Rosalind Franklin STEM Ambassadors

Twenty-one year 11 girls with promising futures from backgrounds currently underrepresented in STEM careers attended a two-day workshop at University College London (UCL) in September 2018. Digital content created during the workshop forms the basis of this web resource. Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award Project 

According to research published by the Institute for Fiscal Studies, many girls start to lose interest in STEM subjects at A-levels. This is in part because of low confidence in their abilities and a concern about being in the minority of a male-dominated area. 

We hope by sharing our successful workshop content, we will be able to inspire more girls to choose STEM subjects for A-levels. Students can watch video stories told by relatable female role models, view materials on how to build confidence, and learn tips on key communication skills. Although the Teacher Toolkit lesson plans are designed especially for female GCSE-aged students, the resources are available to all learners, completely free of charge.

Here's our team:

The 2017 Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award Recipient and Project Lead - Professor Essi Viding

Project Manager, Web Content Designer & Illustrator — Liz Lee

Videographer — Dr Jake Fairnie

Event and Project Support — Dr Ruth Roberts 

Social Media Manager — Dr Annie Gaule

Workshop Highlights

Twenty-one students from London with exceptional ability and interest in any area of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) were selected to be Rosalind Franklin STEM Ambassadors. In September 2018, they attended a two-day workshop at University College London (UCL).

We set up the workshop hoping to inspire the students, but in a short amount of time they ended up inspiring us. Like the STEM Role Models they met, these students are looking to break down barriers and achieve trail blazing science. Check out some of our favourite memories in the pictures below.

Role Models

Who was Rosalind Franklin?

Rosalind Franklin was a chemist whose pioneering crystallography and X-ray diffraction work led to the discovery of the DNA double helix. She was born on 25 July 1920 in London. Rosalind knew from the age of 15 that she wanted to be a scientist. However, her father disapproved of women going to university. Determined to pursue her passion, Rosalind stood up to her father and studied chemistry at Cambridge. 

After university, Rosalind developed her expertise as an X-ray crystallographer researching the structure of coal in Paris. She began using her X-ray diffraction expertise to study the structure of DNA when she worked as a researcher at King's College London. Rosalind's precise and clear photographs of crystallized DNA and detailed experimental data revealed the DNA double helix shape. However, she was not the only person studying DNA at the time. James Watson and Francis Crick looked at her research without her permission and used the data to form the basis for their DNA model. Watson and Crick won the Nobel prize without giving Rosalind any credit. 

Rosalind moved to Birkbeck in 1953 where she studied the tobacco mosaic virus and the polio virus. Unfortunately, Rosalind died in 1958 at the age of 37 from cancer. 

After her death, people became aware of how Watson and Crick used her data to develop their model. She is now celebrated as one of the most important scientists in the twentieth century. 

Professor Essi Viding, Psychology

Why do some people become psychopaths?

Professor Essi Viding’s job is to research why psychopathology develops and what we can do to prevent it. In the video below, Professor Viding shares how she became a developmental psychopathologist and introduces several of the psychological tests she uses in her research.

Highlights include:

• A map of Professor Viding’s academic career (0:42) 
• Her research - Why do some people become psychopaths? (4:46)
• Serial killers (6:10)
• The early behavioural warning signs of psychopaths (8:00)
• Psychological tests for psychopathy (10:11)
• Researching brain function of children at risk of developing psychopathy (11:59)
• Why diversity is essential for research science (15:30)

The Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award Winner!

The Rosalind Franklin STEM Ambassadors is Professor Viding’s Royal Society Rosalind Franklin award project. If you want to dig deeper into why some people become psychopaths, watch Professor Viding’s prize lecture to learn more!

Essi's bio:

Essi Viding began her science career studying psychology at University College London. After working as a research assistant, she completed a PhD on the 4-year MRC Social Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry (SGDP) interdisciplinary PhD programme at King’s College London. Currently she is Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at University College London, where she co-directs the Developmental Risk and Resilience Unit. Professor Viding researches development of persistent antisocial behaviour and psychopathy using cognitive experimental measures, brain imaging and genotyping.

Professor Sunetra Gupta, Mathematics & Biology

Is it possible to be a scientist and an artist?

If you ever wondered if choosing science meant you couldn’t do arts—Sunetra Gupta is proof that you can do both! From using mathematics to outwit the flu virus to writing novels, watch Professor Gupta share in this video her career journey and fascinating research.

Highlights include:

• Why she studies disease within the zoology department (0:25)
• Growing up in Calcutta (1:12)
• Falling in love with mathematics (3:17)
• The value her liberal arts education at Princeton University (4:49)
• Using fiction to make sense of the human condition (6:05)
• How she is working to develop a new universal influenza vaccine (7:30)

Scientist Q&A

The Rosalind Franklin STEM Ambassadors interviewed Professor Gupta after her talk. Watch her respond to their questions in the videos below.

What is theoretical epidemiology?

Professor Gupta researches infectious diseases caused by pathogens like the influenza virus, bacterial meningitis, and malaria parasites. She uses simple mathematical models to generate new hypotheses. These hypotheses help us understand how people become infected by pathogens, suffer disease, recover, and become immune. This research can lead to the development of new vaccines. She works closely with laboratory and field scientists both to develop these hypotheses and to test them.

Sunetra's Bio:

Sunetra Gupta was born in India and spent her childhood in Ethiopia and Zambia. She began her science career studying biology at the University of Princeton. Currently, she is Professor of Theoretical Epidemiology at the University of Oxford, where she researches infectious disease agents that are responsible for malaria, HIV, influenza, and bacterial meningitis. Professor Gupta is also an award-winning novelist, essayist, and accomplished translator of the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore.

Professor Gupta used her Rosalind Franklin award to create a book called Shooting Stars about historically famous female scientists.

Dr. Emma Meaburn describes the day-to-day life of an academic scientist who researches what genes do and how they change. Watch the video to find out more about behavioural genetics and how her experience as a fostered child inspired her to pursue her career.

Highlights include:

• Her research (0:38)
• What the job of an academic scientist involves: research, teaching, and service (6:40)
• Her path from fostered child to academia (10:45)
• Things she wished she knew at 16 (14:33)

Scientist Q&A

The Rosalind Franklin STEM Ambassadors interviewed Dr. Meaburn after her talk. Watch her answer one of their questions in the video below.

Emma's Bio:

Emma Meaburn began her science career studying human biology at King’s College London. Afterwards, she pursued her interest in genetics at Imperial College London’s Human Molecular Genetics masters programme. She continued her science career as a research assistant at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, and completed a PhD in Behavioural Genetics. Currently, she is a lecturer at Birkbeck University London where she leads the BRIDGE lab.

Professor Dame Uta Frith, Cognitive Neuroscience

Why do some children fail to communicate?

Watch Professor Dame Frith tell the story of how she used experimental psychology to help her understand autistic children and develop the mind blindness theory in the youtube video below.

Highlights include:

• Her experience as a German in post-WWII London (1:00)
• What is autism? (3:18)
• Meeting her first autistic child, David (4:25)
• A theory for the failure to interact or communicate (6:26)
• Mind Blindness (8:02)
• The Sally-Anne Test (10:11)

Scientist Q&A

The Rosalind Franklin STEM Ambassadors interviewed Professor Dame Frith after her talk. Watch her respond to their questions in the videos below.

Uta's Bio:

Uta Frith began her science career studying experimental psychology in Germany. She continued her training in clinical psychology and completed a Doctor of Philosophy on pattern detection in normal and autistic children. Professor Frith is known for her pioneering research on theory of mind deficit in autism and as one of the first to study Asperger's syndrome in the UK.

Science Communication Star!

Watch Brian Cox and Professor Frith discuss Alice Lee, whose work in craniology challenged the idea that women were intellectually inferior because they have smaller brain sizes.

Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu, Pharmacology

How can we make medicines with fewer nasty side effects?

Professor Ijeoma Uchegbu is a designer. She designs medicines to have fewer side effects by researching and developing ways to deliver drugs to different areas of the body. Watch the video to learn about pharmaceutical nanoscience and to hear her inspiring story with a key message — if you are working hard and it’s getting to be too much, ask for help.
 

Highlights include:

• What does a university education mean? (0:21)
• What pharmacists do: patient facing roles & medicines production (2:10)
• Designing medicines with fewer side effects (3:14)
• How her research can help stop the opiate crisis (4:05)
• Her journey from Hackney to post civil war Nigeria (9:07)
• Starting a PhD in the UK as a single mother (12:10)
• Hiding her children from her PhD Supervisor (12:50)
• Navigating grant applications during maternity leave (14:10)

Scientist Q&A

The Rosalind Franklin STEM Ambassadors sat down with Professor Uchegbu for an interview session after her talk. Watch her respond to their questions in the below videos.

ljeoma bio:

Ijeoma Uchegbu is Professor of Pharmaceutical Nanoscience at the UCL School of Pharmacy, UCL’s Pro-Vice Provost for Africa and The Middle East and Chief Scientific Officer of Nanometrics Ltd. Nanometrics is a UCL spin out company, which was founded by Ijeoma and Andreas G. Schätzlein. Nanometrics recently licensed NM133 to Lacta Pharmaceuticals. Nanometrics also recently won first prize for its Molecular Envelope Technology at the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Emerging Technologies Competition 2017 in the Health category.

Ijeoma has been awarded various prizes for her work, notably the UK Department for Business Innovation Skills’ Women of Outstanding Achievement in Science Engineering and Technology award, the Royal Pharmaceutical Society’s Pharmaceutical Scientist of the Year 2012 and the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Innovative Science Award 2016. Ijeoma was elected to the Controlled Release Society College of Fellows in 2013 and was made an Eminent Fellow of the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences in 2013. Ijeoma is the editor of three books, a named inventor on 11 granted patents and has authored over 120 peer reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Ijeoma’s research has been featured on BBC Woman’s Hour and more recently in The Guardian.   

Dr Laura Boothman, Health Policy

What can you do with a science degree?

Dr. Boothman has used her scientific training in a range of roles from medicine regulation to health policy. Watch the video below to hear how she managed her career changes.

Highlights include:

• Her background (1:04)
• Science (3:56)
• Policy, Public Affairs, and Campaigning (4:59)
• Policy and arthritis (8:10)
• Science degree transferrable skills (10:50)
• Things to try (11:31)

What is PPA and campaigning?

Scientist Q&A

The Rosalind Franklin STEM Ambassadors sat down with Dr Boothman for an interview session after her talk. Watch her respond to their questions in the below videos.

Laura's Bio:

Laura is a Senior Policy Manager at Arthritis Research UK, where she leads on developing policy to drive positive change in the quality of life of people with arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions.  She holds stakeholder relationships with Government and relevant policy sectors, with a focus on health and well-being at work.

In late 2016 Laura took up a part-time role at the Department of Health, where she supported the development of the UK Framework for mental health research. Her previous experience includes policy roles at the Academy of Medical Sciences and at the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Laura’s early career was as research scientist, and after completing a DPhil in Pharmacology at Oxford, she held Fellowships at Worcester College, Oxford and with INSERM in Paris.

Dr Tessa Dekker, Child Development & Neuroscience

How do children see the world?

Dr. Tessa Dekker researches the development of vision in children. She is also a scan operator at the Birkbeck-UCL Centre for Neuroimaging (BUCNI). Scientists go to BUCNI when they want to use state of the art magnetic imaging facilities for their research. Read about some of the tools she uses in her research below.

MRI Scanner

One tool Dr. Dekker uses to study the way children see is a MRI scanner. A MRI scanner is a magnet that looks like a big doughnut. People who are being scanned go inside the doughnut but they don’t go very far—just up to the hips. In the scanner, there is a coil running a current generating a really strong magnetic field that’s 30.000 times stronger than the Earth’s! You can’t take any metal in the room because it will start flying around. To be able get such a magnetic field the equipment inside the doughnut must be kept super cold, so it can get a bit chilly in the room with the scanner. There are also other coils in the scanner called gradient coils that add other magnetic fields. They help identify where the signal comes from in the brain. Everyone who goes inside the scanner wears a helmet that uses radio waves to send out and pick up MRI signals. Unlike x-ray radiation, these waves do not cause any damage to the person, making the MRI an excellent tool for doing brain research with children. MRI signals come from protons in the body. The protons’ + and - sides will align with a magnetic field. When the helmet sends out radio waves, this alignment changes. When the protons then fall back into alignment, this creates a signal that scientists’ tools can pick up. Because different tissues have different concentrations of protons, these signals can be used to visualise different areas of the brain.

Mooney Pictures

Another way Dr. Dekker examines children’s visual ability is with a Mooney picture test. A Mooney picture is a very high contrast version of a normal picture. She shows children a Mooney picture, like this one, and asks them to circle the nose of a bear. Adults often find this tricky when they see the Mooney picture at first, but once they have recognised the object once (for example after seeing the original picture) they will recognise it forever. Research has shown that children up to the age of seven can’t find the bear’s nose in the picture, even right after seeing the original picture without high contrast. It may be hard for them to use their knowledge to group the right items in all the clutter together into a sensible shape. After age seven, children start getting better at identifying the bear’s nose, showing they are learning how recognise whole objects from incomplete and hard-to-decode patterns of visual information — a hard problem that the smartest object recognition computer algorithms still struggle with.

Can you find the bear's nose in this Mooney picture?

Tessa's Bio:

Tessa Dekker began her science career studying Psychology / Medical Biology at the University of Amsterdam. After completing her PhD at the Centre for Brain and Cognitive Development at Birkbeck, University of London, she became a Research Fellow at the UCL Division of Language and Psychology. She heads the Child Vision Lab which researches the development of vision and vision for action in normal and atypical development in children and is a scan operator at the Birkbeck-UCL Centre for Neuroimaging.

Scientific Writing

A key step of the scientific process is to effectively communicate research findings. Read the article below to learn how to apply the “hourglass method” to written reports for laboratory assignments or class projects.

Scientific Writing Using the Hourglass Method

The top of the hourglass: the introduction

The top of the hourglass is wide. Your writing will begin with a broad overview of your topic. The introduction is where you provide the background of your topic and introduce important concepts so that your reader can understand the points you raise later. The focus of your writing will gradually become more specific, covering key ideas relating to your research question. Once you have covered what is already known, you will begin to state what is not known within your topic and how your research will seek to answer an unknown question. This is where the top of the hourglass begins to narrow. The research question is the reason for writing the paper so you need to be clear about your aims and what you expect to find based on previous research. In many cases, this is where you are compelling your reader that what you are looking at is important and you may be taking a specific stance on a topic. It is important that your research question is clear and well thought out. You will also need to clearly state the aim of your research and your hypothesis (or hypotheses).

The middle of the hourglass: the method and results

This is where you cover the very specific work that you have done. It will be important to keep in mind your research question and think about how your measures, statistics and results answer your question. You will need to include detailed information about:

• The population (or material/phenomenon) you studied
• The measures you used to assess your question
• The procedure of how you conducted your research
• The statistics you used or analyses you conducted on the data you collected
• The results of your analyses

It is important to include enough detail to allow others to be able to replicate your research.

The bottom of the hourglass: the discussion

The bottom half of the hourglass is first narrow and then widens. Start off with specific information relating to your study. You will begin with a summary of your main findings. You will then start to gradually broaden out and discuss where your findings sit within the context of the current scientific knowledge and remind the reader how previous research supports (or in some cases contradicts) what you found. This will help you to discuss the implications of your findings and why they are important. Continuing to broaden out, it will be important to identify thoughts for future research. This is where you can discuss the strengths and limitations of your research and identify other questions that might be answered using the new information you have provided. By the end of your discussion, you will bring your paper away from the specific focus of your thesis and place your new evidence within the context of broader scientific literature and the general importance of doing the research you are doing.

Some Do’s and Don’ts

Do:

• Be clear and precise. Use consistent tenses throughout. Be consistent with acronyms and abbreviations.
• Perform a thorough search of current research within your topic (literature review) from reliable sources (scientific journals, textbooks).
• Make sure that when you make statements, you back these up by citations to scientific studies. Make notes to help you remember where you found the source of your information. Make sure you cite your references correctly using one style of referencing (find out what the referencing convention is for the piece that you are writing). Also provide citations for any methods or analysis protocols that are based on prior studies.
• Double check the accuracy and clarity of the data you present. The findings you present may inform future research in your topic.
• Read over the requirements from your lecturer / submission requirements from the journal where you are submitting your work in advance. Keeping the requirements in mind will save you editing time later.
• Have someone else read your work before you submit (for assessment / to journal). It is easy to get lost in your own ideas and feedback from others will help you ensure that your work is easy to understand.
• Proofread your work. Always check spelling and grammar. Have another person read your work (see above) to help with editing.

Don’t:

• Don’t use person pronouns unless specifically required (e.g. reflective work).
• Don’t use contractions, slang, and qualifying words (e.g. really, very).
• Be honest about your findings: null or unexpected results are important for informing future research.
• Don’t exceed the word limit without express permission – it is important to respect the guidelines of the supervisor / journal.
• Don’t plagiarise other people’s writing.
• Don’t quote other people without permission.

Creating Group Presentations: A How-to Guide

When you are asked to do a presentation in school or university, it’s really difficult to sit down and write a presentation from the beginning to the end. The videos below break down the process step-by-step to help you get started.

Want to review what you learned in the videos?

Build your confidence

Confidence doesn’t come magically. Watch the videos below for advice and tips from Maryam Pasha, Director of TEDxLondon. Learn how to push the dial from nerves to excitement and how to amplify your authentic voice. 

How to free yourself from imposter syndrome

Want to review what you learned in the videos?

Maryam's Bio:

After completing a masters degree in psychology, Maryam Pasha worked in the charity sector for several years. In 2015 she set up her own company, X Equals Productions, where she works with individuals, charities and companies to give their ideas life by creating compelling and impactful events and talks. Maryam is also the Director and Curator for TEDxLondon. 

Follow her on Twitter: @ThisIsPasha 

Visit her website: www.maryampasha.com

Does asking questions make you feel nervous?

To get the information you need as a scientist or a student you will need to ask questions.

Maryam Pasha, Director of TEDxLondon, struggled to ask questions in an academic setting when she was younger. Watch the video above to hear what she’s learned from research about what makes great questions and how to ask them.

How do I prepare for University?

Professor Viding shares insider advice on what to think about before you start your A-levels and how to approach your UCAS application.

How to plan for university applications - Highlights include:

• The key things for preparing to apply to university (0.09)
• Finances: You will be able to afford a university degree (1:41)
• Course content, requirements, and rankings (3:53)
• How to find the right university for you (7:15)

UCAS application tips - Highlights include:

• References (0:16)
• What A-levels to choose (1:11)
• How to write a personal statement (2:06)
• Example personal statement from www.studential.com (13:16)

Want to review what you learned in the videos?