Despite the STEM gender gap, most of the researchers at this B.C. AI lab are women [Video]

Shannon Cuykendall gives a presentation about her research on generative artificial intelligence with one hand, while holding her six-month-old son in the other.

Cuykendall is a postdoctoral researcher at Simon Fraser University’s iViz Lab, a majority-female AI lab in a field dominated by men.

In Canada, women make up less than one-quarter of the people employed in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) careers, according to the federal government. But 75 per cent of researchers at the iViz Lab in Surrey, B.C., are women.

“It’s not looked down upon to bring your kids into the lab if you need to,” Cuykendall said in an interview with CBC News.

One academic who researches gender, diversity and inclusion in STEM says labs across the country should take note of SFU’s lab.

“When an environment is created where women can succeed, all kinds of women with all different life experiences and all different …