Rising Stargirls Founder Aomawa Shields is featured on the Boldly Reimagining Life Campaign, which repositions Toyota as more than a symbol of reliability—it presents the brand as a visionary force shaping the future. The hero film, “Curiosity,” follows real-life astronomer Dr. Aomawa Shields, whose classroom question launches a journey from Earth to the moon, symbolizing Toyota’s limitless imagination. Read more about the feature here.
Rising Stargirls is Published in the Astronomy Education Journal
A peer-reviewed journal article review on the past decade of the Rising Stargirls program and its assessment data from 2025, quantifying the efficacy of the program, has been published in the Astronomy Education Journal. Read more on “Rising Stargirls: Benefits of a Creative Arts-Based Approach to Astronomy Education for Middle-School Girls from Underrepresented Groups” here.
Rising Stargirls Newsletter
2024 Summer Virtual Astronomy Opportunity for Middle-School Girls!
Virtual Astronomy Opportunity for Middle-School Girls! Summer 2023
Astronomy Workshop Training for Educators
Virtual Astronomy Opportunity for Middle-School Girls! (Spanish-Translated)
Virtual Astronomy Opportunity for Middle-School Girls!
UCI Professor Aomawa Shields Featured in UCI Physical Sciences Communications Article
UCI Professor Aomawa Shields is featured in “UCI’s Rising Stargirls Program Dawns Again This Summer”, an article by Lucas Van Wyk Joel of UCI Physical Sciences Communications which discusses her program, Rising Stargirls.
The Rising Stargirls Handbook en Español is now available!
The Rising Stargirls Handbook en Español is here! This is the Spanish translated version of the original Rising Stargirls Teaching and Activity Handbook.
This translation was provided by Nina Robbins Blanch (our many thanks to her!), who was born and raised in Barcelona, Spain. She completed her undergraduate studies in Astrophysics and Earth Science at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she focused on planetary science. Her main research work consisted in modeling atmospheres of hot Jupiter exoplanets through an internship at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. During her time at UC Santa Cruz, she was a member of WiPA (Women in Physics and Astrophysics), where she helped organize science outreach events to encourage middle school students (especially girls) to pursue careers in physics and astronomy. Currently, she is a graduate student pursuing an M.Sc. in Ocean and Climate Physics at the University of Hamburg, Germany, where she hopes to study the role of atmospheric processes, such as cloud formation, in shaping Earth's current and future climate.
Download it for free and use it in your virtual classrooms and informal learning environments anywhere in the world!
Sincerely,
Rising Stargirls Team