There are some studies, and if the committee is interested, I'll be happy to send a more complete bibliography. But for sure, with young girls, it's more their parents than their peers, and there is research that says that.
There's definitely research that shows that fewer girls than boys in high school know what an engineer is.
The other thing I'll say, just on the mentoring point, which is so important, is that there's no question about mentors and role models, but anyone who has a teenage daughter or a 22-year-old, as I do, also knows that the messenger is as important as the message. For me to go and talk to high school girls and say there are great careers and come be rich with me in technology is not going to have nearly the same impact as a university girl going to talk to the high school girls about how much fun they're going to have at university, building stuff and learning how things work.
It's really important. Mentoring works under certain conditions, with certain kinds of people, etc. That's why I think the evaluation and the targeted and nuanced strategies are so important.