For students navigating the path from college to career, the message at Stony Brook University’s “Not All SHEroes Wear Capes” event was clear: success is rarely linear, and opportunity often begins with a conversation.
Held on March 27 in the Stony Brook Union Ballroom, the sixth annual event brought together more than 150 students and supporters to celebrate Women’s History Month and take part in discussions about gender, career growth and the realities women continue to face in the workplace.
The event was co-hosted by the Career Center in partnership with student organizations Women in Business (WIB), Women in Healthcare, Indian Students Association, Undergraduate Social Welfare Alliance and the Society of Women Engineers (SWE).
Following a panel discussion, students participated in small group table conversations with professional women — SHEroes — who volunteered to share their experiences. These conversations covered topics such as balancing career and personal life, navigating assertiveness, closing the wage gap and embracing identity in the workplace.
The event was held just one day after Equal Pay Day, which marks how far into the new year women must work to earn what men earned in the previous year. The March 26 date represents the wage gap that translates to thousands of dollars in lost income annually for full-time working women. The wage gap widens for mothers and women of color.
Panel moderator Kimberly Dixon, director of employer engagement and recruitment strategies at the Career Center, introduced the panelists and explained the purpose of the event.
“We hope you walk away from listening to the panel and the discussion topics and you feel like you can identify with something that one or what the panelists said,” Dixon told the audience, “And that you can identify with the SHEroes at the table and apply their experiences to your life when you leave here.”
The panel featured Robyn-Marie Keller, behavior intervention specialist with YAI; Allie Moore, electrical estimating engineer with Forte Construction/Tap Electric; Melinda Leite, clinical program manager at Northwell Health; and Toni Desrosiers, senior project engagement specialist at National Grid. Their varied experiences represented both the progress that has been made and the barriers that remain for women in the workplace.
One of her earliest lessons about being a woman in the workplace came unexpectedly while Desrosiers was working for an airline, where they would not allow her to throw the luggage bags because she was a woman.
“That was the first time it really dawned on me that being a woman had an impact on what they thought I could do,” she said.
Moore described a similar moment when she was asked to change her appearance while working in a restaurant.
“My manager asked if I could start wearing makeup and heels, and said I couldn’t wear pants,” Moore said. “So I went back and asked, will the guys be having the same dress code enforced? And he just dropped it right there.”
The experience taught her a lesson about authority in the workplace. “Just because your manager tells you something doesn’t mean you need to do it,” she said. “It didn’t occur to me initially that I could say no.”
Students in the audience appreciate this candor as they begin to plan their professional careers. Elizabeth Lai, a senior information systems major and president of the Society for Women in Engineering, said the event offered both perspective and possibility.
“I feel like I’m in a unique position to talk about this even since I’ve attended since my freshman year, and it’s wonderful to hear about the careers from the women on the panel,” Lai said. “It’s also a great opportunity to network. I would love to get a job using my liberal arts background and my technical skills, and I always just wanted to create with others. When you create with others, you need to understand the why behind what you’re seeing.”
Networking at the event paid off for Tasfia Shaikh ‘25 MS, ‘24, who attended the event two years earlier as an undergraduate.
“I sat at the Posillico table at the SheRoes event in 2024,” Shaikh said. “I started an internship with them in May of 2025 with the business intelligence team. Everything went well. I was learning a lot, and I thought that was a good fit for me.”
Posillico is a civil engineering construction company based on Long Island, and Shaikh’s internship with Posillico evolved into something more.
“I asked my manager if I could stay on part-time while I was finishing up my master’s during the Fall of 2025, following my internship,” she said. “We were working on a bunch of projects, and I later asked her if I could stay on full-time after my master’s graduation in December.”
Shaikh started full-time with the business intelligence team in January 2026, and called the experience of being at the SHEroes event as an employer a “full-circle moment.”
“This is where I met people from Posillico,” she said. “So definitely a full-circle moment. I love helping people out, just like how they helped me and just sharing my knowledge from over the years.”
Her advice to current students: “Keep your options open. Explore any opportunity that’s out there because you never know where you’ll end up. And definitely keep networking and connecting with people because you never know what can happen.”
Desrosiers also encouraged students not to limit themselves to narrow career definitions.
“Don’t pigeonhole yourselves into these titles,” she said. “Have a bucket list, but then have a side B.”
Moore echoed that idea, describing her own path from communication to engineering.
“I would say follow your curiosity,” she said. “Don’t limit yourself with a long-term plan. It’s okay to have an outline, but go where you’re curious, and all those things will build up and eventually lead you somewhere.”
Panelists also addressed the challenge of balancing career ambitions with personal life. Keller emphasized the importance of setting boundaries to prioritize home life.
“For me it’s very important that I’m able to leave my work at work,” Keller said. “There is always something that needs your attention. But finding what you need for yourself and learning how you can set those boundaries really helps you set up that work/life balance.”
Leite agreed, and reframed the idea of balance.
“My ‘aha’ moment was that there are seasons of focus,” Leite said. “Sometimes you have to focus on the job and the career, and something else is kind of going to the wayside.”
Leite credits her career growth to leaders who recognized her potential.
“Somebody tapped on my shoulder and said, ‘Hey, you know what, I don’t know if you see it, but you would be great at this,’” she said. “The onus is on you. Find your person that you emulate and ask them.”
Throughout the panel, Dixon returned to the meaning of “SHEro,” an acronym representing strong, humble, empowered, resilient and original, and asked students to see those qualities within themselves. “Be curious and don’t say no to yourself,” she said.
“Perfection is not the key. Progress is the key. Your career is a marathon, not a sprint,” Leite added.
— Beth Squire
Totally relate to what is being discussed here. I have been a career women all my life for 25yrs and this topic is so close to my heart. I am so glad it is being discussed with an objective of guiding more women entering workforce in future. So important and significant that we take this conversation beyond our own daughters!