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Retirement allows some women in STEM to better support other women in STEM. Bravo to Janet and Patricia for sharing their not-so-easily-acquired wisdom with all of Epistimi's followers in their retirement. We thank you for this priceless gift to the next generation.

Celebrating International Women's Day and all the Epistimi women who are leading for a better world! #womeninstem #womeninscience #womeninenergy #womeninleadership?

There is still time to apply and be part of Epistimi Greece 2025. Applications are due April 1, 2025. The application link is: https://lnkd.in/eNVQFXnx For more information, visit https://lnkd.in/gTRvUvUH You can also attend a 30 min information session: Saturday Mar 8, 2025: 1 pm EST Wednesday Mar 12, 2025: 8 pm EST Friday Mar 9, 2025: 9 am EST Sunday Mar 16, 2025: 1 pm EST Tuesday Mar 18, 2025: 5 pm EST Sign up for information sessions here: https://lnkd.in/e88pmYD2 or by appointment - Email [email protected] to schedule

Read our latest blog - A Guide to Surviving and Transforming Academia for the Benefit of All - an interview with authors Roberta Hawkins and Leslie Kern https://lnkd.in/enr7qtvw

The term executive presence intrigued and confused me when I first heard of it. An executive is someone with senior managerial responsibility in a business organization, ie someone who has the power to put plans, actions, or laws into effect. It is not really a leader but rather someone who executes decisions. Therefore, why is executive presence something that people aspire to? In Executive Presence 2.0, Sylvia Ann Hewlett defines Executive Presence (EP) as a “heady combination of confidence, poise, and authenticity that convinces the rest of us we’re in the presence of someone who’s the real deal. It’s an amalgam of qualities that telegraphs that you are in charge or deserve to be.” According to Hewlett’s research, EP is a mixture of three dimensions: gravitas (how you act), communication (how you speak) and appearance (how you look). Hewlett lists the top traits of each dimension for both 2012 when her first book was published and again in 2022 for the second version 2.0. Her equation for EP is: EP = 0.67 Gravitas + 0.28 Communication + 0.5 Appearance Of the six traits for gravitas, four are listed for both 2012 and 2022: confidence, decisiveness, vision and integrity. In 2022, inclusiveness and respect have replaced EQ and pedigree from 2012. Handling catastrophes is how gravitas is acquired and Hewlett gives examples of Angela Merkel, Christine Lagarde and Margaret Thatcher. The other aspect of Hewlett’s research was the collection of gravitas blunders. Again, there are six from 2012 and six from 2022. Four blunders make it to both lists: lack of integrity, shallow/lightweight, bully and off-color jokes (racially insensitive jokes for 2012 and sexually suggestive jokes for 2022). In 2022, sexual predator and entitled/above the law replace sexual impropriety and flip-flopping from 2012. Hewlett also has lists of 2022 poster people, individuals that people she interviewed named as exemplars of gravitas in action. For the top person demonstrating confidence, they named Virginia Rometty, president, CEO and executive chairman of IBM. Rometty has a BS in computer science and electrical engineering so a woman in STEM who was able to handle immense challenges at IBM. The only other woman listed was Liz Cheney for demonstrating integrity and courage after the tumultuous events of December 2020 and January 2021. Women in STEM like Virginia Rometty and Angela Merkel endured many challenging moments just by studying and working in the male dominated environment of STEM in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s; these experiences strengthened them with the side effect of growing their gravitas. They ended up with more than what is called Executive Presence: they have Leadership Presence. There is a difference.

Accelerate your leadership development and boost your self-confidence. Leading yourself is a pre-requisite to leading others. #womeninstem #womeninscience #womeninleadership

Meet 2025 Epistimi leadership participant Rija A.! Hi! My name is Rija Ansari and I work as a Research Officer at the National Research Council Canada. My research explores innovative solutions to the recycling of electric vehicle batteries. I completed my Honours Bachelor of Science degree at the University of Toronto with a Chemistry Specialist and Minors in Physics and Math. I have also completed the Professional Education: Applied Data Science Program at MIT. I am also exploring ways we can apply AI/ML to accelerate scientific research through automation. When I’m not in the lab, you can find me working out at the gym, hiking in nature or cozying up with a good book. #womeninstem #womeninscience #womeninleadership

Call for applications – women working in STEMM A successful career in STEMM requires more than an advanced degree and lots of publications. The nonprofit Epistimi, Inc. was founded in 2021 to provide the MIT LEAPS course, Leading Yourself and Others, to women in STEMM globally. In 2023, the MIT LEAPS Program was awarded the Irwin Sizer Award for the “Most Significant Improvement to MIT Education” by the MIT Graduate Student Council. Epistimi has partnered with the American College of Greece (ACG) and together we are happy to offer our one-week Epistimi-ACG leadership workshop during May 26-30, 2025 at the ACG Demos Center in Athens, Greece. The 5-day in-person workshop will be followed by six one hour Zoom meetings (every two weeks) in order to complete the personal work assignments. This program is for graduate students, postdocs, research scientists, assistant professors or any other early career professional woman in STEMM. There will be three cohorts: 1. Energy, Climate and Sustainability 2. Health, Biotechnology and Chemistry 3. Computing, Physics, Engineering and Mathematics Applications are due Mar 1, 2025. For more information, visit https://lnkd.in/gTRvUvUH You can also attend a 30 min information session on the following days or by appointment (email [email protected]): ·??????Saturday Feb 1, 2025: 10 am or 12 pm EST ·??????Monday Feb 3, 2025: 9 am or 11 am EST ·??????Thursday Feb 6, 2025: 5 pm or 8 pm EST ·??????Sunday Feb 9, 2025: 12 pm or 5 pm EST ·??????Tuesday Feb 11, 2025: 4 pm or 8 pm EST Please register here to receive the zoom invitation: https://lnkd.in/ezVVvxBf

Higher Resolution on the Middle Manager - Reflections on Jeff Sigel's book, The Middle Matters – A Toolkit for Middle Managers. This book is as solid, as down to earth and as full of common sense as its author. I read it easily without any painful moments and Jeff made each of his points with examples from his work experience. What I appreciated so much about his perspective is the clarity with which it was presented as well as the focus on the middle manager, an often under-appreciated role and neglected topic. The main message is that middle managers have a difficult job because they have to take on all three roles at once: doer, leader and influencer. And if they do not perform well in all three roles, they will never make it to the top. We know the feeling of being in the unhappy middle, whether the middle child or the middle manager. It is easier to just have one role and to keep improving our performance from year to year. When our supervisors decide to promote us and give us the additional responsibilities of management, we become middle managers. From my perspective, the most difficult aspect of this transition is to stop doing some of the tasks we were so good at. We often make the mistake of trying to keep doing everything we were doing before in addition to our new tasks: this is a bad idea for us and for the younger people in our group who need to grow as well. The art of letting go is not as easy as it sounds because it requires us to constantly evaluate and prioritize the tasks before us. One aspect of Jeff’s book that surprised me was the honesty with which he talks about the fragile egos of bosses and how beneficial it is to just coddle them or to just do what they ask us to do even if we think it is ?wrong (as long as it is not illegal); in the end, we will get to our desired outcome faster than if we present them with resistance right away. His justification is that “long run influence requires short term compliance” and, for that, the best expression is “O.K. Great.” For a scientist, this is a radical approach to take and something that might take getting used to. I was trained to seek out the truth, question and make arguments when something is wrong and I have noticed that many other scientists behave similarly. Each of us will resonate with different aspects of Jeff’s toolkit but we will each see our management position with greater resolution after this reading. For me the physical chemist, resolution means the ability to distinguish between two objects that are close together, such two peaks in a spectrum. When you want to see peaks more clearly, one approach is to increase the data collection time so that you can increase the signal to noise ratio. This is Jeff’s great contribution: he has been collecting data and stories over a long time and his toolkit offers us, the readers, a better resolved spectrum of middle management with clearly assigned peaks for what to do as a doer, a leader or an influencer.

I miss Paris and want to go back! https://lnkd.in/e2WzNpxu #womeninstem #womeninscience #womeninenergy #womeninleadership