Women veterans bring many strengths to the civilian workforce, such as leadership, teamwork and problem-solving skills, as well as resilience and persistence. Women veterans are nearly twice as likely to be in a STEM occupation than are non-veteran women. While there have been increase in the number of programs and the availability of support services for veterans, and for women, but to there is currently no structure or system to align all these efforts to serve women veterans. To that end, Education Development Center (EDC) has been funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NSF INCLUDES to examine how to leverage the unique strengths of women veterans to address barriers to their (re) engagement in the STEM workforce by hosting a virtual convening on this topic in March 2021.

Leading up to this convening, EDC has worked with an advisory board representing women veterans, non-profit organizations and federal agencies that serve veterans, universities, STEM practitioners, and STEM industries to develop “state of the state” white papers aligned with the following focus areas: Women Veterans’ Health & Well-Being, Women Veteran Transitions to Civilian Workforce, STEM Education for Women Veterans, and STEM Workforce Development for Women Veterans. We are inviting you to a webinar series from October 13 – November 17, 2020 in which we will unveil these white papers and our findings.

The objectives of the webinar series are to:

• Provide an overview of the project and its goals
• Provide participants with an understanding of the landscape of assets and challenges faced by women veterans with summaries of our white papers in the four focus areas: Women Veteran Transitions to the Civilian Workforce, STEM Workforce Development for Women Veterans, STEM Education for Women Veterans, and Women Veteran Health and Well being
• Provide participants an opportunity to provide feedback on the white papers and discuss our findings
• Provide participants information on the virtual convening, which will take place in March of 2021, and how they can get involved.

The schedule and topics for the webinar series are:

• October 13, 2020, 3:30 - 4:30 EST: Introduction to the Project and Engaging and Retaining Women Veterans in the STEM Workforce Summary White Paper: Webinar recording and PowerPoint
• October 20, 2020, 3:30 - 4:30 EST: Women Veteran Transitions to the Civilian Workforce: Webinar recording and PowerPoint
• October 27, 2020, 3:30 - 4:30 EST: STEM Workforce Development for Women Veterans: Webinar recording and PowerPoint
• November 10, 2020, 3:30 - 4:30 EST: STEM Education for Women Veterans: Webinar recording and PowerPoint
• November 17, 2020, 3:30 - 4:30 EST: Women Veteran Health and Well being

To register for one or all of the webinars in the series you can click here, on one of the light blue Register buttons above, or on the title of any of the individual webinar sessions below. You will be taken to a registration page where you will enter your contact info and select which webinar session(s) you would like to attend where you can select one, multiple, or the entire series and register through this single form.