Did you know that, right now, only 30% of all female students select STEM-related fields in higher education? And that less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women.
That’s why it is so important to celebrate the women currently working in scientific and academic research fields who are leading the way for future generations. As the United Nations highlights, science and gender equality are both vital for the achievement of the internationally agreed development goals, including the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
It’s time for perceptions to change and for children to be exposed to positive role models, after all, outdated gender stereotypes and biases have no place in our industry. We believe it’s essential that we all find ways to inspire and engage women and girls in science, and this International Day of Women and Girls in Science (Monday 11 February) we are revisiting the stories of three female Future Makers to explore how science has inspired them in their professional careers and day-to-day lives.
You can have a real-world impact
As a Research Scientist for Siemens in Berkeley, California, Mareike focuses on the world of augmented reality and building ways for humans and technology to work better together. After advancing from university into academic research, she looked for a job that would allow her to continue her research, but also really see the impact of her work on broader society. After all, that’s what research is all about — finding the solutions to problems.
“Here, at Siemens, I have the access to real business problems, and we also have the means to find the solution,” she says. “We have a huge network — we have almost 380,000 people to work with or to work for, and you can really solve a big problem that will solve a bigger issue for our world.”
An academic’s job is to constantly ask questions, to repeatedly test new ideas and to prod at current beliefs to really see if they hold true, and Mareike really thrives on doing this for a large organization — where the answers she identifies might one day change the way we live our lives.
You play an active part in shaping the future
Information is the future. As we gather more and more intelligence on our lives, it’s not the quantity that’s becoming a problem — it’s the quality. This is something that Andrea Kollmorgen is acutely aware of — she relies on a team of Data Scientists to navigate today’s data deluge in order to help her push transportation projects into the future.
“I work within a very entrepreneurial, integrative ecosystem of thinking” she explains. “For someone to really make a difference in this field they need to be doing more than merely studying it — they need to be experiencing it too. From the sharing economy to driverless cars, the data scientists of the future will have the right mindset because they’ll already be living that in that world.” With this in mind, perhaps it’s no surprise that data science was named the ‘sexiest job of the 21st century’ by Harvard Business Review.
The insights uncovered by the data scientists working with Andrea will go on to impact electric trains, boats, and even planes — as governments and businesses alike step up to fight the effects of climate change. It just shows how scientific findings can really help power tomorrow’s innovations.
You work with a whole new set of colleagues
But that’s once the robots have been tested and introduced to the humans they will be working alongside. And that’s where Sarah comes in when she was tasked with taking a 40-year-old electronics factory into the 21st century.
Having studied for a degree in manufacturing engineering, she moved to Congleton to identify opportunities for streamlining work and reducing waste at the Siemens factory. A huge part of this involved thinking about where automation technology could help the factory streamline production processes. The solution? To introduce robots to work alongside the humans — it’s still something that’s being tested right now and has the potential to radically improve productivity levels.
She says a lot of her job involves talking to coworkers to find the answers to questions, like: What’s the disruptive technology that’s coming through right now? What’s the technology that we have access to right now that will continue to progress?”
Mareike Kritzler is a Research Scientist for Siemens in Berkeley, California. Andrea Kollmorgen is Head of Connected eMobility — one of 14 Company Core Technology areas. Sarah Black-Smith is the Head of Factory Operations for Siemens Digital Factory in Congleton. Find out more about working at Siemens.
Photography: Tom Hood; Andrew Shaylor
