In honor of Women's History Month, France Cordova, director of the National Science Foundation (NSF) presents a blog post, Celebrating Women in Science and Engineering.

In this blog post, France Cordova points out that women have come a long way especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Women have earned about 50 percent of all science and engineering bachelor's degrees since the late 1990s. Women's share of full-time, full professorships has more than doubled since 1993. NSF programs like ADVANCE works to increase the participation and advancement of women in academic science and engineering careers.

Despite advances in overall STEAM degrees, women are still vastly underrepresented in fields like physics and engineering; the number of women receiving a bachelor's degree in computer science has actually declined since 2002.

France Cordova states that NSF must promote gender diversity in STEM education, and support women every step along their path to a science or engineering career. NSF funds many great programs that target young women and girls, from after-school robot programming classes to award-winning television shows. A new NSF initiative, called INCLUDES, will help expand work like this, bringing more girls, women, minorities and other underrepresented groups into STEM.

At the end of her blog post, France Cordova states that in her career, she remains true to her own scientific vision. She offers an excellent piece of advice to students, "Be yourself. You can't make a bad choice if you remain true to yourself". Read more on the NSF blog.