Event and Ticketing Details
Dates & Times
Thursday 16 April
6:15 PM - 7:15 PM
Scientific research and development have helped arm the case for gender equality – and in some cases, advances in science have helped escape gender-based pigeonholes and restrictions. (Think: the development of The Pill and its role in women’s liberation.) But science can also work to entrench prejudice, with studies interpreted to back up long-held assumptions of inherent differences (and differing abilities) according to gender. And science is still largely dominated by men, despite recent efforts to encourage women into the field.
What are the experiences of women working in science? Is there a new generation of scientists interested in equality? And what are the concerns and focuses for feminists in science?
Tweet: #thefword
Featuring
Maxine Beneba Clarke
Maxine Beneba Clarke is the author of the acclaimed memoir The Hate Race, the award-winning short fiction collection Foreign Soil, the poetry collections Carrying The World and How Decent Folk Behave, and many other books for adults and children. Her forthcoming poetry collection is It's The Sound of the Thing: 100 new poems for young people. She is currently Poet in Residence at Melbourne University.
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Kate White
Kate White is an internationally recognised researcher on gender and higher education. She is Adjunct Associate Professor at Federation University Australia and Co-director of the nine-country research consortium, the Women in Higher Education Management Network.
Her research focuses on gender and higher education, women’s academic careers and women in science.
Sharon Lewin
Leading infectious diseases expert, Professor Sharon Lewin, is the inaugural Director of the Doherty Institute, as well as a Professor of Medicine at The University of Melbourne and a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Practitioner Fellow.
Professor Lewin is also the Chief Investigator of a NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence, The Australian Partnership for Preparedness Research on Infectious Diseases Emergencies, that aims to bring together Australia’s leading experts to address the key components required for an emergency response to infectious diseases.
Katie Mack
Dr Katherine (Katie) Mack is a theoretical cosmologist. Her work focuses on finding new ways to learn about the early universe and fundamental physics using astronomical observations, probing the building blocks of nature by examining the cosmos on the largest scales.
Throughout her career as a researcher at Caltech, Princeton, Cambridge and now University of Melbourne, she has studied dark matter, black holes, cosmic strings, and the formation of the first galaxies in the Universe.
Katie is also an active online science communicator and is passionate about science outreach. As a science writer, she has been published by Slate, Cosmos, Sky & Telescope, Time.com, The Economist tech blog Babbage and other popular publications.