Friday 9 March 2018

Women in STEM - Cafe Scientifique and SheFEST

In the run up to International Women's Day, Cafe Scientifique and SheFEST jointly organised a "Women in STEM" special, where female postgraduate researchers from the University of Sheffield gave brief presentations on a wide range of topics.

Events like this are important for promoting diversity and inclusivity, and highlighting the contributions women have made in fields which have been typically - and still are - male dominated. The hope is that events like this also inspire the scientists of tomorrow, while also highlighting the progress still required to make a career in STEM for women more attractive.

Robyn Ward talks about ceramics that
other than plates and cups!
The department of Materials Science and Engineering is proud to hold an Athena SWAN Silver Award, and for this event was represented by two women postgraduate researchers, one of whom is also a member of the FMD group.

Robyn Ward, a doctoral researcher within the FMD group, gave a brief overview on the important role computational simulations play in enhancing our understanding of the atomistic processes that underpin the properties of functional materials, in particular ceramics, which are ubiquitous within the electronics industry.

Stavrina suggests that making the perfect
HEA is much like making the perfect
sausage
Stavrina Dimosthenous is a doctoral researcher within the department's metallurgy group. Her talk introduced the audience to the topic of High Entropy Alloys (HEA), and the potential benefits they could bring. However, just as with ceramic materials, the challenge is to use computational simulations to enable the rapid discovery of novel materials.

Also speaking at the event was Natasha Ellison, a doctoral researcher from the School of Mathematics and Statistics, giving her talk on the topic of mathematical modelling to enable a better understanding of animal movement in natural environments and how human activity can influence these patterns.
Stavrina, Robyn, Natasha and 
Fanny takes questions from the
audience and share their experiences
as women in STEM.

Fanny Stevance, a doctoral researcher in Physics and Astronomy, presented her work on understanding supernovae, and the different versions of these events that are the mechanism for the creation of the plethora of atoms that make up the Periodic table.


A common thread that tied all the talks together, it was that of mathematics, and how it is a tool to understand the world around us at different scales: be it atoms, crystal structure, animal migration and territories, or searching space for supernovae.