Encouraging women into STEM education to accelerate gender parity
8th of March is International Women’s Day, a celebration of the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. It’s also an opportunity to raise awareness of discrimination against women and to drive action towards gender parity.
For this year’s International Women’s Day, we’re looking at women in science and technology.
The Nobel Prize winning French-Polish physicist, Marie Curie, discovered polonium and radium, and made a significant contribution to cancer treatments.
British scientist Rosalind Franklin is best known for her contributions to the discovery of DNA and insights into the structure of viruses.
Janaki Ammal, a pioneering Indian botanist from India, made several hybrid plant species and created a high-yield strain of sugarcane that thrived in Indian weather conditions.
For these three women, their scientific work is famous and their legacy is undoubtable, but they are a minority in a field traditionally dominated by men. As of 2019, women represented just 24% of the British science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) workforce*, and there are more men studying STEM at colleges and universities worldwide.
Furthermore, with engineering and computer sciences offering highly paid employment, disparities between male and female pay may continue without increased representation of women in the fields.
A better world through education
We believe that through widening access to global education, we can encourage more women into the careers they want to pursue, inspiring future generations to challenge gendered career stereotypes and progress toward greater parity.
Already, today’s younger generation are actively breaking down barriers through education. Nutta-Uea studied at the Durham University International Study Centre, run by Study Group in partnership with Durham University. After completing the International Foundation Year with us, she graduated with a BSc Hons in Chemistry from Durham. Now, she plans to inspire a new generation of scientists.
Within the Study Group network our academics, scientists and researchers are passionate about using science to move the world forward. One such scientist is Dr. Palat Ushasree PhD, who is now a tutor at the Study Group-run Teesside University International Study Centre:
“As a child I had always been creative, and passionate about science. But it was only in 1996, while doing my doctoral research, I truly experienced the scientific world! I achieved immense happiness when I was being innovative and applying the knowledge I had gained to create my own non-linear optical device! This was a magical moment for me, and this is where my career in academia began.
Palat’s contribution from her doctoral research continues to be highly cited in the scientific community. For her outstanding research, she was awarded the Japanese Society for Promotion of Science postdoctoral fellow to work at the Institute of Multidisciplinary Research for Advanced Materials, Tohoku University, Japan, where she developed a new technique for growing organic single crystal thin films in a desired orientation.
She adds: “I contribute to the wider research community by reviewing the Elsevier journals: Solar Energy and Material Research Bulletin (MRB). I have also worked in collaboration with Kromek plc., a spin-out company of Durham University, in the development of high-energy radiation detector for scanning liquid bottles at airports. My research into sustainable energy at Newcastle University and Northumbria University resulted in an invitation from Royal Society of Chemistry to contribute as a main author for the book “Solar Energy Capture Materials”. The book aims to introduce solar energy capture materials and devices to advanced undergraduates, postgraduates, and researchers.”