International Day of Women and Girls in Science
February 7, 2018
IMDEA in the International Day of Women and Girls in Science
This year the IMDEA institutes are contributing to the activities being held all over the world to celebrate the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, whose aim is to support women and girls in achieving full and equal participation in scientific fields.
Although the day itself is 11 February 2018, during the weeks prior to and following this date, there will be events held throughout the world. In Spain, including in Madrid, there will be a series of events led by women who have dedicated their lives to science.
The events, led by women, and oriented in particular towards girls and women, but open to the public as a whole, will be very diverse, from workshops to scientific lectures, round table discussions, seminars etc….as different as the fields of science around which the events will be based, from neuroscience to software, water, nutrition, physics and nanoscience.
The IMDEA institutes, who share the aims of this International Day, are planning to participate in a number of these events, this involvement having come about as a result of its close collaboration with the Fundación para el Conocimiento madrimasd.
The first of these is a Meeting of Secondary School Students and researchers from hospitals and the IMDEA and ICMAT institutes, which will take place at Hospital Clínico San Carlos on Thursday 8 February at 12.00 noon. The meeting will be attended by four researchers from IMDEA institutes —Patricia Horcajada, Teresa Pérez Prado, Cristina Flors and Ana Ramírez de Molina— together with three hospital researchers —María Luaces Méndez, María Dulcenombre Gómez Garre and Elena Urcelay García— and María Ángeles García Ferrero, who is a researcher at ICMAT. The meeting will be moderated by journalist and mathematician Ágata Timón. Researchers will talk to students about the origins of their scientific vocation, their professional experience and their views on the research sector.
Researchers from the IMDEA Water Institute will be involved in two activities: We are scientists and To clean the planet. The first of these, which will take place on 10 February, at 18:00 at Caixaforum Madrid, will be attended by Belén González Gaya. The second, taking place on 13 February, is a full day comprising five seminars/debates for students of the IES El Burgo-Ignacio Echeverría de Las Rozas, Madrid and with guests Ana de Santiago Martín and Belén González Gaya.
On Tuesday 6th February and Wednesday 7th February, at 10:00, the IMDEA Food Institute will host guided tours on the subject of Female Scientists Investigating Precision Nutrition, led by Ana Ramírez de Molina, Deputy Director of the Institute. Visitors will have the chance to find out at first hand the experience of researchers from different scientific fields. As part of the visit there will be an informal “debating area” to discuss some of the barriers faced by women and girls in pursuing their scientific goals.
The IMDEA Energy Institute is also organising a guided tour on Wednesday 7 February at 10:00, in which three of the centre’s researchers – Elia Tomás, Rebeca Marcilla and Marta Liras— will speak about the research work they are doing and give visitors a tour of the laboratories.
On Tuesday 6 February at 10:00, the IMDEA Materials Institute, is inviting students from IES Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos de Fuenlabrada to a guided tour around its centre. The researchers at the centre who will host the visitors are Vanesa Martínez, María Vila, Cleis Santos, Andrea Fernández, Xiaolin Qi and Maria Azzurra Riezzo.
The IMDEA Nanoscience Institute will also open its laboratories to visitors on Tuesday 13 February at 10:00, under the guidance of researcher Ana Pizarro, who will demonstrate the work behind the 10 investigation programmes under way at the institute.
At the IMDEA Software Institute on Wednesday 7 February at 16:00, a round table will take place, moderated by journalist María José Bosch, to which an invited public audience will attend. This round table will be recorded and broadcast on Friday 9 February on the Primera Hora programme on Gestiona Radio (from 11:00 to 12:00). There will be 5 panellists taking part: two IMDEA software researchers: Alessandra Gorla and Isabel García Contreras and three guests from other institutions specialising in software development: Ernestina Menasalvas, Asunción Santamaría and Elena González-Blanco.
The IMDEA Institutes hope that these events will help to convey to the public just a small part of the magnificent work being carried out by its researchers. We will find out from the researchers themselves, what they are working on and the significance and impact of their work. We will find out why they chose their particular career path, whether they believe that they are treated differently as a woman and the changes they believe are required to ensure equality of opportunity. The IMDEA institutes are getting involved in this special day because they want the public to know about their project’s aim, which is to recruit and retain talent, regardless of gender, talent that seeks to make science meaningful and useful to everyone.
A summary of these events can be found by clicking on the following link: Open Day IMDEA.
