COUNTYWIDE : Women Promote Science at Seminar

Clad in black leggings and flashy pink-and-green parrot earrings, 38-year-old Pam Hunt shatters the popular image of a lab-dwelling biochemist.

“I think people probably have some warped idea of what scientists are like,” said Hunt, who runs a biotechnology lab at Amgen in Thousand Oaks.

The biochemist was one of 18 professional women who helped run a symposium to overcome stereotypes and encourage Ventura County schoolgirls to consider careers in math or science-related fields.

Sponsored by the local chapter of the American Assn. of University Women, the five-hour symposium Saturday at Sequoia Junior High School was designed to illustrate to nearly 200 girls, from fifth to 12th grade, that pursuing the hard sciences can be fun.

Karen Joyce, a business manager who helped organize the Simi Valley event, said the group of professionals also wanted to assure the young crowd that scientists are neither abnormal, dull or unattractive.

“They don’t look like nerds, somebody men wouldn’t be interested in,” Joyce said. She suggested that the negative, and decidedly unattractive stereotype, may be one reason teen-age girls lose interest in these fields.

Hunt and other seminar leaders made sure their talks dispelled that myth.

For instance, Hunt pointedly told girls in her workshop that her husband and two children are as indispensable to her as her job as a biochemist.

Gail Rohrbach, a 26-year-old astronomer, sought to show the exciting side of scientists.

“Science is fun,” Rohrbach told the crowd. And scientists “are intelligent people. They’re talented people” with diverse interests, she said.