International Women’s Day 2015: Exhibition celebrates Imperial women past and present

This week, as part of the Women@Imperial project, the College played host to a number of events celebrating past and present female staff and students of Imperial in honour of International Women’s Day.

The central focus of the project is the public exhibition of photographs, video content and archive material taking place in the College Main Entrance from 9th to 13th March.

Future events include a series of briefings by female postdoctoral alumni and the Annual Athena lecture given by President of the Royal Academy of Engineering Professor Dame Ann Dowling on 17th June 2015.

This week, Imperial College Union hosted an event on Thursday evening entitled “A Catalyst for Change”; a number of student groups including Empower, WSET, Feminist Society and Tandem took part in the discussion about key issues faced by women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Medicine (STEM).

The discussion covered topics including the skills required to succeed as a woman in scientific research, the effectiveness of mentoring, feminism in a male dominated environment and what more can be done to support women as leaders in STEM fields.

Other events this week also included a lunchtime careers talk from The Sky At Night presenter and Imperial alumnus Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock MBE on Thursday 12th March.

The main exhibition in the College Main Entrance featured photography and archive material, illustrating the stories of a number of important female historical figures in Imperial’s history alongside present staff.

Women featured included Helen Kemp Porter, a plant physiologist who was the first woman Professor at Imperial; Martha Annie Whitely, the first woman to join the teaching staff of the Royal College of Science and the first woman Assistant Professor at Imperial; and Letitia Chitty, the first woman to graduate from Cambridge with first class honours in the Mechanical Sciences Tripos who joined Imperial as a Research Assistant in 1934.

Researchers from Imperial’s more recent history included Dr Rebecca Bell, a research fellow from the Department of Earth Science and E Abubakar Shekau ngineering; Co-Director of the Grantham Institute for Climate Change Professor Joanne Haigh FRS, and Professor Dame Julia Higgins FRS FRENG, Emeritus Professor and Senior Research Investigator in the Department of Chemical Engineering.

Imperial’s 19 current female Fellows of the Royal Society, Royal Academy of Engineering, the Academy of Medical Sciences and the British Academy were also celebrated. Alongside them were displays highlighting the Academic Women’s Ambassadors, posts created in 2008 to support fellow academics in professional development and recommend tutoring and mentoring facilities.

Other exhibits also explored the College’s schemes to bring about more equal representation of women as students, faculty members, entrepreneurs and leaders, including the Elsie Widdowson Fellowship Awards and the Julia Higgins Medal and Awards, which are awarded annually to recognise the contributions of both individuals and departments to the support of academic women at the College.

Finally the exhibition celebrated the initiatives developed by current and former female students with informative displays on groups including Women in SET, Feminist Society and Empower.

There was also a video exhibit, which compiled clips of Imperial students sharing the stories of women who had inspired them and developed their interest in science. Many of the students featured describe how female teachers, family members and public figures influenced their decision to study STEM subjects.

In tandem with the larger exhibition, the Wolfson Café on Hammersmith Campus hosted a satellite exhibition of 12 panels of photographs showcasing leading female scientists from Imperial’s history.

A panel of staff and students also took part in a Google Hangout at 1pm on Wednesday 11th March to discuss both the week’s events and the wider campaign. The event was chaired by Kerry Noble, News Editor in the Communications and Public Affairs Division, and featured women from a variety of Imperial departments and groups.

Taking questions from social media channels using the hashtag #ImperialWomen, the participants shared their experiences as women at Imperial, discussing the importance of role models and the women who they have personally been inspired by.

On the evening of Tuesday 10th March the College hosted a launch event for the exhibition, which was attended by around 200 members of the Imperial community and special guests including the Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, Maighread Condon-Simmonds.

The event was opened by Professor Dorothy Griffiths, the Provost’s Envoy for Gender Equality, who first joined Imperial in 1969 and was a founding member of the UK’s first ever Women In Science Group.

President of Imperial College Professor Alice Gast welcomed the attendees and gave a short speech praising the Women@Imperial project, before introducing College Provost Professor James Stirling.

As chair of the Academic Gender Strategy Committee, Professor Stirling spoke about the support available for female staff and students, including the Athena SWAN Charter and current initiatives to improve emergency childcare provisions and host family life panel discussions.

Noting that women make up 36% of the student population at Imperial but only 19% of professors, Professor Stirling expressed his regret that the “leaky pipeline” effect for women in STEM fields had not yet been eradicated. He noted that while there was “much to celebrate”, there was also much still to be done in terms of gender parity.

Last to speak was Union President Tom Wheeler, who communicated the Union’s desire to empower students to take the lead in fixing the problems they face, thanking the Liberation Officers for their assistance in this.

Wheeler also spoke about the student-led ICSexism campaign, which aims to collect students’ experiences and get people talking about the issue of sexism on campus.

A performance from the A Cappella society’s first all-female group, the Imperielles, followed the speeches. Throughout the evening a number of groups manned Imperial Fringe style interactive exhibits featuring demonstrations and displays of recent research performed by women at Imperial.

Imperial College Business School took the opportunity to announce two new scholarships, worth £20,000 each, for exceptional female candidates seeking to undertake Imperial’s Executive MBA. The initiative hopes to encourage more women to undertake post-graduate management education.

Women@Imperial comprises a series of events taking place through to June 2015, honouring academic and professional women of the College and raising awareness of the variety of schemes run by College to support women’s careers.