Lead Without Limits: Over 600 Women Attend the 2020 WISE National Conference
Author: Emily Nguyen
It is 7 AM on January 26th, a brisk Sunday morning in downtown Toronto. As I enter the Hilton Hotel, I feel both excited and nervous. For months, our dedicated team of Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) executives have been working endlessly to prepare for our 8th Annual National Conference. It is finally time to experience the culmination of our efforts.
WISE was founded in the UK in 1984 by Lady Beryl Platt, an aeronautical engineer (and one of only five women in a class of 250 at Girton College, Cambridge). Her goal was to encourage female students to explore their potential in STEM fields.
Since 1999, WISE’s University of Toronto chapter has been furthering this mission by developing outreach, professional development, and mentorship programs for women in STEM. As women progress through their education and careers, their numbers in STEM fields decline. This can be explained by lower expectations from females in the workplace, implicit biases against women in male-dominant environments, and feelings of isolation from lack of guidance.
WISE’s main goal is to provide a support network for female students and professionals to thrive and reach their academic and professional goals. We reach out to high schools and community organizations to share our experiences as undergraduate students in science and engineering with the hopes of providing mentorship in their pursuit of higher education.
WISE’s annual two-day conference is our largest organized event of the year and embodies our core initiatives: community outreach, high school outreach, industry mentorship, and professional development. The event unites hundreds of delegates, speakers, and sponsors from across North America for a weekend of recognition and collaboration.
This year, the conference’s theme was Lead without Limits. We aimed to emphasize the boundless leadership potential amongst attendees. There were several workshop and panel sessions highlighting cutting-edge research and technology from companies like Accenture, Shopify, and SCIEX, to name a few.
Meanwhile, the healthcare and engineering case competitions challenged delegates to think outside the box and work in teams. In these competitions, participants were judged on the feasibility, appropriateness, and technical soundness of their proposed solutions, in addition to their professionalism and organization. This year, 1st place for the engineering case competition was awarded to Maisha Choudhury, Memma Uponi, Johanna Blake, and Cathy Sheng. The Healthcare Case Competition was won by Jane Jomy, Negar Asli, Sara Tamjidi, and Hannah Eng while Mireille Ghoussoub took home first place for her presentation in the 3-Minute Thesis Competition.
There was also the chance to network at the career fair, enabling vital connections to be formed between students and industry professionals. The WISE conference team aimed to include sponsors whom attendees were interested in and whose values aligned with WISE’s initiatives. By doing so, the sponsored appealed the academic and career interests of the attendees.
As a volunteer at this year’s conference, I noticed the undeniable energy and excitement in the venue. It was extremely empowering to have so many powerful and ambitious females in the same place at the same time: all united with the common purpose of helping women succeed in STEM fields.
Another highlight of the conference was the array of highly accomplished keynote speakers who shared their life stories, research, and career trajectories. Their words ultimately left hundreds of young females inspired.
On Saturday, delegates attended a keynote by Erika Cheung, one of the key whistleblowers in the Theranos scandal who prevented the company from continuing to send out thousands of faulty patients results. She spoke to the importance of business ethics. Kristen Facciol, an aerospace engineer and U of T alumni presented her journey to becoming a Robotics Flight Controller with the Canadian Space Agency following the completion of her training at NASA’s Johnson Space Center. Conference attendees also heard from Alexandria Butler, a project manager at Facebook and founder of Sista Circle: Black Women in Tech, a 4,700+ online community that supports Black women in tech companies and tech related professions.
On Sunday, we had two different speakers share their insights on various research advancements and career paths in science fields. For instance, Dr. Françoise Baylis is one of the organizers of, and a key participant in, the 2015 International Summit on Human Gene Editing. She is also member of the World Health Organization expert advisory committee on developing global standards for governance and oversight of human genome editing. Our last keynote speaker was Dr. Fei-Fei Liu, Chief of the Radiation Medicine Program and Head of the Department of Radiation Oncology at the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre. With many conference attendees interested in pursuing higher education in medicine, these speakers offered a glimpse into the rewards and challenges of their career.
As the conference comes to an end, I pause to reflect on two days of networking, learning, and collaboration. I leave inspired and ambitious, vowing to continue pursuing my goals of attending medical school and being a leader in my field. By supporting others around us, we can grow and accomplish even more together.
Originally published at https://medium.com on February 27, 2020.
