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WiE Newsletter - October 2020 - ISSUE 12
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Front and Center
News from the Director
I am going to take this opportunity to stray a bit, just a bit, from the topic of women in engineering to say a few words about Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died in September.
Justice Ginsburg’s career in the support of women’s rights - from the right to work overtime (yes, there was a time women could not work overtime as a "protection," but as you can image not working overtime limited your pay and advancement), to women’s health.
A few vignettes worth sharing showed me how Justice Ginsberg navigated the world of working (to put it mildly) wife and mother. In a book called “Sisters In-Law” (author Linda Hirschman), which traces the history of the first two women to serve on the Supreme Court, the differences in background for Sandra Day O’Connor and Ruth Bader Ginsburg could not have been more stark: A tall, blond, outdoorsy, Arizona native with political experience and a petite, brunette, Brooklyn native and college professor. When RBG was confirmed for the Supreme Court, Washington Women’s Law Group celebrated and gave each justice a t-shirt. RBG’s said “I’m Ruth, Not Sandra” and Justice O’Connor’s said “I’m Sandra, not Ruth”. The take-away is one that I am sure you have experienced as well when we are in positions with few women – “One woman is the same as any other." Not so!
The second vignette I’d like to share is one that almost all working Moms wished they’d said - I know I do. One of the Ginsburg children was “lively” and the school called often. After one such call, the Justice said “He has two parents, please alternate your calls."
School is off to a great start. The students are engaged; the faculty is prepared; WiE has introduced a new series on creating inclusive communities (check out the first installment here); and we are planning two exciting events taking place this week. The first is the October 9, 8 pm screening of Picture A Scientist (extended registration deadline is October 8 at 8 pm). The second is a panel webinar on Women’s Leadership in Engineering, hosted by CVP (see below for how to join). Remember to stay physically distant and socially connected, and wash your hands.
Shelly Heller
WiE Center Director
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ATTEND ONLINE:Women in Engineering: Charting the Path to LeadershipA CVP & GW Speaker SeriesOctober 7, 2020 - 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
WiE is participating with GW Alumni and CVP in this important discussion on leadership.
A panel of women engineers at every stage of their careers will discuss factors behind poor percentages of women in engineering, and how to improve the outcomes going forward.
All attendees will receive a copy of "Charting a Path to Leadership for Women in Engineering - Top Tips on Leadership" as a complimentary takeaway.
Moderator: Lisa Brown, VP of Operations, CVP
Panelists:
Andrea Norris, Director, Center for Information Technology, and Chief Information Officer, National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Maria Roat, Deputy Federal Chief Information Officer (CIO), Office of Management and Budget (OMB), Office of the Chief Information Officer
Sonja Lemott, Chief, PEO Engineering Division, Program Executive Office (PEO), Defense Healthcare Management Systems (DHMS)
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CSPRI and WiE Win DoD Grant: Conference on Re-Entry for Women Veterans into Cybersecurity Careers
GW Cyber Security and Privacy Research Institute (CSPRI) and SEAS Center for Women in Engineering (WiE) have been awarded a grant by the Department of Defense to host a conference for women veterans!
Closing the Gap (whether it is a talent gap of skilled cybersecurity workers or a gap in the time between jobs in the military and the cyber-workforce) is a one-day working conference, combining presentations and breakout group discussions, designed to focus on equipping and readying women veterans to enter or return to the workforce, specifically into careers in cybersecurity. The conference will be held in May 2021 in Washington, DC.
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Join NCWIT Aspirations in Computing CommunityAwards Deadline: October 15, 2020
WiE encourages students who self-identify as woman, genderqueer, or non-binary and are enrolled in a computing-related major or minor to join the Aspirations in Computing Community. The community offers students a national network of peers and opportunities to exchange ideas and advice with other technical women as well as exclusive access to computing hackathons, internships, scholarships, jobs, and awards.
NCWIT Aspirations Collegiate Awards are now open. These awards honor outstanding technical contributions to projects that demonstrate a high level of innovation and potential impact. Applications for the first round are due Oct. 15, 2020.
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Google Conference and Travel ScholarshipsDeadlines coming up in October!
Scholarships are available in North America for all traditionally underrepresented groups in technology and business (including, but not limited to: African American/Black, Hispanic/Latinx, Native American, persons with disabilities, women and veterans). Applicants must have a strong academic and/or professional background with demonstrated leadership ability, be able to attend the core conference days, and be residents of, studying, or working in North America.
Apply by clicking on the Conference links below by 5:00 pm Eastern time on the day of the deadline. Recipients will be notified by email along with registration details, prior to the date of the conference.
For any questions about North America scholarships, please reach out to gcts@google.com
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WOMEN YOU SHOULD KNOW:Vesna Zderic (BME) and Mona Zaghloul (ECE)
Dr. Vesna Zderic (BME) is the principal investigator (PI) and Dr. Aleksandar Jeremic (Biology) is the co-PI on a newly awarded four-year, $1.96 million R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering.
The grant is titled “Therapeutic ultrasound for stimulation of insulin release,” and the main objectives of the project are to determine biological mechanisms employed in the therapeutic ultrasound effects on the pancreas and how therapeutic ultrasound may impact the treatment of type 2 diabetes.
Dr. Mona Zaghloul (ECE) is the principal investigator on a research project sponsored by the biopharmaceutical company Hoth Therapeutics. The research team’s goal is to develop an in-home testing device for COVID-19 that would be available to any person who would like to test. The team anticipates that the results will be available less than an hour from taking the test. The project will build on the design by Dr. Zaghloul and her former doctoral student of an in vitro diagnostic device that has the potential for testing by patients anywhere to allow public health professionals to immediately detect SARS-CoV-2. Dr. Jeanne Jordan (Milken Institute School of Public Health) was instrumental in recognizing the potential diagnostic capabilities of the technology.
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Half of Women in Tech Leave Field by Age 35
Fast Company (9/30) reports that a new study by Accenture and Girls Who Code found that “fifty percent of women in tech leave by age 35.” The research suggests that this “one-out-of-two breakdown can be traced, in part, to an inclusivity problem. ... Thirty-seven percent cite it as their primary reason for saying ‘so long’ to the industry. ... The survey identifies several ways to help keep 1.4 million young women in tech in the next decade: support parental leave policies, set diversity goals, create women-only supports, reward creativity and innovation, and promote inclusive networking.”
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Webinar: Supporting Underrepresented Engineering Students in the Time of COVID-19
October 22 - 2 pm ET
Explore how the COVID-19 crisis is impacting traditionally underrepresented students in engineering and how faculty and administrators can better support these studentts, sharing preliminary insights and lessons learned from two NSF RAPID grants. Register here.
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What We Are Reading(...and listening to)
Many of the Fall conferences have been moved to a virtual experience. I enjoyed one hosted by the Association for Computing Machinery titled womENcourage 2020, which was held at ADA University in Azerbaijan. Among the interesting talks were Who Makes Wiser Decisions? Men, Women or Machines? Gender Fairness of Machine Learning Techniques. The presenters discuss the development of intelligent agents that can interact proficiently with people and with robots. Actually, SEAS and CS have a relationship with this university, and a cohort of their masters students have begun their studies at GW this Fall.
You may be interested in a NY Times article (Sept. 29, 2020) by Noam Scheiber, who says "The pandemic has been brutal on many working mothers, especially those with little leverage on the job. Experts say it may be uniquely unforgiving for mothers in so-called up-or-out fields, where workers face a single high-stakes promotion decision. The loss of months or more of productivity to additional child care responsibilities, which fall more heavily on women, can reverberate throughout their careers." The article does not require a NY Times subscription to access it.
Last week, WiE and GW SEAS hosted a virtual booth at the Grace Hopper Conference (GHC), which is organized by the AnitaB organization. Last year, the 2019 GHC in Florida hosted more than 25,000 students and young professionals (mainly), who attended a myriad of sessions, workshops and talks. GW was the host to the first GHC in the mid-1990s and we were proud to literally scare up about 200 women! AnitaB will be providing on-demand program content access to the vGHC content to attendees, along with information about the Career Fair, which was postponed.
Happy reading and listening!
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