The Athena Factor Podcast — Rebecca Hawkins, PE
Podcast

The Athena Factor

“The operating manual they never handed us.”

Career infrastructure for mid-career women in STEM who were never handed the manual. Authoritative. Technical. Peer-level.

Athena was born fully formed and fully armored. She didn’t ask permission.

🎙 Apple Podcasts 🟢 Spotify 📻 Overcast ▶️ YouTube
The Athena Factor Podcast
Mid-Career
Women in STEM — the audience nobody is actually serving
Technical
Peer-level depth — not inspiration, not platitudes
Real Systems
Frameworks you use in your career this week
Season 1 — Launching April 2026

The First Episodes

Each episode delivers one specific framework — named, numbered, immediately applicable. Standalone but cumulative. A complete operating system by the end of Season 1.

EP 01
Trailer: Who Is The Athena Factor
25 years. PE license. Wired to see the whole system at once. The operating manual for women in STEM starts now.
Launch Episode · April 1, 2026
EP 02
Origin Story: Built, Not Boxed
I read at 2.5. Programmed at 4. Got a PIP at 25. Here’s the full origin — and what it has to do with your career right now.
Season 1 · April 2026
EP 03
Why Women Leave STEM (And Why I Didn’t)
35% of women with STEM degrees leave within five years. Here’s what the data actually says — and what I did instead for 25 years.
Season 1 · May 2026
EP 04
The ADHD Diagnosis at 25 — Via a PIP
It wasn’t underperformance. It was a mismatch. Here’s how I figured that out — and what changed when I stopped calling it a problem.
Season 1 · May 2026
EP 05
58 of 64: The ASD Diagnosis Nobody Gave Me
A coworker cracked it. A checklist confirmed it. 90.6% match. Here’s what masking in STEM actually looks like — and what it costs.
Season 1 · May 2026
INWED
The 2.25% Problem
International Women in Engineering Day flagship. Full pipeline data. The four barriers. 25 years of watching the system. And what you can do about it today.
INWED Special · June 23, 2026
Your Hosts

Hosted by Rebecca & Nancy

Rebecca Hawkins
Co-Host
Rebecca Hawkins
PE · Founder · Host

The Athena Factor is the brainchild of Rebecca Hawkins, a licensed professional engineer with 25 years in life sciences, a fully neurodivergent capacity for brilliance that is hot wired on caffeine, and a performance improvement plan that turned out to be a misdiagnosis of her actual problem — which was that the workplace wasn't moving fast enough for her brain.

Her wit has been described as Nora Ephron meets Sheldon Cooper. She describes herself as Sheldon Cooper with Missy Cooper's bad attitude. Both are accurate.

The Athena Factor is the operating manual she wishes she'd had at 25 — built for women in STEM who are too much for the box, not enough for the system, and done waiting for someone to hand them the blueprint.

No Stark billions. No Wayne manor. Just the brain, the PE stamp, and the pink cape. Let's build something big together.

Full Story →
Nancy Scales-Coddington
Co-Host
Nancy Scales-Coddington
Science Communicator · Media Producer

The Athena Factor is co-hosted by Nancy Scales-Coddington, an award-winning science communicator and media producer whose work bridges science, storytelling, and STEM identity. With more than two decades in STEM education and media, Nancy has produced and hosted programs with PBS, PBS KIDS, and WSKG Public Media, including the Science Pub podcast and the National Girls Collaborative Project's Empowering Change: Women and Girls in STEM.

A longtime SciGirls partner, Nancy's work focuses on STEM Identity and breaking down barriers for women and underrepresented groups in science.

The Athena Factor explores the intersection of science, media, and human experience, spotlighting voices that challenge conventions and redefine what it means to lead in STEM.