Rebecca Love, a visiting professor in nursing at Villanova University, is working with nursing professor Marion Leary from the University of Pennsylvania to convince federal agencies that nursing is a STEM profession.

The two professors co-chair the Nursing Is STEM Coalition. writes Abraham Gutman for The Philadelphia Inquirer.   

They submitted a petition letter this week asking the Department of Homeland Security to designate nursing a STEM profession.

“There’s no greater profession in the United States, in my opinion, that uses a combination of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics to advance forward human health than nursing,” Love said. “It is time that we correctly be classified as such.”

Because nursing is not recognized as a STEM profession, those who practice it are denied millions of dollars in grants for STEM-specific research and other opportunities.

Money like the White House $1.2 billion investment in STEM.

About 90 percent of nurses are women. Leary believes gender bias is at work, with nurses denied STEM status, even though they apply science, technology, math, and engineering in their daily work.

“It’s a female-dominated profession living in a world of STEM that is majority male,” Leary said.

Read more about the effort to have nursing recognized as a STEM profession in The Philadelphia Inquirer.