STEM week 2022 and International Day of Women and Girls in Science

 I was invited by my daughter's school to give a presentation to Year 6 and 7 for Science Technology Engineering and Math Week. Her school is girls only and they wanted to have some female role models to inspire the future scientists. As an aside, I was not a fan of all-female schools, but now I see the point. It's a more relaxed environment. Let's face, it's difficult enough to be turning into a young woman as it is, and doing so under the eyes of teenage boys is definitely distracting, to say the least. Anyway. I am side-tracking here. It was the first time that I had done that, went to my child's school to give a lecture. I absolutely loved it. The girls were polite and interested, asked questions and when I described the impact of climate change on the planet one of them looked at me with big terrified eyes. I had to say that we can still do something about it, and please do not be scared. But it made me reflect. On many things. 

It's really important that we reach out to the younger generations if we want to inspire change and transformation. I am not sure why I had never done a presentation to my children's school before. Maybe because my children were really self-conscious about that or maybe because I thought I could not reach out and get through my message in a way they could understand. I think some of these are excuses. Sometimes just the act of showing up and being there is enough, even if you are not super-confident yourself that you will make a difference. 

The same week my workplace ran a story on female scientists as part of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (11 February). You can have a look there for the quotes that made it to the website. Here I want to report the full "interview" with a colleague who works in the Communication Section. 

 Q. What does your work focus on?

I have been working for a number of years on assimilation of clouds and aerosols. I started with clouds and then moved to aerosols when I worked for the precursor projects of what is today the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service, pioneering work on the use of satellite data of aerosol optical depth and lidar backscatter to improve the analysis and forecasts of aerosol fields. Aerosols are important players in weather/climate as well as being pollutants which affect air quality. Now I am coming back to my first love which are the clouds and taking first steps to assimilate visible cloud radiances in the ECMWF's Integrated Forecast System. I think cloudy radiances have an untapped potential to improve numerical weather prediction and I would like to see this happening before my retirement. 

Q. What are  your personal science goals?

My personal science goals are to continue with working in aerosol assimilation and to promote the use of visible radiances in numerical weather prediction. I believe this is something extremely important to improve the Earth System Model that we develop at ECMWF.  My motto at the moment is: "A new look at old data". 

Visible radiance observations are not exploited to the fullest because they are challenging to use, but they contain a lot of information and we have a long record. I find this quite exciting!

 

Q. How do you hope your work will impact others?

Everything we do inevitably impact others. The most important thing is to do something we love so that impact is positive. I am trying to do research in aerosol and cloud assimilation with passion and integrity and I hope that this will lead to improvements in our understanding of these important players in the Earth System. Each step we take in deepening the understanding of our planet is a step towards taking care of it for us and future generations. At least that's what I like to think!

 Q. Do you have any advice you have for other women in science?

Women in science often hear negative narratives about themselves, leading to a lack of confidence and to experiencing the "imposter syndrome" (i.e. I am not qualified/good enough to have this position/project, etc.). I would like to recommend them to believe that they are exactly where they are supposed to be, if they love what they are doing. I would also like to say not to conform to the style of others when doing their job, but to find their own unique way to contribute to the advancement of science. I say this because many women in science feel like they must act like their male colleagues in order to be taken seriously.  I would also encourage women to support other women and learn from one another. Positive role models are very important in developing self-confidence.

Finally, it is very important to keep an open mind and be inclusive in the collaboration with others. It's only working together, women and men, across gender, cultural and social differences that we can achieve our goals.