Today (11 February) is the 10th Anniversary of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science and we’ve asked three scientists from the IRR to share their career journeys and experiences of being women in the field. We spoke to Roseanne Rosario, a Principal Investigator in female fertility, Jiayue Hu, a dermatology PhD student, and Anna Popravko, a career technician in our IRR Flow Cytometry facility. Roseanne Rosario Principal Investigator, Centre for Reproductive Health As a woman in science, it’s great to get out there in the public and show people what it’s actually about and perhaps inspire them to do the same. Being a Principal Investigator is, I guess for many people who get into science, the dream. So to actually be one myself goes to show that anything can be done if you really want to attain it. Being able to then shape the direction of the research that you’re doing, to lead a team and encourage them to excel in their careers, it can be quite meaningful. What’s great about being a PI is that you know where you want to go and what you want to do with it. And so to be able to be in a position to actually take that forward rather than having to listen to someone else is super exciting and empowering – to be able to say ‘today we’re all going to do this,’ and then we do it! I'm quite an inquisitive person, quite curious. I like mysteries and I love solving things. So I guess that's one of the fundamental things that people get into science for. You know something can't be done - I'm there to say that we can do it. And to prove people wrong. Don't get me wrong, it's incredibly difficult. I think you're up against the wall a lot of the time. To then be able to break through the glass ceilings, I think is everything that we all aspire to do. Every day we wake up and hope that we'll make one small step towards doing that. My team’s research is specifically looking at ways that we can try and understand a little bit more about the finite nature of female fertility and external influences that can impact on that quite negatively. Really importantly we want to preserve that and protect it, to make sure that women that are in these positions don't have to go through this negative experience of infertility. Being a woman in science, and then also working in this area, is fulfilling – to be able to contribute to society in that way and support something that can maybe help improve a lot of women’s lives. One of my favourite things about the job is that every day is different. We have such a unique environment here in academia which, despite the sort of pressures that we're under, is still an incredibly fun and positive environment to be in. We have quite flexible working schedules which I think can really suit women in science and women with young families. It can be really supportive to them. It's funny, in New Zealand there's this marketing campaign that’s maybe used to get people in the army or something. And the punchline is: “Get into this line of job so you can have a better work story.” And I think to myself, we already have the better work story. You know, we go in and we do these fun things in the lab. We break barriers, change people's mind about certain things, prove people wrong. And then in our downtime, we travel and we go to conferences and drink and dance and have the best time. What would my message be to any girls looking to get into a career in science? Don't let anybody tell you otherwise. I was invited to speak on a panel at a women and science event and a lot of young girls are in the audience were asking whether or not I felt that being a woman had really disadvantaged me in my science career. And I think I probably maybe disappointed them a bit by saying no. We're not in the times anymore where men were put forward for everything. And of course women do face struggles, in terms of family planning and all of that, but I don't think that's specific to science. I don't think we're a particularly male dominated force anymore. I think that women definitely do have an equal opportunity. So if it's something that you are really passionate about, don't feel like that's going to stop you. Dr Rosario’s University profile Jiayue Gu PhD Student, Centre for Inflammation Research When I was a high school student in China, I knew I had to be a scientist or a professional instead of going into government or business, because women are less important in that field. I knew that being a politician or being a businesswoman would be more difficult than being a scientist or a doctor. It’s more woman friendly and I like to do it. So I chose this path. I was a dermatologist clinician and now I am a dermatologist researcher. I look at the UV effect on the human immune system. I came to the UK looking for a new chance. I feel the diversity is really good here. People treat each other literally the same: woman, man, older, younger, coloured, Caucasian. They treat us literally the same. I feel that, you know, once others can achieve something, I can too. Before I felt that if could publish in the British Journal of Dermatology, I will go to retire. But now, I have already published one and my supervisor just pushed me: “If others can publish in the BMJ (British Medical Journal), you can. If others can publish in the Lancet, you can too.” So I guess I get more ambitious and forget all the bad stuff behind me. I’m really enjoying my research and I will let my research lead my career if I find something interesting. And if I find some negative result, I won’t feel regret. The joy of research is that it leads me to where I should go. With my background and considering my situation now with a one-year-old baby, sometimes I feel that being a woman in the science field brings me some shortage in my work. When I came here, I was pregnant and sometimes I was just so worried: would I bring some delay into my project? Would my supervisors feel uncomfortable about that? Sometimes I would think that way, but sometimes I think it gives me a more ambitious life. I feel more competitive. I was pregnant and I gave birth to a baby, and I do literally the same as others, as other young men – so I feel so proud of myself. I have more hope now that I’m a mummy and I’ll still do the same after my child grows up. You know? I could be a Nobel Prize Winner! I feel far more experienced and productive than others. I feel confident. Nowadays, I’m more than 30 years old, and I need to learn to accept it and be proud of my identity as a woman and as a mother. I guess for me now, I finally get to balance it all. One thing I will say about immigration regulation is that while the University was willing to give me a long maternity leave, immigration would only give me two months. The University and my supervisor were really nice and I was able to combine maternity with annual leave, and work from home doing data analysis. But without their help I don’t think I would have figured it out. What could I do? Take only two months maternity or I quit and go back to my country? That’s really bad. I think women who are trying to study and give birth to a baby at the same time are innocent. Fortunately, because the University are experienced with this situation, I can manage my kid and my study at the same time. And I feel lucky because science is something I’m really interested in. I get to have my baby at the same time as my career. Last month I met a really good scientist from University of Manchester who said this and I hope every girl who is interested in being a scientist will take is on board: Don't be so grateful for everything. Everything you are, you deserve it. Like being an ambitious, experienced, professional person. You deserve everything. Don't be afraid. Like me, sometimes I used to feel, with my parent’s tuition fee or my pregnancy delaying my supervisor’s project. Don't be so grateful. And don't worry about others. Worry about yourself. BJD Article - Ultraviolet radiation is not the major cause of melanoma mortality in the UK and sun exposure advice should be revisedAnna Popravko Senior Flow Cytometry Research Technician No one in my family has a strict academic background, but as a child I really liked reading and my mom was trying to encourage it. She was trying to inspire me to have a broad world view so she used to buy me kid science magazines. And I read this amazing article that talked about how in a hundred years we would be able to genetically engineer people and basically have real life superheroes. And I thought that was intensely cool. And so I decided that I wanted to study biology. Staying in academia is very challenging for multiple reasons, but one of them being that if you're a woman, it's very hard to plan your life because postdoctoral positions tend to be 3 to 5 years, and require you to move constantly. I didn't want to leave academia permanently because I actually quite like working for universities, but I wanted to settle down a little bit and maybe get a house and all that. I decided that a technician role would allow me stability while still being very close to science as it's happening. In terms of being a woman in science, I think it's very important to get a diversity of backgrounds and a diversity of ideas in science, because if you're approaching a question from only one perspective, you might not even realize that your question is not the right one. It’s important to acknowledge that women’s health has not been very well studied because historically, women didn’t have a lot of opportunities to speak up about issues that affect their bodies specifically, or if they did, they weren’t listened to. For example, during my PhD, I studied how blood cells first emerge, and a huge part of that is hormones. There are tons of oestrogen receptors on those cells but finding literature on how oestrogen affects stem cells is really hard because historically people haven’t considered gender or sex as important biological criteria. So having women in the room is important to thinking about different perspectives that might have been missed otherwise. I think being confident and knowing that you belong here and knowing that your contribution is a valuable contribution is very important. There's this interesting study, because in the US they you have to fill out a form before you do any standardized testing, where they ask whether you're a female or male. Interestingly enough, girls tend to perform worse if they've been asked to mark down if they're a girl before a test. It’s so sad because why does a reminder that you're a girl or automatically place some sort of doubt? So to me, it's really important to actually highlight female researchers, especially if you’re a technician, because in multiple facilities, we are predominantly women. I’m really interested in building up expertise in our facilities. Again historically, technicians are one of those positions that have been a little overlooked as they’re not on the forefront. And there have been many initiatives to elevate and promote their work. So I think it’s important here in Edinburgh to build upon that base and have a really good group of technicians that are well integrated in the community and have a lot of expertise to support researchers. There’s currently a ceiling to how far you can go as a technician, but with the initiatives, it will be a nice field to stay in and see how the career space develops. I think if women are looking for a steady career in science, being a technician is a really good kind of option because it's a stable career. You’re valued and appreciated because you work with researchers so closely every day. And the impact that you make on their experiments is very tangible because they come back to you and they say, oh, this works! I just think that the visibility is super important - giving women opportunities to speak and to highlight them is very important. IRR Flow Cytometry This article was published on 2025-02-11
