 were women. The share of women earning those degrees has fallen since 1985, when they earned 37 percent.
•And 56 percent of high school Advanced Placement test-takers in 2012 were girls, but only 19 percent of those taking the AP Computer Science exam were girls.
“People, when they heard what my degree was, were surprised,” said Shawna Matthews, 31, a senior software engineer for Synacor Inc., who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in computer science at UB after studying the same subject at Niagara County Community College.
But while she was in school, Matthews added, “I was never made to feel out of place.”
At UB, there were 510 undergraduates majoring in computer science and engineering as of the spring semester. Just 10 percent are women, though 20 percent of graduate students in the department are women, according to the university.
At Synacor, the Internet content provider located on the Buffalo waterfront, less than 20 percent of the employees in its engineering group are women, according to Meredith Roth, a spokeswoman, who added that the company seeks talented workers no matter their gender.
“I don’t see too many women involved in the Buffalo tech community,” said Elena Moiseeva, 25, a native of Russia who is studying digital media at NCCC.
Why are so few women studying computer science or filling IT jobs?
Among the many theories is the idea of self-selection: Girls and young women choose not to pursue computer science as a career path because they just don’t like it.
Boys, for example, are more likely to spend hours playing video games, which primarily are geared toward them, and later in life they’re more apt to want to design the newest versions of those games.
“I think it’s just interest, and pushing little kids toward different things,” said Katie Barnum, 27, a web developer for UB’s College of Arts and Sciences. “I think it should be gender neutral.”
It’s not enough for companies to have programs that encourage diversity in their work forces, experts said. A number of groups are working to welcome girls into the STEM fields – which include science, technology, engineering and mathematics – as early as possible.
“By the time the companies get involved, it’s already too late,” said Linda A. Volonino, a professor of information systems at Canisius College.
Quaranto, for one, still remembers the answer she received as an eighth-grader in Erie, Pa., when she told her female math teacher that she wanted to take advanced math classes in high school.
“She, to my face, said, ‘Why would you ever want to do that?’” recalled Quaranto, 26. “And I did it anyway. To succeed in this field, you have to be tenacious. I fought back.”
Margaret Smith, 32, an engineer for Synacor, went to an all-girls high school where computers weren’t emphasized in the curriculum. (“PowerPoint was as advanced as we got,” she said with a laugh.)
But her father was a software engineer, and a trip to his office on Take Your Daughter to Work Day as an 18-year-old helped hook her on computers. Today, she is mentoring a female summer intern as part of the Synacor Buddy program.
“I’m someone she can talk to for anything she needs,” said Smith, who writes code for the Internet start pages that Synacor designs for its customers.
At the college level, Folks said she’s interested in retaining those students who declare engineering and computer science as a major, and she said programs such as maternity leave for Ph.D. students can help ensure young women have a chance to succeed.
Folks noted that the gender gap in medicine today has largely been closed at the nation’s medical schools, even though medicine has a notoriously demanding and un-family-friendly schedule, and she said she hopes the same progress can be made in computer science.
“We do an appalling job of getting the message out there that this is a wonderful job for women,” said Folks, an Australian native and physicist by training.
Women use mobile technology, such as text messaging, at high rates, and sites such as Pinterest and Etsy have a strong female presence. The goal now is to get