Q&A with Shaterra Overton, Program Officer for Early Learning and K-12 STEM Education

As a college student, Shaterra Overton aspired to work in banking or fashion. She never thought she'd work in education. In her staff Q&A, she talks about how she changed her mind.

 

Shaterra makes friends with a giraffe.

Why did you decide to join Washington STEM?
I first learned about Washington STEM when I was a middle school teacher and thought it sounded like a cool place. After getting my master’s in nonprofit leadership, I was curious about the STEM education nonprofits that exist in this area. Washington STEM was one of the ones that would come up.

Later, during my early childhood policy fellowship with Pathwaves, I started meeting and working with people from Washington STEM. To my surprise, a job opened up that felt perfect for where I was at in my career and now here I am!

What does equity in STEM education and career mean to you?
I would love for STEM and math in particular to be democratized. Let everybody have it. There’s still a lot of dominant narratives around who belongs in STEM that are really causing a lot of problems.

I want people to think about math in the same way that we think about reading, where everybody’s like: “We’ve got to do our best and make sure everybody can read.” With STEM, we instead say something like: “Well, maybe if you’re good enough then maybe you’ll get to do it.” But I want everybody to have it.

Why did you choose your career?
My career snowballed on me, but the snowball makes a lot more sense now than it did 10 years ago. I’m rolling down the right hill, but I definitely did not ever think I was going to go into education. I never wanted to be a teacher. I was like: “I don’t like teachers and they don’t like me, and I don’t want to do that job.” But, you know, you shouldn’t say what you’re never going to do, because then you’ll end up doing it.

My goal as an 18-year-old growing up in Texas was to be an investment banker and make so much money. Then I had a big crisis about that, and decided I was going to work in fashion as a buyer. I did a great internship during my senior year of college, but the fashion industry really likes you to intern for 10 million years before you can actually have a job that pays you money. While interviewing for fashion jobs, I went to go work at the National Museum of Mathematics in Manhattan. That’s where I had a big revelation – I was like: “Why don’t I just go talk to people about math?” That revelation led to my teaching career and nonprofit work.

Can you tell us more about your education and career path?
I went to school at Barnard College and majored in economics and math. Originally, I had a really firm idea of how my schooling and career were going to be connected. And then when that wasn’t the case, I was a little bit confused about what I was going to do.

After working at the Museum of Math and teaching kindergarteners in New York, I moved to Seattle and started teaching full-time. I also started grad school at Seattle University. This time, I wanted to pick something so broad that it could be applied to lots of things, which is why I did a master’s in nonprofit leadership. I have worked in a lot of nonprofits – I can’t seem to get out of them – so it felt like the right educational path. From there, I worked as the Assistant Director of Girls Rock Math and then went on to my Pathwaves fellowship before joining Washington STEM.

What inspires you?
I’m an easily excitable person, but not somebody who has a ton of wonderment, so I’m really inspired by the people around me who have a lot of that. That’s what was cool about teaching middle schoolers—everything to them is big. It was helpful for me to spend time around them to be like, “Oh yeah, the world’s a cool place.”

What are some of your favorite things about Washington state?
What do we have going on here in Washington state? We’re in a prime location for going to other places – Vancouver, Portland, San Diego. But seriously, I have a lot of favorite Seattle things – I love the Fremont Troll and the monorail.

What’s one thing about you that people can’t find out through the internet?
I love sumo wrestling. It is an interest I’ve picked up in the last couple of years – now I know when the tournaments start and look forward to watching highlights for 15 days straight every other month.

My favorite professional sumo wrestler is Wakatakakage Atsushi. He’s a smaller guy, so he doesn’t have a wrestling style where you can dominate opponents physically. He is very quick and nimble and is just built in a way that he has to be a little bit more strategic.