“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.

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.

Celebrating Women 2022, header

San Diego Magazine’s Annual Celebrating Women Awards are back! It’s time to celebrate San Diegans who are making waves and changing the game. Our awards honor standout women or those who identify as female in six (6) categories (Builders, Creators, Activists, Healers, Public Servants, and Moguls), along with San Diego Magazine’s selected Woman of the Year.

A panel of 5-6 unbiased female judges will select between 150 to 250 finalists to be invited to our award ceremony. They will then select one honoree in each category and one Woman of the Year to be presented with an award at the ceremony. In order to keep it a true surprise, each honoree will not be announced until our in-person Celebrating Women Event presented by Copia Wealth Management & Insurance Services at the Town & Country Hotel on November 17, 2022. We look forward to receiving your nomination(s) and wish your nominee(s) the best of luck!

Instructions + Requirements

1. Individuals may only be nominated in one category. All nominees will automatically be eligible to receive the Woman of the Year Award.

2. Nominees must be 21+

3. Incomplete forms, including those with unanswered questions will automatically be disqualified.

4. If an individual is nominated more than once, our judges will select the most thorough nomination form to move forward with.

5. Nominating an individual does NOT guarantee they will be covered in San Diego magazine.

6. All nominees and nominators will be notified if they were selected as a finalist. However, this does not guarantee them a seat at the award ceremony. Individual seats will cost $70 each.

Please read through the categories below in order to select the best one to nominate each individual for. Some industries are listed in multiple categories. Please select the one you feel your nominee fits best in. We encourage you to thoroughly answer each question on the nomination form, so our judges can gain a full scope of just how amazing your nominee is.

Nomination Categories

BUILDER

• STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)
• Education
• Trade

CREATOR

• Food, Bev, and Hospitality
• Sports and Entertainment
• Art and Design

ACTIVIST

• Charitable Causes + Non-Profits
• Social Justice
• Law + Legal

HEALER

• Healthcare (Mental + Physical)
• Wellness and Fitness

PUBLIC SERVANTS

• Government
• Military Service
• Law + Legal
• Education

MOGUL

• Entrepreneurs
• Businesswomen
• CEO’s + Leaders

NOMINATIONS ARE NOW CLOSED

The post San Diego Magazine’s Celebrating Women 2022 Nominations appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Thrive Physical Therapy, hero

Courtesy of Thrive Physical Therapy

When Tori Dube first got to a pelvic floor physical therapist two months postpartum, her uterus had slipped from its usual position and was bulging into the vagina, a condition known as uterine prolapse. “Partially because I was very early postpartum and partially because I had a long natural birth,” Dube said, adding that she pushed for six hours to deliver her daughter.

She’s not alone. Postpartum pelvic floor injuries are a common problem. However, many postpartum women still don’t pay attention to their pelvic floor, before, during or after delivery.

According to Dube, pelvic floor disorders are normalized in our society. “I have friends now who have toddlers, and they thought it was normal to have incontinence issues and feel weak and never get back their strength, they thought that was a part of childbirth,” she said. “That didn’t resonate with me.”

After Michaela Staniford gave birth to her first child, she suffered from diastasis recti, a separation of the muscles in the abdomen. As a former professional athlete, she said her condition was caused by going back to exercising too early after birth. “I thought I was strong enough to power through but it was a lack of information on my part, and I wasn’t offered that information through any doctors,” she said.

This motivated her work. Now a certified pregnancy and postpartum coach in San Diego, she offers one-on-one postpartum training for women, nonbinary people, and trans men. “Birth is traumatic, recovering from it is going to take rehab, you wouldn’t go through a huge injury and then just walk it off,” said Staniford.

Thrive Physical Therapy, stomach

Courtesy of Thrive Physical Therapy

Julieanne Berg is a physical therapist at Thrive Physical Therapy, a clinic that focuses on pregnant and postpartum people in San Diego. She says the pressure that pregnancy and birth apply on the pelvic floor can be physically damaging. “It’s normal to have changes,” she said. “But they don’t have to be your new normal.”

But not only postpartum people suffer from pelvic floor disorders. “(We see) a large number of women in their 20s who have pain during penetration or after sex,” shared Berg. “And post-menopausal, there can be hormonal changes that can change the way sex feels, the way your pelvic floor muscles are functioning.”

Physical therapist and founder of Thrive Physical Therapy, Lauren Mallari-Snyder, says she believes all women deserve to know about their pelvic floor. “We were never taught about (our bodies) in sex class, all we were taught is that we have a period,” she said.

Some countries are already trying to remedy this situation. The UK, in their latest guidelines to prevent pelvic floor dysfunction recommends that girls between 12 and 17 should be taught pelvic floor exercises in school.

The pelvic floor, or the “pelvic bowl” as Mallari-Snyder believes it should be called, is a group of muscles within the pelvis that supports the organs there, namely sexual organs, bladder, uterus, and anal sphincter. It’s also working alongside the core muscles to give stability. “It has more functions than just pee, poo, and sex,” she pointed out.

“Male and female bodies both have pelvic floors,” Staniford said. “There are ways other than pregnancy and postpartum that the pelvic floor could be put in distress, it could be through weightlifting, acceleration, contact sports, bearing down…”

Therefore, as Mallari-Snyder points out, pelvic floor therapy is not only for pregnant bodies. “It’s really important for men as well,” she added. But it can be difficult for people to access pelvic floor physical therapy because “it costs money, it’s time away from your family, time away from your kids, there’s a lot of guilt,” Staniford said.

Many physical therapy clinics that focus on pelvic floor disorders don’t accept insurance, Staniford added. And even in the ones that do, it’s hard to get the therapies covered. “An initial session (out of pocket) can cost over $100, people struggle to find that amount of cash. It’s simply not made easy,” she said.

For Mallari-Snyder, there aren’t enough providers in San Diego of this specialty to help people. She founded the practice with her husband, Aaron Snyder, to fill this gap.

Thrive Physical Therapy, pelvic

Courtesy of Thrive Physical Therapy

“Once you see a pelvic floor specialist, it opens up this whole world of options,” Berg said. “We prescribe a pelvic wand, vaginal dilators, vaginal trainers, there’s a lot of things that basically no other provider knows about.”

Take urinary incontinence, one of the most prevalent pelvic floor disorders that often goes disregarded, but that can be treated and remedied with pelvic floor physical therapy. Mallari-Snyder said that people assume that getting up from bed to pee is just a fact of life. “Over 65 it’s kind of normal, and during pregnancy, but other than that you shouldn’t have to be woken up to pee in the middle of the night,” she said.

Another reason why pelvic floor disorders are brushed aside, never treated, or misdiagnosed, is deeply ingrained in our society. And this path leads us to, you guessed it, “the patriarchy,” said Mallari-Snyder. “I treat a lot of people who have painful intercourse and a big part of it is because they’ve been shamed their whole life about this area,” she said.

Shame that Dube said she felt when she first contacted Thrive. “(I felt) like my body had failed me in the recovery process,” she said. As of this writing, she is four months postpartum, and feels she has regained her strength and is ready to start high-impact exercise.

“I think that if they’re able to—whether they feel like they had any traumatic damage or purely the recovery of a vaginal birth— every woman can benefit from pelvic floor physical therapy after birth,” she said.

The post The Pelvic Floor Therapy You May Need appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Marjory Kaplan

Marjory Kaplan

What is your background? I was in the corporate world in banking, both in human resources and investments. When I moved to San Diego from San Francisco, I spent some time in banking with Wells Fargo and also with Scripps Foundation. I joined the Jewish Community Foundation San Diego 20 years ago, and three years ago the chair was endowed by Miriam and Jerome Katzin.

Jewish Community Foundation San Diego is the largest grant maker in San Diego. Why is that? The Jewish community is very generous, although not all members are Jewish. People choose our foundation because we build trust through good service, and we manage their donor-advised funds well. In 2012 we gave away $98 million. Since its inception in 1967, the foundation has given $859 million, and we want to reach our billion-dollar goal within the next couple of years.

What is the advantage of a foundation? It is a convenient way and a community-minded way to give. There are some tax benefits. It is more focused giving and more strategic.

How many researchers do you have? Our total staff is 16. They are all very dedicated, hardworking and skilled in what they do. We have longevity with our staff. Sometimes I have to remind them when it is time to go home.

What drives you? This is such a great position for a person with my background to be able to serve the community. Corporate human resources and investments—one is knowing about people and management, and the other is knowing about the financial world.

What is your life away from work? Work is very life-giving, but everyone needs to get away. I go back to San Francisco. I love to read, so I frequent my favorite bookstores in San Francisco. I enjoy hiking. I have great friends and a wonderful husband. This is such a joyful position. I have been teaching Positive Board Cultures at the USD Governance Symposium for the past three years.

How do you mentor? There are a lot of ways to mentor. Look around your world. It is just being the person you are. It’s a generosity of spirit that we all need to show each other. We need to share the glory and give credit to others. I am interested in mentoring on the management side. We need more positive managers who will really encourage and develop people.

How do you support the community? I work with many organizations including the Grantmakers, Association of Fundraising Professionals, University of San Diego, and others.

What is your advice to others? The most important thing is to take care of yourself. Figure out what you need to do and then do it. You can be really good at what you do, but you have to show kindness and gratitude to make it work. People can excel through discipline, competence and gratitude.

Which of your accomplishments are you most proud of? Building an organization that has so much trust in the community and one that passes on to generations of families. One of my most gratifying roles is helping people plan their charitable legacies. It often feels like a sacred moment to be the one carrying out their wishes after a lifetime of involvement.

What would you be doing if you were not with the foundation? I would continue working in the community, teaching, mentoring. Our city is large enough to be interesting and small enough to be friendly.

The post Spotlight on Women: Marjory Kaplan appeared first on San Diego Magazine.

Marjory Kaplan

Marjory Kaplan

What is your background? I was in the corporate world in banking, both in human resources and investments. When I moved to San Diego from San Francisco, I spent some time in banking with Wells Fargo and also with Scripps Foundation. I joined the Jewish Community Foundation San Diego 20 years ago, and three years ago the chair was endowed by Miriam and Jerome Katzin.

Jewish Community Foundation San Diego is the largest grant maker in San Diego. Why is that? The Jewish community is very generous, although not all members are Jewish. People choose our foundation because we build trust through good service, and we manage their donor-advised funds well. In 2012 we gave away $98 million. Since its inception in 1967, the foundation has given $859 million, and we want to reach our billion-dollar goal within the next couple of years.

What is the advantage of a foundation? It is a convenient way and a community-minded way to give. There are some tax benefits. It is more focused giving and more strategic.

How many researchers do you have? Our total staff is 16. They are all very dedicated, hardworking and skilled in what they do. We have longevity with our staff. Sometimes I have to remind them when it is time to go home.

What drives you? This is such a great position for a person with my background to be able to serve the community. Corporate human resources and investments—one is knowing about people and management, and the other is knowing about the financial world.

What is your life away from work? Work is very life-giving, but everyone needs to get away. I go back to San Francisco. I love to read, so I frequent my favorite bookstores in San Francisco. I enjoy hiking. I have great friends and a wonderful husband. This is such a joyful position. I have been teaching Positive Board Cultures at the USD Governance Symposium for the past three years.

How do you mentor? There are a lot of ways to mentor. Look around your world. It is just being the person you are. It’s a generosity of spirit that we all need to show each other. We need to share the glory and give credit to others. I am interested in mentoring on the management side. We need more positive managers who will really encourage and develop people.

How do you support the community? I work with many organizations including the Grantmakers, Association of Fundraising Professionals, University of San Diego, and others.

What is your advice to others? The most important thing is to take care of yourself. Figure out what you need to do and then do it. You can be really good at what you do, but you have to show kindness and gratitude to make it work. People can excel through discipline, competence and gratitude.

Which of your accomplishments are you most proud of? Building an organization that has so much trust in the community and one that passes on to generations of families. One of my most gratifying roles is helping people plan their charitable legacies. It often feels like a sacred moment to be the one carrying out their wishes after a lifetime of involvement.

What would you be doing if you were not with the foundation? I would continue working in the community, teaching, mentoring. Our city is large enough to be interesting and small enough to be friendly.

The post Spotlight on Women: Marjory Kaplan appeared first on San Diego Magazine.