Growing up with a research scientist mom and an engineer dad, Larissa Vingilis-Jaremko recalls using microscopes at the kitchen table and storing her quirky, inedible experiments in the fridge.
“I was really curious. I liked exploring. I had millions of questions,” she said. “With all my questions, my parents would use STEM to help me answer them.”
Vingilis-Jaremko and her parents saw STEM – which stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics – as a way to answer questions and build solutions to problems in the world.
But in elementary school, she quickly learned that not everyone thought about STEM the same way.
“Particularly the girls in my class had negative perceptions of STEM and had no interest in going into these fields themselves,” Vingilis-Jaremko said.
“I really wanted to change their perceptions of who could be a scientist or an engineer. Scientists weren’t just older men in white lab coats with messy hair.”
That’s why at age nine, Vingilis-Jaremko founded the Canadian Association for Girls in Science (CAGIS).
CAGIS started as a single chapter in London, Ont., as a group of 30 girls. Now, CAGIS supports girls and gender-diverse youth aged seven to 16 with chapters across Canada, plus a virtual program and a program specifically for teenagers.
The participants do hands-on STEM activities, like building solar-powered cars and touring food science labs, as well as explore future career opportunities. CAGIS considers trades an essential component of STEM, in addition to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
Vingilis-Jaremko's childhood decision to start the organization launched her career in science. It also helped her earn one of the 2001 TD Scholarships for Community Leadership in her last year of high school.
“At the time, it was so exciting. I came home from school, I opened the envelope, I called my mom, and I just couldn’t stop jumping around the kitchen,” Vingilis-Jaremko said of the moment she got the good news 24 years ago.
Supporting community change and nurturing progress
Celebrating its 30th anniversary in 2025, the TD Scholarships for Community Leadership program recognizes 20 students in their last year of high school who are making contributions to support change, nurture progress, and help their communities thrive.
Each year, 20 scholarships are available to be awarded to students from across Canada, each having a value of up to $70,000, including up to $10,000 for post-secondary tuition and $7,500 for living expenses per year for a maximum of four years.
Vingilis-Jaremko, who went on to earn an undergraduate degree in science at the University of Toronto and a PhD in psychology, neuroscience, and behaviour from McMaster University, said the scholarship program gave her financial stability.
Getting girls into STEM fields – and keeping them there
In Canada, women make up less than one quarter of the people working in STEM careers, according to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission.
Girls, women, and gender-diverse people face barriers in their STEM education and career journeys, Vingilis-Jaremko explains. These barriers can affect their interests, the evaluation of their work, and their access to opportunities.
It’s important to use evidence-based methods to break barriers for students to support their STEM education, she said, and then continue that work to overcome barriers to retention and advancement.
But the numbers CAGIS tracks on its work with youth show progress, she said.
“Every five years we follow up with our alumni. We did that in 2017 and 2022 and found that 94% of respondents were working in or studying STEM fields, and most attributed their career trajectories to their experiences with CAGIS, ” said Vingilis-Jaremko, who in 2023 joined Canada’s official delegation to the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.
“We have to look at how things have shifted in Canada. We have made strides in some fields, but not all fields, and there are other countries that have advanced inclusion in STEM much quicker than we have. So there are lessons we can learn from them.”
Fostering alumni connections for more than two decades
The scholarship program includes access to an alumni network, which introduced Vingilis-Jaremko to other scholarship recipients with whom she’s cultivated relationships over 24 years.
“A lot of us ended up becoming friends and it fostered even broader societal impact because we were sharing our experiences and knowledge with each other,” she said.
The network of alumni share feedback, offer advice, and some even sit on each others’ boards, Vingilis-Jaremko added.