This post is authored by Sumaiya Talukdar, LPFI's Director of Strategic Partenerships and Community Engagement

Recently, Forbes published an article, featuring our SMASH program, which stressed the importance of engaging interns of color in order to ensure a diverse employment workforce. LPFI recognizes that training the diverse workforce of tomorrow is incredibly important – in addition to diversity leading to “better work environments, fresh ideas, and new ways of looking at old problems”, the US is projected to become majority-minority around the year 2042. Along with the rising minority populations, there is a simultaneous alarming talent shortage in the all-important STEM fields. As stated in our LPFI Dissecting the Data 2012 report, "By focusing on activating the hidden STEM talent pool, the United States can ensure students of color are prepared to enter occupations which will further their economic security … and prepare homegrown talent to fill the future STEM positions and strengthen the economy."

As a former Internship Coordinator at the Level Playing Field Institute with experience working with low-income African American and Latino students in securing internships, I would like to share some insight into how to best engage these interns of color.

Women's History Month offers a chance to honor the historic contributions of women to our society and culture.  It also provides inspiration for the next generation of female leaders.  This month, we want to highlight one such leader: 2nd-year SMASH: Stanford Scholar, Yohana Beyene.  

Last month, LPFI’s SMASH program was officially accepted into Change the Equation’s (CTEq) STEMworks database. With its inclusion in this database, SMASH joins a prestigious group of national and regional programs dedicated to cultivating the next generation of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) scholars and professionals.

Hello, my name is Anthony Ninthara, a now second year scholar at SMASH USC, and this is my story.