UCL-Energy blogs for International Women's Day

International Women's Day (IWD) is a global day celebrating the social, economic, cultural and political achievements of women whilst recognising the challenges still faced by many. In 1878, UCL became the first university in England to admit women on equal terms with men, to mark International Women’s Day on 8 March 2016 UCL will be hosting a programme of events across campus. 

This includes the UCL exhibition Women at UCL: Presence and absence.  Dr Lai Fong Chiu, principal research associate at UCL-Energy is included in the main exhibition that celebrates and recognises women at UCL who inspire those who they work with.

UCL-Energy's Michelle Shipworth, lecturer in energy and social sciences and Catalina Spataru, lecturer in energy systems and networks, have also been nominated to be part of this exhibition. The Institute for Women’s Health is collaborating with The Girl at The Door and the UCL Equalities and Diversity team on an exhibition exploring the presence and absence of women at UCL. Photographs profiling women working across the university will also feature in the show, celebrating the diversity of UCL’s female staff and UCL’s achievements in being awarded an institutional Athena SWAN Silver Award.

We asked Michelle about her recent experiences with progress in diversity: 

Michelle said "There is a UCL women Twitter account (@UCLWomen) and there are a group of women in science that I follow on Twitter. I find Twitter a useful tool in bringing women together, and highlighting where there might be structural or individual aspects that can make it harder. Equality in the workplace doesn’t just benefit those hired directly but has a much broader impact by introducing a diversity of views. For women seeking a career in science, I don’t know that my advice would be any different from my advice to a man, although any “new" perspective (e.g. a female perspective in a predominantly male environment)  can help generate new research questions, which can be an advantage."
 

For International Women’s Day UCL-Energy posted blogs from our female staff and students about diversity, inspirational women and the progress towards equality. 

Sofie Pelsmakers: The changing face of architecture

Nagore Sabio: International women’s day, inspiration from the past, present and hope for the future

Emma Terama: Athena SWAN in the Bartlett – Bringing Us Together

Pamela Fennell: Gender equality in the workplace - Energy Demand in Practice seminar series 
 

Read all UCL-Energy's blogs

Join the conversation with the Twitter hashtag #IWD2016. UCL-Energy will be using this hashtag to upload quotes from our staff and students, and to link through to the International Women’s Day blog posts. 
 

Photo credit: Pixabay.com CC0 Public domain Unsplash