Tag Archives: Maria Klawe

Lost Women of Science

Both an organization and a podcast series, Lost Women of Science is preparing for its second, third, and fourth podcasts seasons thanks to a grant announced in a November 19, 2021 Lost Women of Science news release (on Cision),

 Journalist and author Katie Hafner, and bioethicist Amy Scharf, today announced that the Lost Women of Science podcast series will continue for an additional three seasons thanks to a grant award of $446,760 from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation. The podcast series will continue its partnership with public media organization PRX and the award-winning Scientific American magazine.

The first season features multiple in-depth episodes centered on Dr. Dorothy Andersen, a pediatric pathologist who identified and named cystic fibrosis in 1938. Three episodes are now available across all major podcast listening platforms, including Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Amazon Music. The fourth episode [I believe it’s Season 1] will be released on Thanksgiving Day [November 25, 2021].

Genny Biggs, Special Projects Officer of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation said, “We have been excited about this project from our initial conversations and have been pleased to see the results. Our history books have unfortunately taught us too little about these women and we support bringing their stories to the forefront. We hope they will inspire the next generation of female scientists.”

Hafner said, “The response to the podcast so far has been overwhelmingly positive.  We could not be more grateful to the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, not only for early funding to help us get started, but for continued support and confidence that will allow us to tell more stories.”

Dr. Maria Klawe, President of Harvey Mudd College and Chair of the Lost Women of Science Initiative Advisory Board, said, “It’s wonderful that the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation recognizes that women have been making great contributions to science for centuries, even though they’re often not recognized. And the rich storytelling approach has deep impact in helping people understand the importance of a scientist’s work.”

Earlier funding for Lost Women of Science has come from the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Schmidt Futures and the John Templeton Foundation. The Initiative is also partnering with Barnard College at Columbia University, one-third of whose graduates are STEM majors. Harvey Mudd College graciously served as an early Fiscal Sponsor.

To learn more about the Lost Women of Science Initiative, or to donate to this important work, please visit: www.lostwomenofscience.org and follow @lostwomenofsci.

About Lost Women of Science:

The Lost Women of Science Initiativeis a 501(c)3 nonprofit with two overarching and interrelated missions: to tell the story of female scientists who made groundbreaking achievements in their fields, yet remain largely unknown to the general public, and to inspire girls and young women to pursue education and careers in STEM. The Initiative’s flagship is its Lost Women of Science podcast series. As a full, mission-driven organization, the Lost Women of Science Initiative plans to digitize and archive its research, and to make all primary source material available to students and historians of science.

About the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation:

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation fosters path-breaking scientific discovery, environmental conservation, patient care improvements and preservation of the special character of the Bay Area. Visit Moore.org and follow @MooreFound.

You can listen to this trailer for Season 1,

The four episodes currently available constitute a four-part series on Dorothy Andersen, her work, and how she got ‘lost’. You can find the podcasts here.

Thank you to the publicist who sent the announcement about the grant!

Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada) and its president’s (Andrew Petter) dream colloquium: women in technology

I’m a little late with this event news (sadly,. I only received the information yesterday, Sept. 20, 2017) but even with two event dates already past (happily, videos for the two events have been posted), there are still several “Women in Technology” events to attend or view live according to the Simon Fraser University (SFU) President’s Dream Colloquium: Women in Technology; Attaining, Retaining, and Promoting Diverse Talent’s webpage text by Wan Yee Lok,

Women in Technology: Attracting, Retaining and Promoting Diverse Talent is a seven-part public [emphasis mine] lecture series beginning on Sept. 13. Key experts from around the world will identify challenges to gender equity and discover solutions for improving recruitment, retention and leadership options for women.

Diversity and inclusion are critical to high-tech corporate success. Yet statistics reveal that less than 25 per cent of those working in the science, technology, engineering and math sectors (STEM) are women, and that they earn seven-and-a-half per cent less than men.

“There is a crucial need to achieve gender equality in the tech sector, especially at a time when it is growing faster than ever,” says colloquium organizer Lesley Shannon, an SFU engineering science professor. She holds the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for the B.C. and Yukon region.

“We hope the colloquium will help people engage in a multidisciplinary dialogue about the value of creating more space in technology for women and other under-represented groups.”

Six of the lectures are free, except for Cathy O’Neil’s lecture on Oct. 26.

The President’s Dream Colloquium schedule is as follows:

Sept. 13: SFU KEY presents: We the Data
Juliette Powell, founder, Turing AI and WeTheData.org, author of 33 Million People in the Room

Sept. 14: Diversity 101: The Case for Diversity in Technology
Maria Klawe, president, Harvey Mudd College

Sept. 21: Women in Media and Advertising
Shari Graydon, catalyst, Informed Opinions

Oct. 12: Social Psychological Phenomena
Steven Spencer, the Robert K. and Dale J. Weary Chair in Social Psychology, Ohio State University

Oct. 26: Gender and Bias in Algorithmic Design
Cathy O’Neil, author, Weapons of Math Destruction [tickets are $5 for students; $15 for the rest of us; go here to buy tickets, click on green button in the upper right, below the banner; the event will be held at SFU’s Harbour Centre Vancouver location]

Nov 9: Gendered Language
Danielle Gaucher, associate professor, Department of Psychology, University of Winnipeg

Nov. 23: Women as Leaders and Innovators
Jo Miller, founder, Be Leaderly

Lectures will be webcast live and available on the President’s Dream Colloquium website, www.sfu.ca/womenintech.

SFU engineering science professor Lesley Shannon is the colloquium organizer as well as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) Chair for Women in Science and Engineering for the B.C. and Yukon region.

 

As a part of the colloquium, students can enroll in a graduate course covering a broad range of topics related to diversity in the technology sector. Shannon says the course will focus on women and their role in technology as well as issues that affect other under‐represented groups.

“I hope the course will establish a foundation for future managers, supervisors, sponsors, mentors and others wanting to pursue leadership roles to work towards creating a level playing field in technology and other industries,” says Shannon.

The colloquium course (SAR 897) is still accepting students. Visit go.sfu.ca to enroll.

A reminder after the last few paragraphs of the event text, you don’t actually have to be a student to attend the lectures although for anyone who doesn’t want to make the trek up the hill (SFU is located on a hill in Burnaby, BC) for the majority of the events, there is the livestream video. For those who can’t make the scheduled times, given that both the Sept. 13 and Sept. 14, 2017 event videos have been posted, they are being pretty quick about uploading the videos afterwards.

I have mentioned Cathy O’Neil here a couple of times, more substantively in a Feb. 28, 2017 posting about a major’ big data’ collaboration between the province of BC and the state of Washington (for Cathy O’Neil, scroll down to the subsection titled: Algorithms and big data) and briefly at the end in a May 24, 2017 posting that was chiefly concerned with bias in algorithms.