For International Women’s Day, our lab members tell us about one female scientist in particular that inspired them to better at science and at life.
Today, International Women’s Day 2021, is as good a day as any other to appreciate and highlight the extraordinary women that make the world a better place, and us as individuals, better people. Being scientists, we thought it appropriate to focus on—yes!—women in science. We asked some of our lab members to tell us about one female scientist in particular that inspired them during their life and career. Their moving stories are a testament to the amazing women that have not only made invaluable contributions to the realm of science, but most importantly, made the scientific and academic practice more human. So without further ado, here are their stories. Happy International Women’s Day!
Isabelle Anguelovski
Back in 2004, I was a Program Coordinator at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. Serving the needs of minority students awarded a doctoral fellowship by the National Institutes of Health, I truly believed that they were the future scientific and policy elites of the nation. Yet many of them felt invisible and under constant pressure to prove themselves in a predominantly white institution. There I met Binta Beard, a passionate, gregarious, and incredibly sharp doctoral student. Originally from Atlanta, Binta was studying health inequalities and social epidemiology and was mentored by Prof. Louise Ryan and Prof. Rebecca Betensky. Binta’s intelligence and resilience blew me away, as did Louise and Rebecca’s unwavering support through the years. As she became Dr. Beard and went on to work as Senior Health Policy Advisor in the US Senate, I couldn’t help think of the individual and structural obstacles Binta had overcome to access such a high-level position. As vulnerable as I feel as a foreign female faculty, I know I have always carried the privilege of my whiteness with me.
Margarita Triguero-Mas
As a research technician in 2009 at the Centre for Research on Environmental Epidemiology (now ISGlobal) in Barcelona, I had the opportunity to collaborate for three years with Dr.Med.Sci. Elisabeth Thieden, who was based at Bispebjerg Hospital in Copenhagen. A pharmacist by training, Elisabeth was an extremely passionate, curious and meticulous scientist and also a very warm person. As one of the leaders of the project we were working on, she demonstrated an amazing balance of diligence and patience that played a huge role in its completion. What I remember the most, though, is how invested, cooperative and motivating she was during our exhausting fieldwork in The Canary Islands. She worked tirelessly, but always with a smile on her face and making time for the more junior researchers. Her positive and constructive attitude, and knowing that she went on to become Dr.Med.Sci. later in her career, continues to be a deep source of inspiration for me.
Helen Cole
During an intense semester-long program planning project at the start of my Master in health behavior and health education, I had the good fortune of being assigned to a group with May May Leung, then a first year PhD student studying nutrition at UNC. May May had very clear ideas and directions, not just for our group project, but also for her career in science, which contrasted with my insecurity and uncertainty at the time about my future. Several years later, we crossed paths again when she was Assistant Professor at CUNY, where I was studying for my doctorate. May May hired me as her teaching assistant and this time, with the same gusto as years before, she taught me how to organize a class and be an effective teacher while being empathetic to her diverse students—many from under-privileged backgrounds struggling to make it through school while working one or more jobs, care-taking, and dealing with health issues. She has always seemed to me to excel at everything: teaching, conducting world-class research, and serving as an incredible mentor as she did for me.
Melissa García-Lamarca
Over the past few years as a participant of the Housing Justice in Unequal Cities network, I’ve had the honor to get to know the brilliant, radical urban theorist Ananya Roy based at UCLA. Ananya inspires me on many levels: her cutting edge thinking that unearths the very deepest structural roots of social inequalities rampant in everyday life, the way she has built meaningful, genuine relationships with and sought mentorship from social movement activists in Los Angeles, and her support and care for early career radical scholars and their projects. She is a wonderful, kind and generous person. Ananya truly breaks the mold of the academic ivory tower mentality held by most well-known, established scholars, not only opening the doors of that tower, but disrupting its foundations for the benefit of radical scholars and scholarship to come. She is a true inspiration for the kind of academic I hope to be.
Austin Gage Matheney
I wasn’t aware at the time, but registering for the course ‘Sub-Saharan Politics’ during my undergraduate degree would mark a turning point in my life. From the first class to the last, Dr. Sushi Datta-Sandhu created not only a space of critical thought but also one of care, the first I experienced during my time within the university system. Though she was able to create this space, I can imagine she was rarely provided with it herself, as a woman of Kenyan descent who received her PhD from the University of Nairobi in 1979 and worked in the American university system for 48 years. Even after the course was over, Dr. Sushi would frequently hold dinners at her home with undergraduate and postgraduate students, and would visit her students who were studying at the University of Cape Town, largely due to her influence. For me, Dr. Sushi reinvented what academia can be, a space of support and care, one that is replicated by each and every one of the inspirational women scientists who I am lucky enough to call my colleagues at BCNUEJ.
Emilia Oscilowicz
As a child, I would often draw pictures of scientists, but always with the same hair and glasses as my mom. She was my earliest and most influential example of a strong woman scientist. While my dad stayed at home with me, it was my mom who worked a full-time job managing a lab that studied the chemical applications of building materials. I have wonderfully vivid memories of seeing her in a lab coat and getting to play with microscopes. She’d take me to conferences and field work projects, where she was often the only woman—let alone mother! She encourages me to bold, curious, and challenges me everyday, even in my own field of social and urban planning. Dr. Margaret L. Thomson is my role model and my pillar of support, both as a mother and as a scientist.
Andréanne Breton-Carbonneau
I grew up seeing my mother, Dr. Sylvie Breton, fulfill her dreams as a scientist. So much so that I never questioned how her gender had impacted her career. For a long time, my mother was unaware of sexist dynamics, which I now realize contributed to the comfort I have in taking up space in male-dominated fields. I came to learn that early in her career, she contested gender as a disadvantage and shied away from women support groups. It wasn’t until she supervised young mothers in science that she became more attuned to gender disparities. She puts it this way: “It’s not a disadvantage to be a woman, but women are disadvantaged,” pointing to the subtle ways in which women are hindered by social and institutional structures. Watching my mother advocate against funding restrictions (e.g., grant payment, eligibility for fellowships) imposed on young mothers in science for parental leave has taught me so much about gender equity. She came to recognize the importance of representation and of being a model to women in science, as she certainly has been for me.
Carmen Pérez del Pulgar
I consider myself very lucky to have come across the people who awakened my passion for science. Dr. Virginie Mamadouh is definitely one of them. Having been my political geography professor and thesis supervisor during my Masters at the Universiteit van Amsterdam, Virginie is not only a fantastic scholar, but an incredibly motivational one—to the point of making her students fall in love with the research and the transformative potential of collective thinking. I can’t thank her enough for taking education so seriously and going beyond the delivery of a set of concepts and skills. I hope one day to emulate her mentoring style; not only being emotionally and intellectually available but also inviting students to escape the logic of excellence and efficiency, and freely explore their own process of critical reflection without the fear of “wasting time”. One thing she taught me is that this is how education can be liberating and make way for radical ideas.
Francesc Baró
During my academic career I have been inspired by many women scientists and been lucky enough to be mentored by outstanding women scholars who I hope will remain mentors during the rest of my academic life. But today I want to recognise one extraordinary scholar in particular: Berta Martín-López. Berta is one of the most influential researchers in social-ecological systems and sustainability science, and having collaborated with her a few years ago on several projects, she is equally amazing as a caring colleague and person. Academia needs more scholars that practice and value care.
Jordi Honey-Roses
I was especially inspired by the agricultural economist Dr Kathy Baylis, (@kathy_baylis) who I met at the University of Illinois and is now at UC Santa Barbara in Geography. Perhaps only now can I appreciate what a male-dominant environment she confronted in developing her research program on environmental economics, land use change and agricultural policy. She taught me how to think about problems, analyze data and most importantly, how to be a good mentor. I wasn’ther masters student and we were not even in the same unit, but we both got excited about a research problem and pushed ahead with a paper. Even though it started off as a side project, the paper turned out to be a more important contribution to research than my dissertation work. Her training was essential and I would not have made the next step in my career without her mentorship. She is now working on machine learning and AI algorithms to understand the impact of conservation and agricultural policies.
Panagiota Kotsila
During my first day as a PhD student at the Institute for Development Research (ZEF) in Germany, I was welcomed by Dr. Gabi Waibel (now Managing Director in the Association of German Development Services). Gabi was leading a research project on water governance in the Mekong Delta, and inspired me with her passion in teaching, her deep knowledge of German, African and Asian cultures, the directness of her intellect and her polite nature. She was the first person I heard talk about gender issues in development studies. Gabi not only trained our international group of young scholars on research methods and theories of development, but also showed us firsthand what it means to practice care-full academic work. She helped us navigate bureaucracy, she compiled mini-libraries of literature for us to consult, invited us into her home at Christmas to bake cookies, listened to our personal struggles and shared hers, and reviewed our research papers meticulously. She made sure to have women-only safe places of conversation where she would always be encouraging, positive and supportive of our goals and choices. Gabi reminds me of what a mentor in academia should be, not only someone to admire intellectually, but also to trust.
Amalia Calderón-Argelich
Despite having been inspired by many different women throughout my academic life, I have a hard time recalling famous women scientists that influenced me as a child. My favorite documentaries and TV shows were mostly hosted by men, and in which women appeared occasionally and not as the main character. I do remember reading a book about Dian Fossey when I was 8 years old, and looking at the pictures of that woman surrounded by gorillas with fascination and admiration. Although at that age I was unaware of gender inequality in the natural sciences, I did perceive she had a special aura. It was uncommon to see a woman carrying her research alone in the mountain, and that became grimly apparent after her shocking murder. To this day, I am still in awe of that woman who observed gorillas in the mist and tirelessly fought for the environment.
Šárka Hajtmarová
I grew up in a small village of five hundred people in the Czech Republic where my passion for environmentalism was inspired by environmental and human rights activists and thinkers rather than scientists. Science was something distant, unreachable, a discipline seemingly reserved only for great men. It was only a couple of years ago that my interest in becoming a researcher was sparked when reading about the concept of degrowth, and in particular the work of Nadia (Naděžda) Johanisová. I was so excited! I think it was the first time in my life I felt truly represented. Nadia is a unique voice in the field of sustainability, ecological social economics and environmentalism in the Czech Republic and Europe. Though I haven’t met her yet, Nadia’s work has motivated me to pursue a career in science. To see a Czech woman at the front line of a European social movement and academic discipline is deeply inspiring and encouraging.
Julia Neidig
Studying Economics and Political Science in Germany, I completed my undergraduate in a very male-dominated, hierarchical and technocratic environment which was not particularly welcoming to women pursuing a career in academia. It was only during my Master at the School of Global Studies at Gothenburg University that I felt inspired by the compassion and care practiced by female scholars towards their students, and for the first time made me think about pursuing a PhD. I remember it was Swati Parashar and Anja Karlsson Franck, so passionate and committed to their research, who told us about their inspiring and difficult experiences during their field work studying gendered inequalities in different global contexts, that showed me academia can be a place to give social struggles a voice and be a forerunner for practices of care and compassion.
James Connolly
I have had the privilege of being inspired, mentored and supported by many amazing women in science, but I need to recognize one of the earlier key influences on my overall approach to scholarship. As one of my main advisors in graduate school, Dr. Susan Fainstein never accepted easy conclusions or weak logic. Rather, she pushed me toward a robust and critical mode of inquiry that leveraged the best of social scientific theory and technique. She also showed me the reality of science, an all-too-human endeavour riddled with interpersonal bias and structural barriers…and equally bursting with potential to open new doors and spark new pathways of thought and action.
Galia Shokry
As an undergraduate at Boston University, I had a passion for gender justice issues that stemmed from my Iranian roots and from witnessing both the oppression and immense courage and resistance of women in Iran and of the Iranian diaspora. It was thanks to Dr. Shahla Haeri and her anthropology course on gender expectations and gender experiences that I had the chance to more deeply explore and deconstruct my understandings of the myriad factors shaping gendered roles, practices and morés in intersectional and non-Western ways. Dr. Haeri later became director of the Women’s Studies program at BU, but beyond her capacities as an educator, researcher and scientific leader in the field, it was having a caring, talented Iranian role model of her stature at the university that pushed me to ask critical questions about the world. Female scientists of color in visible faculty positions not only provide much needed encouragement for other women of color to pursue and succeed in science, but they can help open new pathways for understanding and inhabiting a world that traditional academia tends to foreclose.
Ana Terra Amorim-Maia
Back in high school, I loved watching documentaries about things like vegetarianism, food production, seed sovereignty, capitalism, quantum physics… What they all had in common was the presence of an eloquent, intriguing, beautiful Indian woman who looked like the image of wisdom herself. Vandana Shiva, with her distinctive red bindi, gracefully articulated about complex world issues, leaving me at once mesmerized and furious, wanting to take action. For a moment I was worried that by choosing one career path, I would be closing other doors, but seeing this woman who had studied physics, pursued a PhD on the philosophy of physics(!) and become a renowned expert in all sorts of environmental issues showed me that the sky was the limit. She inspired me to pursue a career in the environmental field and then, later in life, when I became passionate about feminist issues, there she was again: trailblazing Ecofeminism! I continue to admire her and look forward to the next amazing thing she is going to do. I remember saying once, “when I grow up, I want to be like Vandana Shiva.” I still do!
Filka Sekulova
Only four months after giving birth to my daughter, partly consumed by the joys of motherhood and partly striving to get back to my academic work, I attended a Degrowth conference in Malmo 2018 with my baby. It was there that a brief encounter with Helen Jarvis, who I had met previously, marked me profoundly. Outside our session, we spoke about our difficulties dealing with motherhood and the academic rat race. She simply shared her struggles and her ups and downs while working and producing what I thought were such impressive academic outputs. Something about that conversation stayed with me, gave me hope, held me together when the academic reality came crashing down on me. It was only a few minutes long, but her words couldn’t have come at a better moment.
Fulvia Calcagni
Having an engineering background, I’ve been surrounded by male professors and students for most of my academic life. At that time, I was almost convinced that authoritarian and distant manners, harsh didactic materials and practices, and prolific academic records were valid indicators of a scholar’s value. What Dr. Roser Maneja taught me, instead, was that academia could be a space of participation, listening and care. By providing an immersive, inclusive and transdisciplinary learning environment, she showed me how to deconstruct that professor-student power structure that caused me so much stress during my undergraduate studies and which is so detrimental to the principle of sharing knowledge and collective learning that guides science. She also taught me to build personal relationships that go beyond career-related goals. I am happy to see women like her paving the way for systemic change in academia, and so many like her form part of our own lab.
