can find Natalie breathing fresh air on one of her many outdoor adventures, fly fishing, canoeing, and taking in each moment with a sense of wonder and gratitude.

Photo credit (bottom right): Ryan Brough

Vanessa Vakharia

Vanessa Vakharia is a rock star.

Not only is she the founder and director of The Math Guru, a boutique math and science tutoring studio in Toronto, but she is also the author of the Math Hacks book series, the host of the Math Therapy podcast, but she’s also the co-founder of the band Goodnight Sunrise where Vanessa plays the keytar and shares lead vocals with guitarist, David Kochberg.

Vanessa’s story is one of resilience and ambition.  After failing grade 11 math TWICE, no one could have predicted that Vanessa would go on to become “The Math Guru” and to fall in love with the subject she was sure she couldn’t learn.  But, with the help of a great teacher, Vanessa overcame the false narrative that she ‘wasn’t a math person’ or that ‘girl’s brains just aren’t as good at math’ and now she’s on a mission to make sure other girls know that anyone can do math (and even grow to love it!).

Vanessa boldly claims to be “Rock-star good at math” and that willingness to step into her own power is an inspiration for the students that her studio tutors.  Vanessa isn’t shy about her big goals and unwavering ambitions to disrupt the way that math is taught and to raise up a generation of girls who are as comfortable sharing their math successes as they are sharing make-up tutorials.  In Vanessa’s world, women and girls can be complex individuals who are good at and love a variety of things.

In her interview with Math Values, Vanessa noted that, “So often we see one-dimensional representations of mathematicians in Hollywood that aren’t representative of our classroom. When students feel like they need to forgo relationships, a social life, and any sense of fashion in order to embrace math…they lose interest.”

Vanessa isn’t just challenging our perceptions of what it means to be ‘a math person’ in her own studio but uses her social platforms and podcast to confront the harmful stereotypes she sees in the media and debunk them. Math isn’t ‘for nerds’, it’s actually kind of cool and it’s for everyone.

Vanessa’s super power isn’t that she has some innate ability to do math that is unique to her multi-talented brain - it’s that she approaches math from a place of excitement instead of dread.  Despite her own math failures, she’s learned to be gentle with herself; it’s a message she teaches her students, too.  

While she acknowledges that there is still a lot of work to do in terms of representation of women in STEM, in a recent Instagram post, Vanessa noted that many women (and girls) are already interested in STEM and need less encouragement to get into the field, instead she suggests that we need to hold people “accountable for making sure STEM environments are actually inclusive, safe, and accessible enough FOR women”.  

It’s this kind of inclusive thinking that makes Vanessa’s “The Math Guru” tutoring studio so successful.  With it’s obvious warmth, comfy couches, collaborative teaching approach, come-as-you-are culture, and celebration of individual growth and achievement, Vanessa Vakharia is making it possible for her students to do more than overcome their math problems – she’s making sure they thrive.

Tamar Huggins

Tamar Huggins is unapologetically ambitious.

Empowering girls and people of colour through her innovative tech education platform, Tech Spark, that personalizes learning using data, AI, and hip-hop culture, Tamar is making “good trouble” in an industry where marginalized voices often face explicit and implicit bias barriers.

A graduate of Centennial College’s Advertising and Marketing Communications Management program, Tamar is using her communication skills, and marketing savvy to impact youth education in STEM for some of our most marginalized communities.

In an interview with her alma mater, Tamar shared her passion for empowering marginalized and racialized communities “through education, by training young people and working with school boards to intentionally redesign existing courses so that they are reflective of students’ culture, are culturally relevant and responsive, and they get the students the training and the access that they would need to start making some informed decisions.” 

In order to challenge the educational status quo and remove barriers, Tamar’s team at Tech Spark works directly with teachers, “to help them understand and recognize potential in students, especially Black students, who are often stereotyped, whether it’s through unconscious or direct bias. We work with them to identify those Black excellence characteristics within these students so that they can push them, as well as encourage them and let them know what they have access to, versus just providing them with a narrow viewpoint of how they are and what they can become.”

Having received multiple awards for her work within the technology and education spheres, Tamar Huggins’ dream for STEM education is deeply rooted in social change and equity.

Tamar believes that we need a wide range of voices at the table to lead in tech.  We need to hear how women, Indigenous, Black, and other racialized & marginalized groups are being failed by technology so that we can build the solutions they need and deserve.

Diversity is what drives innovation, after all.

Want to learn even more about how Elsie MacGill’s legacy continues to inspire this next generation of women in STEM? Dive into her incredible story and discover how she overcame barriers to become one of most outstanding Canadians of the 20th century.