Issue 29: Women of Science Feb '25
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
🥼 Industry & Life sciences
📌 Stacy Brown-Philpot Raises $172 Million to Back Diverse Founders
Brown-Philpot, the former chief executive officer of TaskRabbit, has raised $172 million from investors including JPMorgan Chase & Co for a new venture to target underrepresented business founders.
📌 Citi raises CEO Fraser's compensation 33% to $34.5 million for 2024
Fife woman Jane Fraser has become the world's most powerful female banker after her Citigroup pay topped $100 million.
💻 Tech
📌 Google Calendar removes Black History Month, Pride and other cultural events
Company says listed holidays were not 'sustainable' for its model as tech firms roll back diversity efforts.
📌 Ofcom to name and shame tech firms over women's abuse online
UK regulator Ofcom has published draft guidance for tech firms to tackle online harms against women and girls.
🤖 AI
📌 Mira Murati, OpenAI’s Former Chief Technology Officer, Starts Her Own Company
Since leaving OpenAI in the fall of 2024, former exec Mira Murati has wasted no time starting her next venture.
After nearly 15 years of academic research as doctoral students and then together at Microsoft, Yinglian Xie and Fang Yu have turned their Ph.D. theses into machine learning that makes connections between seemingly unrelated events to discover emerging fraud schemes.
💊 Healthcare
📌 Genetic Discoveries Could Reduce Black Women's Higher Breast Cancer Death Risk
Women with African ancestry have often been left out of breast cancer studies. Now scientists are catching up.
📌 FDA scientists told ‘woman’ and ‘disabled’ are on Trump’s banned word list
Off the back of workers being told to remove words such as gender, transgender, LGBT and nonbinary, Trump’s administrative plans include more prohibited words in scientific comms.
📌 London-based Unfabled gets €1.5 million to crack the women’s health and wellness market
Unfabled, a leading destination for women’s health and wellbeing, announced a €1.5 million round to address the gender health gap, taking its total funding to €1.8 million. The round will be used to expand the consumer-facing platform as well as develop its in-house data science, a core element of its B2B offering.
📌 Meet Eva Ramón Gallegos, First Physician To Eradicate HPV in women
A scientist from Oaxaca in Mexico has made a breakthrough in medicine by completely eliminating the Human Papillomavirus (HPV) in 29 women.
Materials, Methods, Discussion
This week - interviews, discussions, and more:
🖊️ Interviews and features of note:
Channel Women In Security: Navigating The AI Landscape, Compliance And Security With Pax8’s Michelle Correia - CRN's Cass Cooper talks with Michelle Correia, vice president of legal at Pax8, about the importance of building responsible AI systems
How Can We Better Support Successful Latin American Women In The Tech Space?
The Erasing of American Science - a deep dive by The Atlantic questioning How far can the Trump administration bend U.S. research before it breaks.
🖊️ Pods and vids:
🧠 The Conversation: Brain implants, agentic AI and answers on dark matter: what to expect from science in 2025In a special episode of The Conversation Weekly podcast to start 2025, we’ve brought together three science editors from The Conversation’s editions around the world to discuss what to look out for in the world of science and technology in the coming year.
Conclusions & Further Reading
More links & signposts for you to enjoy this week…
The Written Word:
🤖 AI ‘inspo’ is flooding the internet. It’s driving stylists and surgeons crazy.
💊 How physician exhaustion kills compassion — and nurtures shame
⛷️ This indigenous skier and scientist is fighting both colonialism and climate change in the outdoor industry
⭐ What are stars made of? A century ago, this woman found out—and changed physics forever
🧑💻 Women's innovation in tech; Working in retail; Valerie's Life in Shoes
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)!
📍 Open deadline
🎯 Diverse History of Science Tours: For those based in London (or just visiting), you can take a free guided tour of some of the Science Museum’s most famous galleries, led by award-winning Learning Volunteers, covering all things women in science to gender and sex in scientific history.
📍 Open (and free)
🎯 Free Online Event: Emerging technologies: A strategic playbook for business leaders from the peeps at NewScientist
📍 26th Feb
🎯 Innovation in women's health and FemTech from the RSM Obs&Gynae Section - one for the diary!
📍 28th Feb
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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