Women in STEAM Share Personal, Professional Journeys at UAlbany Women’s Day Celebration

Seven women are seated on a stage as another woman asks questions from a lectern. A screen behind them says "International Women's Day Panel Discussion.""

Women in science, engineering and the arts shared their stories at an International Women’s Day celebration held March 6, 2026 at UAlbany. (Photos by Patrick Dodson)

By Bethany Bump

ALBANY, N.Y. (March 10, 2026) — Cathleen Schiraldi understands that her path to becoming a staff scientist at Regeneron could seem straightforward on the surface.

The summer before she graduated from UAlbany with her PhD in molecular biology, she landed an internship with the large biotechnology company, whose campus across the Hudson River in Rensselaer employs thousands of scientists, engineers and others who help manufacture biologic drugs that treat serious diseases.

A woman in a blue and white striped button down speaks into a microphone on a stage as another woman watches — Cathleen Schiraldi discusses her road from UAlbany to Regeneron.

After graduating in 2019, she was offered a job in the same department where she interned, quality control virology, ensuring drug safety and quality. After a year, she moved to another department but found the amount of desk work did not suit her, so she moved into a new position that gave her more time in the laboratory.

“It sounds very nice and very linear, right? It sounds like I have my sh-t together. But I do not,” she said. “It was really hard.”

Schiraldi shared her personal and professional journey with around 100 students, faculty and alumni who gathered Friday at UAlbany’s Life Sciences Research Building to celebrate women in STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics). It was part of an International Women’s Day networking event organized by the student chapter of the Society of Women Engineering and Women in Science and Health, and sponsored by UAlbany’s College of Nanotechnology, Science, and Engineering (CNSE), Center of Excellence in Nanoelectronics and Nanotechnology and Center for Advanced Technology in Nanomaterials and Nanoelectronics.

“I really struggled with the transition from academia to industry,” said Schiraldi, who spent six years getting her PhD and was only in the first year of her job when the COVID-19 pandemic happened. She also became a new mom around this time.

“I was working from home and didn’t like what I was doing,” she said. “I didn’t know anyone because I was working from home and I felt really alone. I eventually got more comfortable in my job, motherhood and life, but it was a lot of trying to learn to embrace that chaos. It’s not linear. It’s going to be up and down.”

Embracing chaos was the theme of a keynote speech delivered by Sarah Grunow, who earned her MS and PhD in physics from UAlbany and is now director of Package & Test at GlobalFoundries. As a manager, wife, mother to two teen boys, and caregiver to an aging parent and a dog, Grunow said she has “become someone who walks toward chaos.”

The theme resonated with the women who joined Grunow for a panel discussion as well as members of the audience, several of whom said parenthood made them intimately familiar with chaos.

Other women professionals working in STEM and the arts joined Grunow and Schiraldi for a discussion and Q&A, including:

Julia Boyne, staff engineer at Tighe & Bonde
Anuja De Silva, technical director at Lam Research
Kyra Gaunt, associate professor of Music & Theatre, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Sociology and the AI+ Institute at UAlbany
Monette Khadr, senior manager at Cloud and Things
Jian Zhou, vice president of Federal Programs at Pyramid Systems, Inc.

Composite of four photos of women speaking on a stage — Clockwise from top left: Sarah Grunow, Jian Zhou, Michele J. Grimm and Kyra Gaunt

The women spoke candidly about the challenges of balancing personal and professional goals, dealing with self doubt, the importance of setting boundaries, and asking for what you want and need.

“People will bring you things and say, we want you to do this because you’re so good at it. That’s why they want you to do it, but you’ve got to remember why you want to do it,” said CNSE Professor Kathleen Dunn, who moderated the discussion. “It needs to serve you too. Women are socialized to be pleasers. We’ve got to be careful about that.”

Gaunt, an associate professor of ethnomusicology who specializes in Black music and girlhood studies, urged women in the audience to hone and develop the skill of listening to their inner voice.

"What does your gut, which we don't teach you to listen to in academic spaces, tell you is the answer first?" she said. "Because if you're not careful, other people's answers will become your first answer."

A young woman seated in an auditorium surrounded by other people speaks into a microphone — Students, alumni and others in the audience participated in a Q&A with panelists.

While the share of women in STEM fields has grown considerably over the past 50 years, there is still work to be done, said CNSE Dean Michele J. Grimm, noting that women made up less than 3 percent of engineers in the U.S. in 1970. Today, that number is closer to 16 percent, although it has not climbed much since around 2010, she said.

Similarly, the pipeline of women choosing to study engineering has grown significantly — with women earning roughly one-fifth to one-quarter of engineering bachelor’s degrees nationwide compared to just 1 percent in the early 1970s.

Representation alone is not enough, Grimm said.

“What truly sustains progress is community, and that is where mentorship and mutual support become so important,” she said. “No one succeeds in science or engineering alone.”

Tia Swenty, a third-year nanobioscience PhD student who attended Friday’s event, said it was reassuring to hear stories of both success and struggle from the women on stage. Swenty, who came to UAlbany by way of the U.S. Marine Corps, is used to being one of few women in male-dominated spaces and said imposter syndrome can creep in if you don’t remind yourself that others have likely struggled to get where they are. Leaning on other women for guidance and support has been a big help, she said.

“Oftentimes you hear about the success stories but you don’t hear all the struggles that get someone there,” she said. “These women shared those today.”