By Lorena Anderson
Like many young women, Calista Lum absorbed the message that she was not as capable as her male peers when it came to science, technology, engineering and math.
She wanted to pursue physics, engineering and data analysis because she enjoyed them.
When she enrolled at the University of California, Merced, she joined the Merced Nanomaterials Center for Energy and Sensing. She’s mentored by physics professor Sayantani Ghosh and graduate student William Delmas, whom she credits with a great deal of her success thus far.