The power of many in visibility for women in STEM

Just this morning, I saw a call-out on Twitter for suggestions of great women speakers with expertise in toxicology or immunology. It’s not unusual. As we start to make progress on efforts to eradicate the ‘manel’, more and more calls are going out to the science and technology community to find great, confident, and knowledgeable speakers to appear on conference stages.

I’m really pleased we’re making progress, but I know there is a potential downside for women who speak well and have something interesting to say: there are more panel or speaking opportunities than there is time in the calendar. I’m doing my bit – referring requests on to great people who are looking for more opportunities.

But one-to-one referrals like today’s Twitter call-out can only go so far.

As we begin to see meaningful change driven by a range of programs working to raise the visibility of women in STEM in Australia, it is important to open these growing opportunities on stage and in the media to as many keen and talented scientists as possible.

In 2017, I and my team at Science & Technology Australia established the Superstars of STEM to equip women in STEM with the skills, opportunities and networks to serve as role models for young Australians. Superstars develop skills and confidence to communicate well and with influence in pretty much any situation, and to grow their profiles online and out in the world. Two years in and the Superstars have visited nearly 20,000 school students across the country and appeared on hundreds of high-profile stages nationally and around the world. They’ve also appeared in thousands of news media stories reaching millions of people and shifting the way we think about what a scientist looks like. In 2016 just one in 10 scientific experts quoted in the Australian news media were women. Today, it’s one in three.

To achieve this incredible result, we work with a passionate and committed group of experts and have enlisted the support of a range of partners and collaborators, who provide opportunities to build on and amplify the program's success. 

The Conversation and the Australian Science Media Centre, for example, train and open opportunities to participants, materially increasing the representation of female STEM professionals in the media and online. Corporate partners like Bright-r, GE Australia, Google and STEM Matters are introducing participants to decision-makers outside their immediate sphere, support their visits to schools, and give them opportunities to speak on corporate and international stages.

Science & Technology Australia is also now offering one-day STEM Communicator workshops – through these we’re offering a high-octane tasting menu of the deep training received by Superstars of STEM, empowering so many more women and others in the science and technology sector to become articulate, confident and empowered speakers and media ‘talent’.

But we strongly believe the training is just the starting point. It means nothing if you haven’t got the chance to put it into action. And while those personal referrals are important, each of us only has so many people in our network, and so much time to connect them with opportunity.

That’s why we’ve partnered with the Australian Academy of Science and others to create STEM Women. Along with a committed group of STEM women leaders from the Academy, CSIRO, and the Australian Science Media Centre, I’ve been a proud member of the steering committee shepherding this project to fruition over the last year. The Academy initiated this project to provide an easy single point of contact through which women in STEM can put their hand up for opportunities to speak, join boards and committees, or conduct media interviews. Importantly, the website works with existing programs and connectors like the Superstars of STEM and the Australian Science Media Centre’s Scimex platform, rather than trying to compete or re-invent the wheel. We’ve connected all of our Superstars with the new platform and will empower our 80+ member organisations throughout the STEM sector to make the most of this opportunity to promote their own leading women in STEM.

By working smarter, not harder, we can significantly amplify the opportunities to women in STEM, and make it much easier for companies, associations and organisations that are committed to better balance in their media coverage, on their stages, and on their committees and boards.

I hope the automatic response to the next Twitter call-out of ‘can anybody connect me with an expert woman speaker’ becomes ‘sure, visit stemwomen.org.au’.