Sona Kumar, a doctoral student in BU Wheelock’s Applied Human Development program, has been selected as the recipient of a 2019 National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship.

Kumar’s selection as an NSF Graduate Research Fellow is a significant accomplishment. She will examine the type of language that parents use when discussing STEM with their children, with a focus on discrepancies between language used when discussing STEM with boys and language used to discuss STEM with girls.

“My work is motivated by the fact that there is an under-representation of women in STEM fields,” says Kumar. “Even though in school women are often outperforming men in STEM subjects, when you get to higher education there are way fewer women doing STEM than men. I was interested in why this is happening and in thinking about how this discrepancy came to be. I really started to think about kids and the messages they’re receiving about who can be a scientist.”

Kumar wants to develop an intervention for parents that could help modify their language when they talk about STEM opportunities with their kids. “In this day and age, parents are not consciously discouraging their girls from participating in STEM,” she notes. “The explicit language is all pro-science, but we all have biases that impact how we talk and what we choose to talk about. These biases can emerge in parenting with boys versus girls. I think there’s an opportunity here to work on changing the language that we use to encourage girls to participate in STEM.”  

“Sona has demonstrated strong potential to make a lasting impact in the field of education, as well as in developmental science” says Kathleen Corriveau, her advisor. “Her research on how children’s attention to subtle differences in adult language to ultimately reduce STEM gender inequities is extremely timely and important. It directly aligns with NSF’s focus on broadening representation in STEM through diversity and inclusion. Moreover, her strong desire to focus on how parents and teachers can foster these skills in early learners should serve as a blueprint for future targeted interventions.”