We examined the underrepresentation of women in STEM careers. Women make up almost half of the U.S. workforce, and yet only 14% of engineers are women. These imbalances are seen throughout all STEM careers. We also looked at studies about the “leaky pipeline” phenomenon, which describes how few girls enter STEM fields despite excelling at these subjects at school. We also researched women scientists from the past and present, learning how many weren’t given credit for their groundbreaking work (and how often male colleagues received credit for their discoveries instead). We wanted to honor a diverse range of women so that our audiences could see women in the past and present who were breaking down gender, race and professional stereotypes.

As a STEM leader, GE believes that great female scientists should be treated like stars. So we took over Grand Central, transforming the mythical heroes painted on its ceiling to show real ones: great women scientists. We created unique constellations of brilliant female scientists and projected them on the ceiling as part of a show that took viewers on a journey past nebulae and star clusters to discover these new constellations. We partnered with a company that has extensive experience projecting on historic and complex venues. Their unparalleled skill set was critical when working with Grand Central’s 51,836 sq. ft. ceiling. Thirty-two manually calibrated projectors were installed in the station to create the 960,000 lumens necessary to make the images visible on the station’s famous bright green ceilings. The show ran September 19–22. Content also lived as a YouTube 360-video and ran on GE’s Facebook channel as a Live 360-video.

Unseen Stars had over 300 million total impressions and received an estimated 2.3 million views in person—that’s more than Manhattan’s entire population—all for an event that only ran four days. As a result of the campaign, GE’s careers page saw a 10% increase in traffic and, in 2017, the number of women hired by GE rose an impressive 6%. People shared the show, sparking a conversation about creating equality in the sciences. The show lived on across multiple digital channels aggregating 1.5 million views in the following weeks, and was picked up by outlets like NBC, ABC, Forbes and Teen Vogue.