ALD News: Antonia Pontiki makes Forbes Under 30 list, Yasmin Ali Powers Up, Young Women Engineer of the Year Awards nominations open
Plus take a look at our articles on LinkedIn, and our monthly round up of news and articles.
Hi there,
The rain has finally stopped and we’re brimming with enthusiasm here at ALD HQ, so let’s crack on with our newsletter — we’ve got lots and lots for you to read this month!
And remember, if you have news you’d like us to share, just reply to this email or drop me a line directly and I’ll do what I can to include it next month.
Antonia Pontiki featured in Forbes 30 Under 30
Ada Lovelace Day alumna Antonia Pontiki, who spoke at last year’s event at the Royal Institution, has been featured in the Forbes 30 Under 30 Europe list for science and healthcare for her work on surgical simulations and patient-specific prostheses created through 3D printing. We are honoured to have been able to provide a supporting statement for Antonia and are delighted to see her accomplishments recognised!
Yasmin Ali publishes book about sustainable engineering
And another Ada Lovelace Day alumna, Yasmin Ali, who spoke about sustainable energy at #ALD22 and chemical engineering at #ALD17, has just published Power Up: An Engineer’s Adventures into Sustainable Energy.
Growing up in Iraq, Yasmin Ali regularly experienced power cuts – ironic for a country rich in oil and sunshine. Now as an engineer working in energy, Yasmin has a deep appreciation for what these resources mean for our lives.
In Power Up she takes us on a journey across the globe to reveal the bigger picture, from solar farms shimmering in the desert to power stations hidden deep in the mountains. We discover where we get energy from, how it is moved and used around the world – and why we need to understand the whole system if we want to transition towards a clean, green future.
Power Up is available as a hardback, ebook and audiobook wherever you usually buy your books.
Applications open for the Young Women Engineer of the Year Awards
The IET has opened applications for the Young Women Engineer of the Year Awards, with a closing date of Friday 28 June. There are four award categories:
Young Woman Engineer of the Year: A dynamic engineer working in the UK and is aged between 18 and 35, who is a high achiever, a problem solver, a team player and who represents the very best of our profession.
Mary George Memorial Prize for Apprentices: This prize is awarded to an outstanding engineering apprentice working in the UK, aged 18 to 35 who has made a contribution within the workplace beyond the realms of her normal duties and demonstrated dynamism in her approach to solving engineering problems.
Women’s Engineering Society (WES) Prize: This prize is awarded to an inspiring engineer working in the UK, aged 18 to 35 who is able to engage and encourage young people’s involvement in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
Gender Diversity Ambassador Award: This award is presented to a person of any gender, working in the UK and of any age who has spent a large proportion of their career committed to addressing the gender imbalance within the engineering profession.
If you know a young woman in engineering, please let her know about these awards!
Join us on LinkedIn and help us find new sponsors
We are halfway to our funding goal for 2024 and you can help us reach that goal with just a few clicks.
We’ve got a variety of posts on our LinkedIn page and it would be fabulous if you could share them for us so that we can reach more people!
How do you know if you’re ready to sponsor Ada Lovelace Day?
Using change management techniques to design DEI interventions that work
We’re got more posts in the pipeline too, including articles on how to livestream ALD 2024, the value to sponsors and to us of long-term funding arrangements, and a look at how to build a business case for spending on DEI. Do follow us to make sure you don’t miss these posts.
Catch up with our weekly profiles and book recommendations
If you aren’t signed up for our weekly emails, you’re missing out! Over the last few weeks, we’ve published posts on:
If you’re not getting these weekly updates and you’d like to, just log into your settings and switch on the notification emails for Profiles, Videos and Books & Podcasts.
Around the web
Here is our round up of links and reading that we’ve found this month!
Ada Lovelace featured: Ada has been included in a list of pioneering women in tech by BBC Science Focus, alongside contemporary women like CloudFlare co-founder Michelle Zatlyn.
Women of colour: Indian women scientists have collected data about women in Indian academia to track inequalities in their careers. In this article for Communications Biology, they outline their methodology and recommendations for how to improve the situation. Discover Magazine has written about Anna Mani, an Indian physicist and meteorologist, who was one of the first to discover the importance of the ozone layer.
Overlooked women: This article on the rise and fall of Vector Graphic, founded and run by Lore Harp McGovern and Carole Ely, is a fascinating insight into computing history, as well as a sober reflection on how women were treated at the time. For Women’s History Month, Ms. Magazine shares the story of Dr Evelyn Fox Keller, a pioneer in exploring the gendered nature of science.
News: Women scientists in the UK and Ireland were recognised at the L’Oreal-UNESCO For Women in Science Rising Talent Awards. NASA has interviewed the two female scientists leading scientific research onboard the International Space Station. AccuWeather interviews the organiser of #DressForSTEM day, which began with female meteorologists all wearing purple to celebrate women in STEM.
Videos & podcasts: The Nature Careers podcast talks to Dr Vanesa Gottifredi about the lack of female scientist role models in Latin America and what can be done to change this. Annie Maunder, a “lady computer” who was fascinated by eclipses, is the subject of Scientific American’s Lost Women of Science podcast.
Books: A new book for children, Remembering Rosalind Franklin: Rosalind Franklin and the Discovery of the Double Helix Structure of DNA, has been released this year. The author, Tanya Lee Stone, discusses the book with Brian Lehrer in celebration of Women’s History Month. Professor Shohini Ghose, a quantum physicist, has written a book about overlooked female physicists and astronomers titled Her Space, Her Time: How Trailblazing Women Scientists Decoded the Hidden Universe.
That’s it for this month! Thanks for reading and we’ll see you again in four weeks!
All the best,
Suw & the ALD team