Victoria Yu, a 17-year-old from Toronto, is the Executive Director of Superposition Toronto, the city’s largest student-led women in STEM organization. Alongside her leadership role, Victoria is involved in cancer drug research and has achieved recognition in national and international STEM competitions. Superposition Toronto is dedicated to closing the gender gap in STEM through events like workshops, panels, and hackathons, helping women and gender minorities explore their STEM interests and gain skills in a supportive environment.
Who is answering the questions and what is their position?
Victoria Yu is a 17-year-old from Toronto passionate about empowering women in STEM and advocating for health equity and policy. She is the Executive Director of Toronto’s largest women in STEM organization, Superposition Toronto, which strives to bridge the gender gap in STEM. Outside of Superposition Toronto, she is involved in chemotherapeutic cancer drug research, particularly in Cisplatin and Doxorubicin, and participates in international-level biology and chemistry, winning Gold in the British Biology Olympiad and top 0.9% internationally in the Chem13 contest. She is also a FBLA 2-time National Champion and International Finalist in Healthcare Administration, as well as a DECA International Glass Champion in Business Ethics. In her free time, she loves hanging out with friends, taking pictures, and making smoothies!
Describe your charity/non-profit/volunteer work in a few sentences.
Superposition Toronto is Toronto’s largest student-led women in STEM non-profit organization, dedicated to bridging the gender gap in STEM through creating educational opportunities and supportive communities. Their mission is to change the narrative of women being left out of STEM by creating a safe space for everyone to explore their passions and curiosity, through actively bringing girls into STEM by hosting workshops, panels, contests, hackathons, and similar events that equip them with both soft and hard skills.
What problem does it aim to solve?
For far too long, women and gender minorities have been blocked and discouraged from pursuing STEM opportunities and careers as a result of underrepresentation and discrimination. The lack of female role models and male-dominated culture within STEM fields causes girls to lose confidence early on, perpetuating a cycle that only harms diversity and innovation in STEM.
When did you start/join it? What made you want to get involved and what was the situation like when you started?
I’ve always noticed the general lack of girls in STEM fields. I distinctly remember being one of the few girls in my middle school’s Robotics Club, which was a problem that followed me into high school as I found myself being one of the few girls in my computer science class. Although I’m privileged to come from an environment where pursuing STEM careers is relatively common, I wish I had more opportunities to be actively involved in learning more about STEM outside of what school teaches, and to have more role models in fields like engineering for me to pursue potential interests there. Most of my female friends that were interested in STEM were pursuing science and medicine, and because that’s where I found community, I developed an almost preconceived notion of pursuing those careers and fields as well.
When I learned about Superposition Toronto, I resonated with our mission of helping girls that are in the shoes I was once in. I joined in 2021, shortly after Superposition Toronto was founded, and now lead the organization with the mission of providing girls and gender minorities with the community, confidence, and support to explore their passions and break barriers.
How has it changed since?
In just a few years, Superposition Toronto has held a number of different successful events, including workshops in AI, Blockchain, Gene Editing, Vaccine Literacy, Bionics, and more, educational panels (Female Founders panel, STEM University Panels), contests, and all girls and non-binary hackathon and research symposium, and a couple of other smaller-scale initiatives, gathering thousands of signups. We have reached over 56,000 individuals in 97 countries in all inhabited continents through our events, social media platforms, podcasts, newsletter, and more. Most importantly, through these initiatives, we’ve built a supportive community of women in STEM and fostered an environment for young women to build their confidence and empower them to reach out of their comfort zone.
What more needs to be done? How can our readers help?
There’s definitely still more to be done in terms of closing the gender gap and striving toward more representation and equality. Some of the ways you can help include being aware of your own implicit biases and privileges, helping to amplify women’s voices, becoming mentors to younger girls, and being encouraging to girls who are trying to pursue their dreams.
At Superposition Toronto, we recognize that many young girls are simply discouraged to pursue STEM careers as a result of a lack of female role models or supportive community to provide them with the confidence that they need. Therefore, our approach is beyond pure advocacy and having informative social media posts to increase awareness; we work to actively bring girls into STEM by offering accessible workshops and events where they can learn and test out their skills in a supportive environment and welcoming community where they can meet other girls on a similar journey.
Do you have any events coming up?
We recently just wrapped up our largest event yet, The SuperDISCOVERY, which was Toronto’s first all-female & non-binary international virtual research opportunity open to students of all ages. Over the course of 36 hours, participants were able to create their own research project around one of 3 prompts that focused on sustainability, healthcare and technology, and the labour shortage. A journal of student research can be found on our website here. We aimed to create an environment where youth can explore their passion for STEM research through a weekend of career-building workshops, mentorship, networking opportunities, and competing to win over $70,000 of prizes provided by our 6 sponsors. Our Instagram posts featuring this event reached 10.9K+ unique users, and the event attracted over 300 signups from 40+ countries, with 61% of the participants being first-time researchers with no previous experience.
Looking ahead, we will be opening ambassador applications soon to further our reach outside of the GTA, and are currently working to host the fourth edition of the annual STEM University Panel!
Where can we follow you?
You can stay posted about our newest initiatives by following us on our Instagram, our website, or by joining our Discord community to network with other women in STEM! We also have a Youtube, Superposition Toronto; a Podcast that is available on all major platforms, Girl Meets STEM; and a newsletter to spotlight the latest STEM news and opportunities, which is free to subscribe to here.
PAY IT FORWARD: What is an awesome local charity that you love?
One of our favourites has to be PuMP (Prospective Medical Professionals), a registered Canadian charity with branches in Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa, and Calgary. They promote youth engagement in the health, life, and biological sciences and are committed to increasing accessibility of opportunities in healthcare. We’ve partnered with them in the past for STEM fairs, and love our shared mission of empowering the next generation of STEM leaders.
