How do you start to engage women in the sciences? You start with young girls. Sarah Clatterbuck, director of engineering, UI development and user experience infrastructure for LinkedIn Corp., is helping to change the trajectory of women in science by inspiring girls to study computer science.

Clatterbuck joined Jeff Frick, cohost of theCUBE, from the SiliconANGLE Media team at the Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing event in Houston, Texas, to share her experiences motivating young women to bring their skills to the technology industry.

A turning point for women in tech

Frick began the interview by pointing out Clatterbuck brought the Grace Hopper event to the attention of theCUBE host a few years ago. The attendance then was at about 3,000 people. Today the event is hosting roughly 12,000 attendees.

“Right now we are at an inflection point with women in science,” Clatterbuck stated. “For a few years the trend was going down, and now it is bouncing up again.” Most likely, due to the programs she is introducing.

Starting young

Working for LinkedIn provided an opportunity for her to lead the Women in Tech program that brought young women on campus for a few months to experience what it is like to work at a tech company. Finding girls through Technovation (a global technology entrepreneurship competition) and the Girl Scouts, the program achieved great results in all objective and key results.

The program studied what percentage of participants went on to study Science, Technology, Engineering & Math (STEM) and the percentage that went on to study computer science. “They knocked it out of the park on all of them,” according to Clatterbuck. The program will also keep following up with the participants to see to report on the progress.

Girl Scouts who code

Clatterbuck is also a board member for the Girl Scouts of Northern California, and she works to encourage programs in the STEM area. Funded by Google’s Made with Code, she developed a team of 40 girls involved in STEM to introduce them to code. The team organized events with a goal of teaching code to 15,000 girls.

Being a mentor

Clatterbuck’s philosophy on mentorship is not always a direct approach. She noted, “The best learnings I had were informal. I listened to people I admired and observed their behaviors.” She said one of the best pieces of advice she heard was from an “informal” mentor. The mentor said, “Take on projects that other people don’t want to do. It makes a huge impact.”

Watch the full video interview below, and be sure to check out more of SiliconANGLE and theCUBE’s coverage of Grace Hopper Celebration of Woman In Computing. And join in on the conversation by CrowdChatting with theCUBE hosts.

Photo by SiliconANGLE