International Day of Women and Girls in Science
Following the UN’s International Day of Women and Girls in Science and the assembly on 11 February, the Collections and Open Research teams have created a display in the Main Library and an accompanying twitter campaign to highlight the open research and open data from a few of the researchers at the University of St Andrews.
The International Day of Women and Girls in Science is aimed at bringing awareness to the gender gap that has persisted at all levels of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) across the world, and at promoting women’s equal access to and participation in education, training, and technology as an imperative for achieving gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls. According to the UN, female researchers tend to have shorter careers and be paid less for their work. The work of women in STEM is underrepresented in high-profile journals and women typically receive smaller research grants than their male colleagues. And while women represent 33.3% of all researchers, only 12% of members of national science academies are women.
To bring awareness to some of the open STEM research generated by women at the University of St Andrews, we reached out to the community. Just a few of the women who responded include:
- Areti Manataki, who researches artificial intelligence methods to improve the delivery of healthcare services, particularly patient flow in surgical wards. In the field of artificial intelligence, only one in five professionals (22%) is a woman.
- Rosa Filgueira, whose impressive work in information-processing technologies has been recognised by fellowships in digital librarianship and informatics, and by appointment to the UK Young Academy.
- Ife Okafor-Yarwood, whose current research in Geography & Sustainable Development explores gendered dimensions of maritime insecurity in the Gulf of Guinea. She is also a Women in Science at St Andrews (WISSA) champion.
- Éadin O’Mahony, who researches population genetics for humpback and fin whales on the coast of British Columbia, Canada, collecting DNA samples from whale blow with a ‘SnotBot’ drone. Her holistic approach to research involving the Gitga’at First Nation has attracted collaborative funding from the Canadian government, the School of Biology, and the North Coast Cetacean Society among others.
- Izzy Langley, who researches harbour, grey, and Weddell seals in Orkney, Wales, and Antarctica. Her work has included testing photo ID for seals and consulting for offshore wind farms. Her creative outreach efforts with Cell Block Science and other venues have been recognised in the School of Biology Public Engagement Award.
International Love Data Week
In addition to highlighting researchers in the Main Library, on posters with QR codes to their research profiles, we will tweet their open data alongside the International Love Data Week 2023. The theme for the week is Data: Agent of Change, which is apt for the open data we will feature from some of our female researchers. Love Data Week is about inspiring people to use data to bring about changes that matter, and we hope that the open data featured on our twitter will help the community connect with data that can help make change in important areas.
Keep an eye on our twitter @OpenResearchStA for more features and updates, and contact the Research Data Management team ([email protected]) for more information about the program or, as always, for questions about data.