Author: emmaharding

Introducing WREN – connecting women engineers in Brazil and Australia

By Peggy Schoenherr

The Women’s Research Engineers Network (WREN) is a recently launched network between Australia and Brazil formed by an all women committee consisting of five early-career researchers from the University of Wollongong (UOW) and two professors from the University of São Paulo. The network was established to support women in engineering throughout their academic careers by fostering international collaborations, which are closely linked to successful grants and promotions. By generating more opportunities for women to find these collaborations, the network is working to narrow the still present gender gap felt by women in later career stages. The first six months of the newly founded network has been financed through a Commonwealth grant from the Council on Australia Latin America Relations (COALAR).

We spoke with three founding members, Dr Mainã Portella Garcia (Research Fellow), Ms Grace Kennedy (Associate Research Fellow) and Dr Emily Yap (Research Engineer), about WREN and what they want to achieve with their network.

How did WREN start?

The idea for WREN started with Dr Marcella Bernardo and me (Dr Portella). We are both early-career researchers at the University of Wollongong and originally from Brazil. Both of us have struggled in forming international collaborations, especially with groups in Brazil, which mainly resulted from not being able to contact them due to a lack of online presence of these researchers. We realised that this was a problem not only for us but for other people from Australia as well. Thus, we decided to create a network between Australia and Brazil, which will act as a platform to connect people. The specific focus on women is a result of our experience as early-career engineers, and the existing gender gap throughout the career stages in engineering. So we decided to write a grant for the establishment of our network together with Emily, Grace and Dr. Apsara Jayasekara from Australia, and our Brazilian colleagues, Prof’s Janaina Mascarenhas and Vera Lucia Arantes from the University of Sao Paulo. Our grant application was supported by the deans and directors of various university faculties and offices from Australia and Brazil. The grant was accepted in April 2021 by the Council on Australia Latin American Relations (COALAR) that promotes bilateral Australian and Latin American projects and gave us the funds to start up our network.

What is WREN about?

Emily – The main goal of WREN is to create a network to encourage and support international collaborations between
women research engineers. This involves a number of online events to build connections and share knowledge and experiences between Brazil and Australia. To support the network, a website hub is being developed that anyone will be able to access to find researchers from different parts of the world by simply searching for specific keywords. You could for example search for ‘artificial intelligence’ and find academics linked to that topic and ways to contact them. Additionally, we would like to include a forum where you could ask questions about specific technologies, seek help when writing grants or discuss other academic topics.

Grace – We want to make WREN an environment to support women to be more involved in attaining grants, advancing their careers and having their voices heard by sharing ideas and knowledge. WREN was started from a COALAR special fund for the economic recovery from COVID-19. WREN is about generating opportunities and helping each other, whilst striving towards gender equity. This should be achieved by including the voices of diverse groups of people.

Mainã – WREN is about putting women in decision-making positions. It enables us to be heard and amplifies our voice to achieve more things than one researcher could do. I believe that our platform will benefit not only early-career but also mid-career researchers.

Women of WREN from the University of Wollongong: pictured left to right: Dr Apsara Jayasekara, Dr Mainã Portella Garcia, Dr Marcella Bernardo Papini, Dr Emily Yap, Ms Grace Kennedy. Photograph by Paul Jones.

Besides being a network to form new collaborations, what else do you want WREN to stand for?

Our network is also there to empower women in promoting themselves because they are often less inclined to ‘blow their trumpets’ as well as men. If we highlight successful women as role models others can follow in their footsteps, and learn what makes a career or grant application successful or possible a pitfall. Seeing others in a similar position succeed may also improve other’s confidence in applying for a grant or position.

We also want the website to be a sharing portal, to increase transparency and to provide the same accessibility for everyone. It can for example be hard for early-career researchers to get access to examples of successful grant applications and learn from them because people tend to be cautious in sharing them. Accessibility and likelihood of success often depends on who you know or who supports you. We, however, want to generate an environment where everyone has the same opportunity. We will try to set an example by making our COALAR grant for WREN available on the new website including all questions.

What are your plans for the six months of the grant and after?

The six-month seed funding will help us to set up our network and build momentum. Beyond creating the website, we have organised monthly events to connect with people and spread our message. I think we are already reaching a good point where we can say: “The network is here for you! Let’s find others to collaborate with and work on new ideas! Get in contact with us and let’s get going!”

A very important part is the creation and launch of our website in late September when our grant is ending. This is not the end of WREN, but just the beginning! The website will be the main platform for WREN going forward. We are planning to create a committee out of current members as well as equally passionate people to continue this new platform. The committee will be responsible for planning future events and bringing people together. We already have a few ideas on how to resource the continuation of WREN but we are always open for more ideas.

Is WREN only for women in engineering?

No! Even though our name specifically mentions women and engineers, anyone can join the events and be a member of our network. Our network is free to join, and open to all supportive allies or people that have an interest in gender equity in engineering. At the moment our focus is on women as they are underrepresented especially in engineering, however our overarching goal is to generate a new sort of transparency by sharing information. Nevertheless, in the end, we not only want to connect Brazilian and Australian women in engineering, but everyone around the world should be able to benefit from our website and share in the knowledge held within the network.

How can I contact WREN as an individual or an organisation?

If you want to find out more about us, get involved or support the network, go to our website www.aubrwren.com or write us an email at info@aubrwren.com. Even though our website is still under development, you can subscribe to our mailing list to stay in touch with our events until the release of the full website. We can also be found on most social media platforms including by searching for AUBRWREN. To hear more about our mission and vision of the network, watch our video on the WREN YouTube channel.

Another good way to get in contact with us is through our events. They will give you more information about the network and our initiatives. Come along and join us!

Is there anything else you would like to mention?

The success of our network depends on the people within it, and the spreading of our message to the outside of the network. WREN belongs to those within the network, so if you have a topic or idea that you think is worth discussing, contact us and we will help you promote it! We’d also be delighted to work together and support the initiatives of other groups with similar goals.

Follow WREN to get in contact or stay updated on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and Youtube, or email info@aubrwren.com.

Communication and COVID-19; a virologists perspective

Disclaimer: all views are my own, this is an opinion piece meant to stimulate thought and discussion

When I decided to do a PhD in virology, I never expected to be working in ground zero during a pandemic. In January of 2020, news of an emerging virus from China reached Australia. This virus was similar to ones that had caused pandemics before; SARS and MERS. Original thoughts were that it would only cause severe symptoms in a low percentage of people, and would likely be similar to catching the flu. As the weeks went on, it became apparent that this virus was a lot worse than originally thought, and research rapidly changed to help control and treat SARS-CoV2.

This included my laboratory. As the only virology lab in the faculty, all eyes were on us. And then the questions begun. I watched on in awe as my supervisor and peers were answering questions left, right and centre, and making recommendations and predictions. I had studied coronaviruses briefly in undergraduate courses, but had nowhere near the required expertise to be making statements or giving my opinion to the public… or did I?

Pictured: Emma works in a virology lab undertaking SARS-CoV2 research amongst other projects.

As I watched the pandemic unfold, I realised that a lot of media coverage was incorrect or sometimes downright misleading. Many questions asked by the public I could easily answer, and recommendations including masks and sanitisation seemed straight forward to me. Over time I became aware of the huge knowledge gap between the public and the virologists and medical professionals dealing with the disease. Often the professors and doctors were overqualified for the questions they were asked, and it became clear that you either knew a lot about viruses, or next to nothing. There was no in-between.

Now, 1.5 years into the pandemic, I still get asked basic questions about the virus, disease and hygiene. Clearly, something is going wrong with science communication. Even with all public eyes focussed on viruses, we still can’t seem to get even basic information across.

So what is causing this lack of communication? Some of it comes from the academic culture, which is very much focussed on publishing papers and talking with peers. Academics present work at conferences targeted at very specific audiences, where the layperson or even bachelor graduate would quickly be left behind. Unfortunately, science communication is not taught or valued in academia anywhere near as highly as it should be. Concepts which are seen as basic knowledge to the microbiologist are not taught outside of university degrees, and not enough science communicators are around to explain them. Whilst there has been a marked increase in academics taking to social media and media outlets during COVID, especially on the topic of vaccine uptake, the message is still not as clear as it should be.

A second contributor to the communication divide is the rise of social media and the ease at which people can present their opinions to a wide audience. The lack of regulations or fact checking often means that misinformed or deliberately incorrect people can influence thousands of people at a time, which leads to the propagation of “fake news”. This was especially prevalent surrounding the origin of SARS-CoV2 and now the multiple vaccines and side effects. News and media outlets are not much help, often promoting agendas rather than aiming to educate and inform. In Australia, media has been very anti-vaccine in recent months, highlighting every case of side effect and sometimes over-exaggerating vaccine risks. The media single-handedly increased vaccine scepticism in a week, and registrations for immunisations reflect this.

Pictured: News reports on COVID-19 vaccines. Many articles are available that catastrophise the dangers of vaccines, however articles promoting the upside/safety of vaccines are very difficult to find.

As a budding virologist, I know that I am not the expert on these issues, however I know there is an extreme disconnect between the true experts, the researchers and the general public, and I know I can help. One thing I have learned during this pandemic is that no matter how little you think you know, any amount of information that you can educate on is better than nothing. Even clearing up the difference between a bacteria and a virus – something taught in high school biology – is a valuable contribution and the first step in eliminating the knowledge gap in science.

So this is a call for confidence. For those of you reading this blog article, you are more of an expert that you think. Whether you research chemical signatures of distant stars, gold nanoparticles, cholesterol metabolism or the biofouling of marine surfaces, you know more about a lot of science than the general person. Try and be an expert opinion, where you can. Try and help friends out with finding reputable sources, try and spread what you know to colleagues or on social media. As an individual, it may not be much, but as a community we can begin to change the stereotype of a scientist from a introvert in a lab coat to an approachable, knowledgeable person and help keep the public better informed.

Emma has been listed on the UNSW Sydney COVID-19 experts and is actively contributing to media requests and providing research and statements for interested parties.