Celebrating Wisconsin’s Women in Research - Off The Record Podcast

More and more women are getting involved in science-based careers historically dominated by men. Although women are still underrepresented in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources has a number of women scientists.

In honor of International Women’s Day on March 8, we talked with three women research scientists at the DNR. Listen in as Stephanie Shaw, Jennifer Stenglein and Christine Anhalt-Depies discuss their work, experiences as researchers and their advice for other women interested in science-based careers.
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TRANSCRIPT
Announcer: [00:00:00] Welcome to Wisconsin DNRs Wild Wisconsin - Off The Record podcast, information straight from the source.

Katie Grant: [00:00:12] Welcome back to another episode of Wild Wisconsin - Off The Record, I'm your host, DNRs digital media coordinator, Katie Grant.

International Women's Day is March 8th. It's a global day to celebrate the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women. International Women's Day has occurred for well over a century with the first gathering in 1911 which was supported by over a million people. The 2020 theme encourages us to work together to create a gender equal world. According to the UNESCO's Institute of Statistics, only about 30% of the world's scientific researchers are women.

Let's meet a few of them.

Jennifer Stenglein: [00:00:51] Hi, I'm Jennifer Stenglein.

Christine Anhalt-Depies: [00:00:53] Hi, I'm Christine Anhalt-Depies.

Stephanie Shaw: [00:00:55] Hi, I'm Stephanie Shaw.

Katie Grant: [00:00:57] These three women all work for our Office of Applied Science. Sit back and listen in to our conversation about the obstacles faced by women in STEM fields, what inspired them to pursue a career in science and the advice that they have for girls who are interested in following a similar path.

Jennifer Stenglein: [00:01:14] All right, so I'm a research scientist, a quantitative wildlife research scientist, and my job is a couple of different things. Part of it is working on a statewide trail camera project called Snapshot Wisconsin, where we work with a bunch of volunteers to collect data for wildlife decision support. And the other part of my job is about deer and deer populations.

So we gather data statewide to become inputs into our population models and derive population estimates for each deer management unit of Wisconsin. And we work with wildlife management staff across the state, and they work with their County Deer Advisory Councils to help get that information out there.

Katie Grant: [00:02:00] Very cool. How about you, Christine?

Christine Anhalt-Depies: [00:02:03] I am also a research scientist with the DNR and like Jen, I work on the Snapshot Wisconsin project. I'm the project coordinator. So that involves working with a whole team of people, including Jen, um, where we partner with the people of the state to monitor wildlife using this statewide network of trail cameras.

Stephanie Shaw: [00:02:23] So I'm a fisheries research scientist for the DNR. So very similar stuff to what the other ladies work on, except I am obviously fish oriented, kind of how, uh, um, Jen mentioned it or it's, um, quantitative population dynamics, I guess. So it's a lot of modeling. Um, and kind of looking at taking info from a lot of management assessments and really looking at how kind of aquatic ecology, um, harvest and different types of things kind of play out.

And trying to help kind of get our managers information on kind of the best things to do for their sport fish populations.

Katie Grant: [00:02:59] Very cool. I feel like I, I'm not the smartest person in the room right now, surrounded by a lot of really smart women, which is super cool. What got each of you interested in a career in science and I guess, how old were you when you knew that this or something like it was what you wanted to do? Stephanie, let's start with you.

Stephanie Shaw: [00:03:17] Um, you know, I always remember liking science as a little kid. I don't know that I recognize it as science, but I liked being outside and I liked, you know, typical tomboy, girly things like bugs and dirt and fish and animals. And, um, I guess I didn't really get into science until kind of school and later, you know, when you start to get formal classes and stuff. And I, though, they were always my favorite classes, you know, and um, that kind of continued through college. And, um, I guess eventually I ended up where I am, where I could do science and be outdoors and all that good stuff. So, yeah.

Katie Grant: [00:03:53] And why fi...