Female scientists joining the world of LEGOs

A generation of future scientists may soon be inspired by a LEGO set of female scientist mini-figures.

The new set will feature a paleontologist, an astronomer and a chemist. It beat out six other proposed LEGO designs in a competition to become the next official LEGO theme set to hit store shelves.

"This amazing science-based project ... is all about exploring the world and beyond --a paleontologist, an astronomer, a chemist and all their awesome equipment. It's cool, it's stylish and honestly who doesn't like dinosaurs?" said Frederikke Hoff from LEGO Ideas in a video posted on the LEGO site.

The creative force behind the design is a geochemist named Ellen Kooijman. She says she hopes to expand the set in the future with a female robotics engineer and other characters.

The set, titled "Research Institute," is expected to hit store shelves in August. Final pricing is still being determined.

Proposals for new LEGO sets can be submitted through the company's LEGO Ideas platform site. If a proposal receives more than 10,000 votes, then LEGO will review it for production consideration.

"As a female scientist I had noticed two things about the available LEGO sets: a skewed male/female minifigure ratio and a rather stereotypical representation of the available female figures," Kooijman wrote on her blog. "It seemed logical that I would suggest a small set of female minifigures in interesting professions to make our LEGO city communities more diverse."

The new female scientist set comes after recent criticism over the lack of diversity in LEGO world.

In January, 7-year-old Charlotte Benjamin wrote a letter to LEGO asking why they let "boy people" do more things like go on adventures, save people and swim with sharks. LEGO responded at time that while their sets have been more appealing to boys, the company was planning to make "more female characters and themes that invite even more girls to build."