Our Mission

We first began with a podcast. The first season of our podcast, Where Does Your Journey STEM From, where we conducted 1:1 interviews with students from multiple backgrounds in grad school was launched in 2023. We quickly discovered that a lot of students felt lost but continued their studies on the basis of obligation and expectations. Many seemed unsure of the outcome that the course and major they chose would be, and navigating their career futures was a common concern amongst them all.

Then in 2024, we released our second season where we interviewed grad students and professionals in the STEM industry and learned that career pivots in those already in the field were common no matter where they initially originated from. We also started to realize that the professionals had a lot more insight on the process of building one’s STEM career. Which is why in 2025, our third season was launched, and it involved interviewing current STEM professionals to deep dive into the different methods and trajectories they took to shape their careers. What was uncovered in these conversations was that many of those individuals fell into a career through more than what a degree can give them, but from networking and curiosity. A key theme throughout each season was how important it is to reflect often in order to determine which path fulfills one’s curiosity.

After the second season of our podcast, Dr. Carina Minardi started appearing at events to speak on the lack of representation of the multitude of options that each branch of STEM offers. She appeared at colleges, conferences, and fairs to discuss how media and education present classical STEM careers (such as biologist, scientist and math teachers) but in reality, there are countless numbers of careers one can pursue beyond classical careers.

Since its inception, STEM From has gone from an idea to a living and breathing organization. We have experienced and interacted with a wide range of folks from a variety of backgrounds. In the future, we are hoping to be the one stop shop for students in their stem career pursuit. Between passive and active means of career exploration, those are the types of resources we pride ourselves on. We want to be the national (and someday international) source for STEM career seekers.