Issue 19: Women of Science Nov '24
News, profiles, research, reviews, recommendations on all things women in science
Welcome back to another edition of WOSc - the weekly newsletter covering all things women in science 📈🧠📚𝞹
🔬 What to expect?
All subscribers receive the free edition covering highlights in media, awards and discovery as well as things to read, see and watch re: women in science. Drops every Tuesday. Tell your friends:
Thank you for joining. Enjoy the read.
A quick run-down of this issue:
Abstract & Intro: News and updates on all things women of and in science
Materials, Methods, Discussion: Interviews and talking points of note
Conclusions & Further Reading: Our media & content recommendations for your week
Abstract & Intro
Your rundown of headlines, news, notes & media snippets re: women of science
🥼 Life sciences
📌 Freya Biosciences secures new investment to develop microbial immunotherapies for bacterial vaginosis
Freya Biosciences (Freya or the Company), a transatlantic biotech company specializing in women's health, announced a $10.4 million strategic investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation with $1.4 million additional financing from current investor Export and Investment Fund of Denmark (EIFO).
🌎 Climate science
📌 Wildlife monitoring technologies used to intimidate and spy on women, study finds
Remotely operated camera traps, sound recorders and drones are increasingly being used in conservation science to monitor wildlife and natural habitats, and to keep watch on protected natural areas.
🏛️ Policy
📌 Deadlock at COP29 to Update UN Action Plan on Gender and Climate
Efforts to ensure that countries are more responsive to the nexus of gender and climate change have stalled at this year’s COP29 climate summit in Azerbaijan.
💻 Tech
LINGO, an edtech company by former NASA rocket scientist and future Blue Origin astronaut Aisha Bowe, has raised $2.5 million to enhance STEM education. The funding round, led by Pinnacle Private Ventures LLC, indicates a venture capital shift that redefines how women and minority-led startups access resources.
📌 Computer Weekly announces the Most Influential Women in UK Tech 2024
Computer Weekly has revealed who is on the 2024 list of the 50 Most Influential Women in UK Tech, including this year’s winner, Sheridan Ash.
Kim Kardashian stepped into the future with a set of steamy photos alongside a Tesla Optimus robot, even holding hands with the humanoid.
Chanel's CEO went to Microsoft HQ and asked ChatGPT to show her a picture of her company's leadership. They were all men in suits.
🤖 AI
📌 From Tennis Player to Tech Founder: How One Woman Hit a Winner in SportAI
Lauren Pedersen’s name may have not be quite as recognised as Naomi Osaka‘s. However, the transition from an NCAA Division tennis player to the co-founder and CEO of SportAI is certainly one of a winner.
📌 An AI startup CEO on a Forbes '30 Under 30' list has been charged with defrauding investors out of $10 million
Prosecutors say Joanna Smith-Griffin inflated the revenues of her startup, AllHere Education.
📌 Meta hires Salesforce AI CEO Clara Shih to lead new AI division
Meta has appointed Clara Shih, the former CEO of Salesforce AI division, to lead a new unit focused on developing AI tools for businesses.
💊 Healthcare
The Alloy platform offers asynchronous treatment by doctors, with a $50 annual fee and prescriptions starting at USD$40/month.
📌 Neurotoxic mixture effects of chemicals extracted from blood of pregnant women
This study from researchers in Germany used high-resolution mass spectrometry to identify chemicals in the blood of pregnant women, providing a new approach to including mixture effects in epidemiological studies.
Health assessment body NICE has stressed to GPs hormone replacement therapy (HRT) should be offered as the first treatment option to ease menopause symptoms.
The waiting list for gynaecology care in the UK has more than doubled since the start of the pandemic. According to the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG), around 750,000 people are waiting for non-cancer gynaecology appointments across the NHS.
📌 Hormonal IUDs increase risk of breast cancer nearly the same as hormonal pills, study finds
Researchers studied nearly 80,000 women ages 15 to 49 for the findings.
Scholars have warned of a nursing shortage for decades, with many factors at play: A high patient-to-nurse ratio is just one of the many long-standing issues that nurses have faced — a concern that was only exacerbated by the pandemic.
Materials, Methods, Discussion
This week - interviews, discussions and more:
🖊️ Interviews of note:
How Women in Tech Are Redefining Cognitive Engineering: Insights from Merlin Balamurugan: In cognitive engineering, women are breaking gender barriers to bridge the connection between humans and machines. Merlin Balamurugan, Vice President at a leading banking organization, has proven her place in this field.
🖊️ Pods and vids:
🧠 The Science or Fiction Podcast: What Happens To Women's Brains During Pregnancy?What happens to the brain during pregnancy? A new study scanned a first-time mother’s brain 26 times throughout her pregnancy and has been featured in over 300 news articles at the time of recording, including in the New York Times, Fox News, the BBC, the list goes on. Why has this study made such a splash, and what have we learned about the brain?
Kathryn and Chloe Carrick interviewed the lead author of the paper, Dr Laura Pritschet, to answer these important questions.
🥇 Michelle Oyen, PhD - MOTHER-podcast with Karina VazirovaMichelle Oyen, PhD, a materials scientist and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering at Wayne State University, is bringing the engineering perspective to pregnancy. She explains that many aspects of pregnancy involve forces—rupturing, pushing, growing, stretching. These are all mechanical events. If we can describe pregnancy in engineering terms, we can model it.
⚛️ Women in engineering discuss how and why to improve the sector’s gender balance⚛️ Women from across the civil engineering sector came together to share concerns and solutions at the Inspiring Women in Construction and Engineering (IWICE) conference from Construction News and New Civil Engineer in September 2024.
Conclusions & Further Reading
More links & signposts for you to enjoy this week…
The Written Word:
👩🏻🔬 Citizen science as an instrument for women’s health research: Women’s health research is receiving increasing attention globally, but considerable knowledge gaps remain.
📡 Bridging gaps in women’s tech leadership: Challenges and solutions: This whitepaper delves into the significant barriers hindering women in technology today.
🧪 The chemical industry is falling short on supporting women
💲 Equal Pay Day 2024 - The Fawcett Society: On November 20th, 2024, women stop being paid compared to men: This is the point in the year when, on average, women effectively work for free, and the gender pay gap is now 11.3%, up from 10.7% last year.
📈 Five common misconceptions about women and entrepreneurship
😴 The Sleep Gap: Why Women Rest Less and Wake More: Females tend to sleep less, wake up more frequently, and experience less restorative sleep compared to males, according to a new animal study (not the Pink Panther, we should add…).
Events & opportunities:
🎯Sign up to be a healthtech mentor (or mentee) with Sixty Twelve: Is this something we at WOSc are building ourselves? Keep your eyes peeled (and pass on the message)!
🎯 Event with HANX Founder Farah Kabir: Join us for an inspiring Q&A session with Farah Kabir, the visionary founder of HANX. Farah has revolutionised the intimate care industry. Before HANX, Farah spent six years working at Goldman Sachs.
📍 Nov 26, 18:00-21:00 (GMT); Runway East Borough Market | Office Space, 20 Saint Thomas Street, Greater London, SE1 9RS
🎯 Intersectional Fairness in AI: This Trustworthy AI Helix event, organised by Crowdhelix, brings together experts from the BIAS and DIVERSIFAIR projects to explore the intersectional fairness of AI systems in Europe. The Trustworthy AI Helix is an international Open Innovation community of specialists in artificial intelligence, bias and ethics in AI and related disciplines.
📍 10 Dec, Online
🎯 The annual SomX - Google Healthtech Talks Christmas Party (join the waitlist!)
📍 27 Nov, 18:30-21:00 (GMT); Google Kings Cross Offices, London
That’s all for this issue!
Thank you for reading: The WoS mission is to support, share and promote the innovative and groundbreaking work that has been and continues to be done by women across all scientific disciplines, and to empower and inspire the next generation of female leaders in the field.
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