“Equitable access to tech education is vital for Indigenous students to make sure we don’t get left behind,” she says.

Boyer’s second robot, SkoBot, is her baby, born to help teach the endangered Ojibwe language, Anishinaabemowin, and other Indigenous languages. SkoBots are about 10 inches tall, wearable, and pretty freakin’ cute. The latest generation includes a makwa (bear) and a waabooz (rabbit) designed in collaboration with an Ojibwe tattoo artist from Boyer’s home state of Michigan. “Kids love them; kids relate to them,” Boyer says.

SkoBots sense motion and say “boozhoo” (hello) and other phrases in response. Boyer’s nonprofit, STEAM Connection, provides the kits for free, and students build the SkoBots themselves. Boyer is currently recording more words in the voices of Ojibwe children and elders (including her grandmother) to expand the robots’ repertoire.

Boyer takes her robots on the road to demonstrate technology as a tool to communicate, advocate, and relate while imparting hands-on engineering skills. But, she says, she hasn’t always felt welcome in STEM.

During her childhood in a tribal community in Sault Ste. Marie, MI, it took Boyer two years to save $800 to join the public high school’s robotics club. She was the only girl and the only Indigenous student.

“People in my community experience financial and other inequities in education, and that was a barrier to my own STEM education,” she recalls. “And then there’s the troubling energy around women in STEM. Even my own dad said women weren’t meant to be engineers.”

So, she’s here to prove that Indigenous women do belong in STEM—and wherever they choose to showcase their talents and make their voices heard.

Boyer has already racked up an impressive list of accomplishments: She was part of the White House Tribal Youth Forum and received the Echoing Green Fellowship and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation prize. She moved to San Diego three years ago and travels frequently. With trips to Poland, the UK, Ghana, and China coming up, she’ll show people all over the world how tech can help preserve cultural history for the next generation.

October 28, 2024

November Pub Note: Rising to the OccasionRELATED ARTICLE

“To be Indigenous is a protest and a constant advocating for the future of your community,” she says. “There’s a myth that Indigenous people exist only in the past. But we’re here now and we will be here in the future.”

The post 23-Year-Old Invents Wearable Robot to Preserve Indigenous Languages appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

In 2016, during a council meeting about racial profiling by the San Diego Police Department, Cole made comments seemingly condoning the practice. Not long after, Montgomery Steppe quit Cole’s office. In 2018, she challenged Cole and won the District 4 seat.

“I left her office because that was the line that I didn’t want to cross,” Montgomery Steppe says. “I knew that I would have to represent her and what she said, and I was not able to do that. That was really one pivotal moment that helped me to have the courage to stand on my own values.”

Last year, Montgomery Steppe was elected to the County Board of Supervisors in a special election, becoming the first Black woman to hold the position. She has already helped bring home a deal between UC San Diego and the county to convert the former Alvarado hospital campus in the College Area into a psychiatric facility with 30 behavioral health beds and a crisis stabilization unit.

“I want to make sure that we are considering people who we have never considered before in San Diego’s history when we’re crafting and implementing these policies,” she says. “It really has been America’s Finest City for a select group of people—so, every day, my work is to make sure we can all say this is America’s Finest City, because we’re all being treated fairly and we’re all at the table making decisions.”

The post Supervisor Montgomery Steppe Is Helping Ensure SD’s Policies Serve Everyone appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Determined to help, Ferrigno started distributing pads—only to realize that the plastic-loaded products were solving one problem but causing another. She partnered with a factory and, after much trial and error, developed a compostable pad that degrades within six months.

During the pandemic, “I spent a lot of time in the sanitary hygiene aisles,” Ferrigno says. “I recognized that there weren’t compostable products readily available for menstruators [in the US].” In 2022, she began selling her sustainable period products under the name Moon Pads, a certified B Corp operating with a “buy one, give one” model to distribute free pads in Tibet, India, Nepal, Nigeria, Mexico, and the States, where, according to Period.org, one in four students struggles to afford necessary menstrual products.

“Giving people access to these products helps improve public health,” Ferrigno says. “It helps improve school attendance, which helps improve literacy. It helps improve our economy, because if menstruators aren’t working for a week out of each month, that hits our economy. People don’t realize it’s a huge, cross-cutting issue.”

The post Moon Pads Provides Sustainable Period Products to Tibetan Nomads appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Yet her efforts never stopped. In 2003, Ahmed cofounded License to Freedom in El Cajon, an organization that helps immigrant survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault.

“I grew up in a system where women did not have the privilege they were supposed to have,” Ahmed says. “What led me [to this work] is the lack of opportunity where I grew up.” Ahmed now returns to Iraq at least once a year to collaborate with organizations on the ground helping those who have experienced domestic violence.

License to Freedom not only addresses the immediate concerns of women facing violence but tries to tackle systemic issues by providing other resources, like youth and economic development programs, mental health services, and treatment for offenders in multiple languages. Looking forward, Ahmed hopes License to Freedom can push for policy shifts in El Cajon to improve housing affordability and quality for immigrants in the city.

“We recognize that refugees come from the colonial system—that tells you how to talk, how to act,” she says. “Restoring of justice is always restoring of power.”

The post The Local Activist Caring for Immigrant Survivors of Domestic Violence appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“I decided that something was missing from my life at that moment, and once more I needed to give back,” DeBerry says.

In January 2020, she became president and CEO of the County of San Diego Black Chamber of Commerce (CSDBCC), where she supports minority- and women-owned enterprises. “Everybody should live for a legacy transforming and shaping peoples’ lives for the better,” she says.

Early in her career, corporate HR roles offered DeBerry insight into the systemic challenges women and Black people face in the business world. DeBerry founded her consulting business to show executives how inclusive policies positively impact companies’ bottom line.

October 28, 2024

November Pub Note: Rising to the OccasionRELATED ARTICLE

“The struggles are still real for women, especially women of color, in business,” DeBerry says. “It’s a question of equality versus equity. Yes, we might have an equal opportunity to start a business, but we don’t have equitable access to the capital that we need to compete.”

In March 2024, CSDBCC launched the Women’s Kitchen Table as a safe space to network and organize. DeBerry keeps tabs on San Diego’s wealthiest institutions, like SDG&E and UC San Diego—just two of the many organizations CSDBCC partners with—to make sure minority-owned businesses have access to vendor contracts, along with funding to support growth. Under her tenure, San Diego–based corporations have donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to support CSDBCC initiatives—Sony Electronics alone has contributed more than $200,000.

“[Something] I’m proud of, personally and professionally, is that any time I’m in an influential position, I bring more women along,” DeBerry says. “It’s my responsibility to open those doors.”

DeBerry recently sold her Carlsbad home and moved onto a boat at Pier 32. At 69, she has raised four children and now has four grandchildren. “This is my best life, doing something good for the community,” she says.

The post Donna DeBerry’s Second Act: Creating Equity for Minority- & Women-Owned Businesses appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The daughter of Filipino immigrants, Garces grew up in Hawai‘i. After earning a degree in marketing at SDSU and working in event production for more than a decade, she started her company in 2020 with the intent of helping her community come together during the pandemic.

One of Social Artistry’s first “events” was not exactly a gathering. Called Box Creations, it was a response to the fear AAPI women felt while venturing out in a time when hate aimed at people of Asian descent was on the rise. Garces partnered with the Asian Business Association, Cox, SDG&E, and local artists to paint electrical boxes along Convoy with messages of hope and healing.

Garces is also part of the organizing force behind Balboa Park’s December Nights and helped make the beloved event a “drive-through” during the pandemic.

“We created a piece of San Diego history,” she recalls. “There was nothing else like it—people were honking along to ‘Jingle Bells’ while they waited in line in their cars. It brought San Diegans together at a time when we were so alone.”

Garces has now added her magic to Convoy San Diego Night Market, the Linda Vista Multi-Cultural Fair, and the Asian Film Festival, designing gatherings that connect local art, food, dance, music, entertainment, crafts, and cultural organizations to welcome visitors and residents alike. “One big event could be a celebration of a special time, but we also want it to be a showcase for what that community offers,” she says. “We want to inspire action to support our communities year-round.” She’s been invited to work on several Lunar New Year celebrations in 2025.

Most of the events Garces organizes are free to attend, backed by city, county, and local sponsors. She also co-chairs the San Diego Asian Pacific Islander Coalition, a partnership of more than 40 organizations from around the county. The coalition has secured empowerment grants from San Diego Foundation and driven a new research study of the AAPI diaspora in San Diego.

The post For This Local Entrepreneur, Events Are an Art Form appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

The Prebys Foundation is looking to change all that. In May, the San Diego–based charitable organization, in partnership with the Science Philanthropy Alliance, awarded $500,000 grants to 14 local women scientists working to transform human health. Intended to fund projects by research leaders from underrepresented groups, the org’s Research Heroes initiative also has the potential to transform treatments for cancer, Alzheimer’s, infectious viruses, and other illnesses. Meet the program’s first cohort.

Xin Jin

Xin Jin is an assistant professor of neuroscience at Scripps Research. She is exploring brain development’s cellular mechanisms to better understand and track the progression of disorders like autism and schizophrenia.

Stephanie Fraley

Stephanie Fraley is an associate professor of bioengineering at UC San Diego, leads a lab focused on improving infectious disease detection and finding treatments for cancer metastasis (or spread) to combat two leading causes of death around the globe.

Rachel Blaser

Rachel Blaser is a professor of psychological sciences at the University of San Diego. She was awarded the grant for her groundbreaking research on human cognition and memory, which aims to detect early signs of cognitive decline, potentially transforming the approach to diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Dannielle Engle

Danielle Engle is an assistant professor and the Helen McLoraine Developmental Chair at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies’ Regulatory Biology Laboratory. She’s working to discover a quick and simple diagnostic marker for pancreatic cancer, similar to the PSA test for prostate cancer or screenings for colon cancer.

Razel Milo

Razel Milo is an associate professor of nursing and health science at the University of San Diego, as well as a family nurse practitioner and behavioral science researcher. She’s creating surveys in Tagalog to measure the life satisfaction and stress levels of Filipino Americans, hoping to improve healthcare for that community.

Angelica Riestra

Angelica Riestra is an assistant professor of biology at San Diego State University. She is developing ways to fight the parasite that causes trichomoniasis, a common sexually transmitted infection with links to cervical cancer, HIV, and other health issues.

Mia Huang

Mia Huang is an associate professor of chemistry at Scripps Research, is studying the biological functions of glycans, a complex sugar molecule in the human body, with the aim to predict and reduce pregnancy health risks by finding early markers for potential complications.

Marygorret Obonyo

Marygorret Obonyo is an associate professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine, is finding new methods to identify genes that increase the risk of developing gastric cancer—the third leading cause of cancer-related deaths—and forge effective new treatments for the disease.

Erica Ollman Saphire

Erica Ollman Saphire is the president and CEO of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology. She’s working to determine why we get sick by researching how viruses interact with the immune system. She captures images of pathogens to learn where they are susceptible to antibodies.

Sonia Sharma

Sonia Sharma is an associate professor at the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, is studying immune system differences between sexes, with the ultimate goal of creating new treatments for Alzheimer’s, which disproportionately impacts women.

Tatyana Sharpee

Tatyana Sharpee is a neuroscientist and professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. Drawing on her background in physics, she’s creating an algorithm to predict the impact of strokes, schizophrenia, and other diagnoses on the brain.

Sujan Shresta

Sujan Shresta is a researcher and professor at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology. The grant will help fund her mission to develop a vaccine that inoculates against multiple flaviviruses, a category that includes dengue, Zika, and West Nile.

Lisa Stowers

Lisa Stowers is a neuroscientist and professor at Scripps Research focusing on the brain’s structure—especially the way it processes scents—in order to help progress treatments for depression, autism, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and other disorders.

Daniela Valdez-Jasso

Daniela Valdez-Jasso is an associate professor of bioengineering at UC San Diego. She’s seeking ways to diagnose and treat pulmonary hypertension—high blood pressure of the lungs—before the need for a lung transplant.

The post 14 Women Working to Transform Human Health appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

People close to me joke that I must be serving the “good stuff” when they witness my two kids tandem breastfeeding—a practice that involves nursing two children of different ages at the same time.

One morning, when we were feeding, my oldest unlatched and asked, “Mommy, can I have a sleepover with my friends?” She’s 4-years-old and has been breastfeeding her whole life, alongside her younger brother since he was born.

Cognitive dissonance goes hand-in-hand with breastfeeding, tandem or otherwise. I often go from lovingly gazing at my sweet angels to thinking, “Get these blood-sucking monsters away from me!” in mere seconds. 

I know my case is atypical—only 35 percent of 1-year-olds are still breastfeeding, according to the CDC, and there’s no data after that, even though the American Association of Pediatrics recommends breastfeeding up to “two years and beyond.” 

From the start, I have been stumped by the sheer lack of significant research on tandem breastfeeding. A study that concluded the nutritional contents of breastmilk adapt to the needs of older and younger children in tandem-nursing mothers had just 13 participants. 

Furthermore, breastfeeding expert Dr. Diane Spatz wrote in an article in the November 2023 American Journal of Maternal/Child Nursing that many providers in the field don’t even know what tandem breastfeeding is, much less how to guide people who decide to do it. 

Tandem breastfeeding wasn’t really something I decided on. Instead, it was something that happened to us as a family. 

I hold this idea that my oldest will wean on her own terms—many kids stop breastfeeding during pregnancy, as the milk becomes more salty and less rich. But in my seventh month of pregnancy, my daughter was still happily nursing, so I started imagining what it would be like if I nursed both children at once. 

When I Googled tandem breastfeeding, I saw a very idealized picture of the practice: smiling mothers, bonded siblings, thriving families. And there have been really sweet moments—and a lot of convenient ones, like when my kids are both crying and I can console them by giving each one a breast to drink from—but there have also been many unexpected challenges. 

I did not anticipate how tired, thirsty, and hungry I was going to be. In this study, 55 percent of respondents identified “tiredness, frequent night waking, and painful breasts” as the main challenge associated with tandem breastfeeding. 

Some days I can work, leave the house, go to the grocery store, and do life as a more-or-less normal adult. But there are many others in which the exhaustion sets in and I can do nothing more than read a book or doom-scroll. Typically, I eat three eggs for breakfast and a full lunch and dinner heavy on protein, and still, if I don’t have a snack before I go to bed, hunger will wake me up in the middle of the night. 

A few months ago, I was on edge, deep in the transformation that closing the first year postpartum inevitably brings, and having two children constantly attached to me felt too overwhelming. I was ready to be done with tandem nursing, and to aid the transition, I hired a photographer friend to take pictures of both my children breastfeeding.

When the photographer sent me the pictures, all I could see was my eldest’s little face as she gazed at her brother, touching his tiny hand. As she continues to breastfeed in her fourth year of life, she is not only getting the nutritional and immunological benefits of breastfeeding, but also the sort of attachment that lasts a lifetime. A bond between us three that goes beyond what science can explain. 

During a morning like any other, my 18-month-old frolics about, occasionally pausing to nurse. My oldest child drinks deeply from the other breast. I lay back in the fortress of pillows that is my couch, and I watch my kids drink from me and play happily. I know, in a minute, I will feel agitated and yell at them to get off me, but for this one second, it is perfect. 

The post Essay: What Tandem Breastfeeding Taught Me appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“We, as women, grow up being told we can’t do these things, that we’re small, that we’re gonna get hurt,” says one Wildfires player, who goes by the name Xicana Heat. She wrote her master’s thesis on roller derby as a form of social and political resistance. “But everyone [I talked to for my thesis] felt … very strong, very empowered. And you’re surrounded by people who do nothing but support you.”

While a few players graduated to the Wildfires from Ringer’s youth league, most found derby as adults. For some, familial expectations barred them from sports as kids, so developing the strength and balance needed to play what’s essentially high-speed Red Rover was a slow (but rewarding) road. The Wildfires have members as young as 18. Others are in their 50s.

In derby, groups of five face off during two-minute “jams,” with each team’s “jammer” aiming to barrel past four opposing blockers and earn points. Invented in the 1930s, the sport drew serious crowds for a few decades, then declined, but a grassroots, women-led revival is bringing it back. The players take on punny derby names—and, for many, those monikers are a way to unleash the truest versions of themselves.

Though the players sometimes don’t know one another’s “real” names, their bond is palpable. At the team’s recent derby-themed art show at Convoy’s Hopnonymous Brewing Company, one player helped another study for a college Spanish test while SoCal Derby board member Reckem Ralph clarified details for their upcoming bout.

Each Wildfire I spoke to cited those bonds—even more than the love of the game, which they have in spades—as the reason they stay, strapping on their skates each week. “If I had to choose between playing derby and keeping you people,” Reckem Ralph says, gazing at her team, “I’d keep you people.”

The post San Diego’s Toughest Athletes Aren’t On the Team You Think appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

“There was a need. There was a void. There was an opportunity,” she reflects. Mah leads Stella and Ad Astra Ventures, two San Diego–based financial platforms finding and offering funding, respectively, for women entrepreneurs.

Now a pillar of the city’s financial and investment communities, Mah is a scientist at heart. She moved from her native Venezuela to California to study biology at Pepperdine University. Afterward, she settled in San Diego, drawn by the allure of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, where she earned a PhD in Marine Biology and topped it off with an MBA from University of California, San Diego’s Rady School of Management. Armed with business acumen and a researcher’s soul, she started a few companies that led her into San Diego’s investment world.

Mah says that, despite a robust community where people “want to invest in San Diego [and] make San Diego a start-up hub for those entrepreneurs that really want to get things done,” there was something missing. “I didn’t see a lot of me. I didn’t see women and I didn’t see a lot of Latinas,” Mah shares. “I said, ‘You know what? I can fundamentally change this somehow, some way, by writing checks to women entrepreneurs.’”

Twelve years ago, she filled the space with Stella, a 501c3 nonprofit, which had its beginnings as an all-women coworking space called Hera Hub. In its current iteration, Stella is “a constellation of resources and services for entrepreneurs, where they are able to go from launch to exit,” Mah explains. “We are also a constellation for those investors who want to fund them.”

Offering several different services, including courses from Stella Labs and an annual Women’s Venture Summit, Stella has helped provide $100 million in funding for women-led start-ups, thanks to its 75 female angel investors.

Ad Astra Ventures is Mah’s microfund. She runs the firm with two fellow founding partners. “We’re evaluating companies that fit our investment thesis,” she says. Mah herself has invested in more than 140 companies, including Vizer, an app that converts users’ daily exercise into donations to nonprofits through partnerships with other local businesses. Co-founders Samantha Pantazopoulos and Dylan Barbour “came through our accelerator really, really early,” Mah says. “They were in their 20s, still right out of USD.” According to Pitchbook, Vizer’s latest seed round in September of 2023 found them $2.3 million.

Mah hopes that her companies’ support helps more women-fronted businesses get off the ground—and reach toward the stars. “We would love for them to get to their next milestone” she says. “So, [that might mean] that they get a loan from a bank, or they go into revenue-based financing, or they really understand their projection and [are able] to get to Series A. We want to help them get there.”

The post The San Diego Investor Funding Women Entrepreneurs Locally appeared first on San Diego Magazine.