By addressing underrepresentation of minority women in STEM and breaking boundaries...together we can all SOAR

Jasmine Walker is a sophomore at Emory University located in Atlanta, Georgia. She is a Human Health major and African American Studies minor on the pre-medical track. Jasmine is the Co-President of S.O.A.R. and an Emory Student Ambassador.

During high school Jasmine participated in several STEM related programs and internships. She conducted neuroscience research at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, and shared her work in science fairs in the Cleveland area. She completed the Cleveland Clinic Young Business Leaders Internship, a program wherein she worked alongside Cleveland Clinic business professionals performing medical statistical analysis and generating reports on US News Hospital Rankings. As a Youth Opportunities Unlimited Career Pathways participant, Jasmine also interned with the Pediatric Cardiology Division Chief at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospitals in Cleveland. She looks forward to continuing her exposure to research and STEM career fields during her time at Emory.

Jasmine has a passion for helping minority youth who are interested in STEM reach their career goals. This is what led her to get involved with the Center for Hopes and Dreams in Maple Heights, Ohio where she served as a member of the advisory committee and a peer mentor. The program targets at risk students in grades K-12 and provides homework help, educational activities, career planning, mentoring, character building, and inspires students to think about life beyond high school.

She is excited about continuing her work with youth interested in STEM, and building upon the work Alexa Dantzler, S.O.A.R.’s founder, has begun with this program.

Alexa Dantzler is an alumnus of Emory University in Atlanta, GA. She is a Biology and African Studies double major on the pre-medical track. As a mixed Korean, Slovak, and African -American woman, it did not take her long to realize racial disparities and lack of minority women from ethnicities traditionally underrepresented in STEM (African-Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, and Asian Pacific Islander) in her research experiences. When she was a 2013 Intel STS finalist and selected Glenn Seaborg Award winner, she realized she was the only student from a minority background traditionally underrepresented in STEM in her forty-student cohort. She founded Students Obtaining Atlanta Research (SOAR), which seeks to match high-achieving minority women traditionally underrepresented in STEM students from the Atlanta Public School system with prominent research-scientists on the brink of cutting-edge research at metro Atlanta universities, including Emory University and Georgia Tech. SOAR helps students act upon their developed interest in the sciences and gives them the opportunity to conduct university-level research not only to increase their participation in STEM and enter research science competitions but also to inspire them to gain a unique, real-world, hands-on research experience that may serve as a catalyst for them to pursue scientific study in college and engage in a STEM-related career in the future. She has conducted research since high school at Georgetown University and has continued engaging in research projects in college ranging in topics from prostate cancer research at Emory University School of Medicine to pediatric medical anxiety in kindergartners in Atlanta to maternal health care projects in Thailand. She is a Robert W. Woodruff Scholar at Emory University, President of Emory's Minority Pre-Medical Society, President of SEED (Student Educational Experience Development), a Peer Health Mentor with the Pre Health Mentoring Office at Emory, moderator of MERGE (Multi Ethnic and Racial Group at Emory), and a STEM motivational speaker in Atlanta Public Schools. 

Dr. Barbara Coble came to Atlanta in 1980 to attend Clark Atlanta University and graduated with a B.S. in Mathematics in '85 and M.B.A. in '88. She worked in the corporate world for 3 years. She taught mathematics at Tucker High School in DeKalb County for 7 years and worked as a program specialist and Camp Director for Camp Fire Boys and Girls before attending graduate school at Emory. She graduated from Emory with Ph.D. in Education in August, 2010. She has worked as the Education Partnerships Manager of Graduation Generation at Emory for 5 years. She has presented her research in the area of empowerment at the American Educational Research Association. She has presented her work in the area of University-Community partnerships at the Gulf South Summit, the National Chinese Language Conference, the Imagining America Conference and as an Emory Alumni Association Social Justice Roundtable Panelist at Emory University. She enjoys working with young people of all ages and her volunteer service in this area includes working as a youth program coordinator and Sunday school volunteer.  In her free time, she enjoys traveling and spending time with her family-her husband and 3 sons.