INTERNATIONAL DAY FOR WOMEN AND GIRLS IN SCIENCE

Currently, less than 30 percent of researchers worldwide are women!

Stereotypes and biases are steering women and girls away from science-related fields and it is no surprise that the screen only portrays women in 12% of STEM-based jobs.

Women and girls have the potential to really excel in STEM fields and it’s so important to show the next generation the stories and journeys of women who have been there and done it and are still doing it! Here are a few of our Female Leads that are passionate about STEM:

Maggie Aderin-Pocock, Space Scientist and Presenter

Dr. Maggie Aderin-Pocock is a British space scientist. Born in Britain to Nigerian parents, Aderin-Pocock attended 13 different schools before studying physics at Imperial College London and taking a PhD in mechanical engineering.

While she was the lead scientist at Astrium, the optical instrumentation group, researching for the European Space Agency and NASA, she started giving talks to children and young people, which led to her becoming a television presenter. In 2009, she was awarded an MBE for her services to science and education. She has set up her own charity; Science Innovation Ltd, which uses “tours of the universe” to show school children and adults the wonder of space. Since having her daughter in 2010, she has concentrated on consultancy and on her career as a presenter and a promoter of science.

“You don't need a big brain the size of a planet, or mad hair. You need a passion to understand things."

Dr. Anne-Marie Imafidon, Co-founder and CEO of STEMettes

Anne Marie was the youngest girl ever to pass A-level Computing and was just 20 years old when she received her Master’s degree in Mathematics and Computer Science from the University of Oxford.

With her passion for STEM she co-founded STEMettes, a social enterprise working across the UK and Ireland to inspire, support and encourage young women into STEM related fields. The vision of STEMettes is to ensure all girls are able to make informed decisions about careers in STEM so that eventually women can be proportionally represented in the field.

“Who knows? She might be the next Einstein. She might be the next person that solves world hunger. If you don’t take her seriously now, she’ll become disenfranchised enough that it’s not something she continues to do”

Ramona Pierson, Technology Entrepreneur and CEO of Declara

Ramona Pierson is the CEO of Declara, a personal learning technology company she co-founded in 2012. She began her career as a neuroscientist and has founded several other companies in the education field, including The Source, one of the first online social learning platforms for teachers, parents and students.

Ramona was accepted into the University of California, Berkeley, at 16 and her aptitude for maths; in particular her exceptional skill with data and algorithms, led her to be recruited at 18 by the Marine Corps.

In 1984, aged 22, she was hit by a drunk driver and spent 18 months in a coma. She was also blind for 11 years following the accident. Having to relearn so much, fuelled her lifelong passion for helping others to learn.

‘Take up every second of the day and not let a moment pass because that’s a moment lost.’

Dr. Jessica Wade - British Physicist and the woman on a mission to expose overlooked female scientists

Physicist and equality campaigner she is the scientist on a mission. Dr. Jessica Wade is a British physicist in the Blackett Laboratory at Imperial College London. Her research investigates polymer-based organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs).

Dr. Wade was shocked that according to Wikipedia’s gender gap-bridging project, fewer than 20% of biographies are of women. So she embarked on a major project by writing biographies of women and other minorities in science and engineering since 2017 and adds a new entry almost every day. Including overlooked female scientists, such as Jocelyn Bell Burnell, an astrophysicist in the 1960s who discovered the first radio pulsars. In 2018 alone, Wade added about 270 Wikipedia pages to get female scientists noticed.

Jessica’s journey for equality in STEM began by reading a book. The book is called ‘Inferior: How Science Got Women Wrong and the New Science. That’s Rewriting the Story.’ by Angela Saini.

“This book gave me so much more confidence in who I was – and tapped into a phenomenal network of women all over the world who have been empowered by it. It makes us realise how many holes there are in our knowledge of the world because we’ve not had women asking questions for so long.”

Today, tweet us an inspirational woman in STEM or follow some of our amazing female leads in STEM:

@sallyeaves

@katerussell

@RuthAmos

@m_windridge

@DrLucyRogers

@AnimaAnadkumar

@OceanRamsey

@aimafidon

@jesswade