In honor of “Dress for STEM,” Universities of Wisconsin Online Collaboratives is highlighting the women in our degree and certificate programs who have contributed to the STEM field. UW Online Collaboratives works with campuses across the Universities of Wisconsin to provide multiple STEM programs to students. With 100 percent online offerings that allow students to fit courses into their busy schedules, our semester- and competency-based programs provide the skills and practical experience required to excel in the field.
Celebrating female STEM pioneers, those active in the field, and encouraging the next generation of women in STEM.
Since 2012, we’ve grown our STEM education programs to include bachelor’s, master’s, and certificate options, in a flexible, online format, and are on a path to graduate more women into the STEM workforce (helping to close the workforce gap).
A bar chart showing the number of female graduates per year since 2012.
“STEM jobs are some of the fastest growing and the highest paid jobs in the future, we’re talking computer science, healthcare technology, engineering. And yet women make up only about 34% of the workforce in science, technology, engineering, and math. And men vastly outnumber women majoring in most STEM fields in college.” —Betty Rockendorf, Program Director, Health Information Management and Technology
A pie chart showing that 82% of our graduates from Health Information Management and Technology are women.
“Why is it important for anybody to be represented in any field? It’s to see yourself reflected in something that you think you might want to do that would be so beneficial to so many people. I know I would have benefited a lot more from seeing people like me in STEM when I was a lot younger because I kind of had the opposite experience.” —Grace Zeitz, Student, Cybersecurity
A pie chart showing that in 2023, 43% of graduates of our STEM programs were women.
“Having a diverse workplace will allow different ideas to come up when you’re brainstorming…different ways to just implement something or solve a conflict. It’s just extremely useful to have those different ideas.” —Ashley Branter, Student, Information Technology Management
Graphic showing that 501 women have graduated from our STEM programs since 2012.
“Being in the Applied Computing program has definitely impacted my career. Once I realized that my technical support roles had a limit, I was already a senior and I was a team lead. At some point I realized there wasn’t any other place to go except into a more technical role and to get my degree. So now as a developer, I know that I could become a senior developer, I could go into management, I have other paths available to me and it’s nice for my ambition for sure.” —Samantha Thompson, Graduate, Applied Computing
To find out more about our STEM programs, contact an enrollment adviser by calling 608-262-2011 or emailing learn@uwex.wisconsin.edu.
Get Program Guide
Learn more about our 100% online degree and certificate programs.
Master of Science Degrees:
- Applied Biotechnology (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Biodiversity Conservation and Management (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Cybersecurity (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Data Science (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Information Technology Management (Semester-based, Collaborative)
Bachelor of Science Degrees:
- Applied Computing (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Health Information Management and Technology (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Information Science and Technology (Competency-based, UW Flexible Option)
Certificate Programs:
- Applied Bioinformatics-Graduate Certificate (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Biodiversity and Conservation Science-Graduate Certificate (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Conservation Data Management and Analysis-Graduate Certificate (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Conservation Leadership, Policy, and Management-Graduate Certificate (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Data Science-Graduate Certificate (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Enterprise Infrastructure-Graduate Certificate (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- Foundations of Biodiversity Conservation and Management-Graduate Certificate (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- IT Leadership-Graduate Certificate (Semester-based, Collaborative)
- IT Operations-Graduate Certificate (Semester-based, Collaborative)