Women's in STEM: International Women's Day '23

International Women’s Day is a great time to highlight the importance of women in all of our lives, celebrate important female figures (contemporary and historical); show support for women’s rights and gender equality; and also to show appreciation for women all around us: whether at home, in the workplace or our wider societies.

Women have made significant contributions to the world of STEM and the lives of all of us around the world, whether that be Marie Sk?odowska–Curie’s groundbreaking work in radioactivity; Ada Lovelace’s early work in programming which laid the foundation for modern computing, to the work of those that we at Zedsen have wanted to shine a light on, such as Dr Jane C Wright, the ‘Godmother of Chemotherapy’, to Dr Sara Josephine Baker, a pioneer in public health and preventative healthcare.

At Zedsen, we are doing work that we believe will be of monumental impact on women around the world. 1 in 7 women will develop breast cancer, and as our Clinical Scientist Alexandra Naranjo spoke about in a recent thought piece, there were 2.26 million breast cancer cases in 2020 and 685,000 deaths attributed to breast cancer. Our goal is to develop a novel technology that could potentially dramatically improve access to breast cancer screening, as well as address the hurdles faced by marginalised and disadvantaged women everywhere.

Zedsen aims to be an inclusive employer across all aspects, including gender. Increasing the representation of women in the workplace is vital, as it helps to bring unique perspectives and approaches to STEM fields.

Though we are small in number, we are proud of the fact that 47% of our staff are female. Beyond this, 57% of the managers of the company are female, with strong representation in our senior leadership team (50%). We wanted to take the time (admittedly a day late; but Thursdays are our team day!) to shine a light on the incredible works and efforts of women not just in the field but in our workplace, across Engineering, Finance, Operations, Clinical Science and Simulation beyond International Women’s Day, and we will be introducing more of our team through our Employee Spotlight features in the months to come, and take the time to honour the incredible women who keep the wheels turning at Zedsen.