What do women’s basketball, STEM careers, and corporate leadership have in common? In all these areas, women are significantly underrepresented. And the trend starts young. Even if girls start out with talent and enthusiasm for sports, math and science, and leadership roles, many leave STEM career paths—which tend to be male-dominated—as they grow older.
How to keep more girls and women “in the game” of competitive sports and technical fields was the topic of a lively panel discussion on August 7, 2025, held prior to the regularly scheduled contest between the WNBA Chicago Sky and the Atlanta Dream at Wintrust Arena in Chicago. Inspiration for the discussion came from the evening’s game theme, which was STEM (for science, technology, engineering, and math) education.
The panelists included Natasha Galavotti, past president–BimboQSR, former professional basketball player, and Big 5 Hall of Fame inductee; Awvee Storey, Executive Director of the Chicago Sky Foundation, former American professional basketball player, and assistant coach for the Connecticut Sun of the WNBA; and Marie Lynn Miranda, Chancellor of the University of Illinois Chicago, professor in the Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and former student manager for the Duke Blue Devils men’s basketball team.
Moderating the discussion was Dr. Chevy Humphrey, President and CEO of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. An expert in informal science education, Humphrey is the first woman and the first Black American to lead MSI, the largest science museum in the Western Hemisphere. (To read Dr. Humphrey’s profile on lincoln-road.com, click here. At halftime during the game, the Sky honored Dr. Humphrey for her work expanding educational opportunities for young women.
The focus of the panel discussion was how key skills honed through basketball—such as problem-solving, teamwork, resilience, and decision-making—can transfer directly to careers in STEM and beyond.
“For girls to understand the teamwork, resilience and leadership you can get from playing a sport is a wonderful thing,” said Galavotti, “and it translates into business. Early on,” she added, “I decided I wanted to be the best player I could be. For me, that meant coming to practice early and staying late. In our careers, it’s the same choice: How much do we truly want to go after something? And are we willing to do the difficult work to get it?”
To face those challenges, the panelists agreed, it’s important to have mentors and a team behind you.
“When we have our team, our tribe, the people who help us out, it’s an incredible asset,” said Dr. Miranda. “And for young women in the workforce, it’s like connective tissue. It changes their persistence in STEM and their level of interest in STEM disciplines.”
“That said,” she added, “we also need to make sure that work is a place where women feel valued and uplifted and recognized.”
A former coach of both men’s and women’s basketball teams, Awvee Storey affirmed the importance for women of giving and getting ongoing encouragement. “I tell my daughter all the time that I believe in her. And I remind her she can do anything she wants if she puts the work in,” he said.
Such encouragement matters especially because women—more than men—tend to be hard on themselves and doubt their abilities. Dr. Miranda talked about advising both male and female students in difficult math classes. Where the male students tended to say, “Wow, that was a really hard course,” she said, the female students tended to tell her, “I thought I was good at math. It turns out I'm not.”
“That was heartbreaking to me,” said Dr. Miranda. In response, the university started encouraging female students to form study groups and work together. As they did, she noticed, mindsets gradually changed. The young women started coming in and saying, “Wow, that was a really hard course!” Yet the most important voice to listen to may be the one inside, said Galavotti. “When I was learning to compete, I didn’t appreciate that, besides discipline, I also needed to give myself grace—for the losses, the disappointments, the setbacks. Without those setbacks, I wouldn’t have had the resilience I needed in my corporate career.”