A GIANT Celebration of International Women's Day

Azi Jamalian, CEO and Co-Founder; Jessica Mezei, COO and Co-Founder, Rebecca Schifilliti, Director of Product; Maru Segovia, Executive Director of Product; Maya Hood-Wilson, Program Coordinator; Janet Bloom, CMO

The GIANT team celebrates the women who have paved the way for us in STEAM today, and everyday! We’ve highlighted and continue to highlight their work in our GIANT creative prompts throughout the years and today we talked to some of the women of the GIANT team to learn more about the women that inspire them!

It’s impossible for me to choose “one woman” who inspires me. Women inspire me. Every single woman who has joined our mission at The GIANT Room has inspired me for their dedication to what they do, the care they put in causes they care about, and for their creativity. These women include the GIANT team; GIANT moms; GIANT first investor Jessica Millstone; GIANT partners in schools, libraries, museums, and industry organizations. I’m inspired everyday by women outside the direct GIANT sphere, whose designs and their voice have shaped the learning experiences at GIANT (Cas Holman, Ayah Bdeir, Antoinette Portis, Chloe Varelidi, Emily Calandrelli, Reshma Saujani, Amanda Phingbodhipakkiya, Rajani LaRocca, and every single women that have been highlighted in 500+ GIANT creative prompt videos). And before GIANT days, women that I worked with and women who helped me grow. My PhD advisor, Barbara Tversky, all my lab mates who have been my strong rock throughout all the ups and downs of life during grad school and post school, Jessica Hammer who changed my career path forever and made me realize being playful is not something I should ignore in my professional life but to make it central to everything that I do. Women who helped me bring my voice on stages like TED (yes, the whole TED team I worked with were women), and women throughout my life from my teachers (all women), friends (many of them women, one stronger and kinder than the other), and women in my family (generation after generation). And women who worked in my dad’s office. I remember one day my dad came home and declared “from now on, I make the conscious decision to hire women because they know what they’re doing and they care”. The day he passed away (25 years ago in Iran), 80% of employees in his office were women. Every time I walked in his office as a child, I was reminded that women are central to our economy. Today, at The GIANT Room, I have the honor to work with some of the most talented, caring, and just amazing women that I could have never dreamed of. To my colleagues @Jess @Maya @Janet Bloom @Rebecca and @Maru you truly inspire me everyday to stay strong, make it happen, and dream like a GIANT 💗

-Azi Jamalian, GIANT CEO and Co-Founder

I am constantly inspired by women around me. Right now, I read a lot of books to my young kids and love to discover new authors and illustrators all the time. Some of our favorite female authors currently include Antoinette Portis for her It’s Not a Box, Didi Dragon’s humor and rhyme in her book The Mosquito Burrito, Julia Donaldson’s tales The Gruffalo and The Snail and The Whale, Amanda Gorman’s beautiful and hopeful book Something Someday and Judi Barrett’s imaginative Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs. The illustrator Nikki Dyson for bringing to life the quirky unique characters in You’re Called What?! The scientist Helen Scales for What a Shell Can Tell and the series of Andrea Beaty’s books particularly Rosie Revere Engineer where kids try on different roles that match their interests.

These women have brought joy to our family ritual of reading. I am inspired by how they tell stories. It has helped me in my practice of making up stories with my kids.

I get especially excited when I see different details carry over into everyday life events. When I’ve noticed ways my kids and I take things beyond the pages of the stories, by borrowing characters, settings, problems, solutions, questions etc. it delights me!

I’ve also always been a science kid. I studied biology and used to teach science so I have also always enjoyed learning new things through the podcast Ologies, the host Allie Ward brings humor and unexpected details to light. When I want to escape into the animal kingdom I listen to Going Wild by Dr Rae Wynn Grant who is a wildlife biologist who brings natural science stories to the masses! They are both inspiring science communicators and sources of my continued learning.

-Jessica Mezei, GIANT COO and Co-Founder

Alma Thomas was an artist and painter from Georgia born in 1891. She was the first fine arts graduate of Howard University and worked as an arts teacher for 35 years, before having her first exhibition of abstract paintings at the age of 75! Her abstract paintings have been compared to mosaic art murals. Alma was the first Black woman to have a solo exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American Art, and she also exhibited her paintings at the White House three times. She reminds me that it is never too late to pursue your dreams, try something new, or begin a new endeavor.

-Rebecca Schiffliliti, GIANT Director of Product

As a Mexican woman, I can't help but feel inspired by Katya Echazarreta. She made history on June 4th, 2022 by being the first Mexican-born woman to travel into outer space. When she was 7 years old she asked her mom, "What do you think is the hardest thing somebody can do?" And she replied, "For you, I think maybe being an astronaut." And so from that day on Katya decided that she wanted to go to space. She faced many challenges on her road to NASA and her own launch, but in the end nothing deterred her.

After achieving her goal of becoming an astronaut and visiting space, she is now focusing her time on teaching other women in STEM. She remarks on her website that throughout her journey in engineering school, she was very aware of the lack of women in the field. This was very difficult for her because she did not have many people she could ask for advice regarding several topics such as the implicit biases women face on a daily basis. She has been given the opportunity to help guide those girls and women who, like her, are looking for someone with experience in what they are going through. By being honest and encouraging women through the process, she hopes to be able to help them be better prepared for their experience as women in STEM.

-Maru Segovia, GIANT Executive Director of Instructional Design

Sara Gomez - Filmmaker and Activist and Cuban revolutionary filmmaker born in 1942. She was Cuba's first, and in her lifetime, the only woman director. She directed and produced both documentaries and narrative films highlighting social issues and the struggles faced by women, Afro-Cubans, and those in poverty. She created work that was very critical of the government and often censored. She passed away in 1974, but left an amazing legacy inspiring women and Afro-Cuban artists and intellectuals. Her bravery and dedication to truth, no matter how ugly, is what inspires me, as well as the ways she uplifted many neglected communities.

-Maya Hood-Wilson, GIANT Program Coordinator

In 2006, Fei-Fei Li achieved a significant breakthrough in the field by creating a system that taught computers to recognize or "see" millions of images and describe the world around us via “ImageNet”. She is currently a Stanford Professor and has been known as the “Godmother of AI” (a name she eschews because of the loaded connotations). She is a pioneer! Mira Murati, the OpenAI CTO, is also at the top of my list. And while I find infinite inspiration in all of the artists that make life beautiful and deeply layered, some of the artists that have recently graced my eyes that I must cite are Katherine Bernhardt, Joan Mitchell, Hilda Af Klimt, Faith Ringgold, Molly Dickson, Wangechi Mutu, Shantell Martin, Neri Oxman, and Marta Minujin.

-Janet Bloom, CMO