Celebrated on February 11, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science is an opportunity to showcase outstanding female scientists who are successfully pursuing scientific careers in the stereotypically ‘non-feminine’ STEM disciplines (science, technology, engineering, mathematics). It is also a celebration of the ‘Girls for Science!’ project, implemented by the ‘Perspektywy’ Educational Foundation and financed by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education. A large group of outstanding Gdańsk scientists are involved in the project, and one of the partners is the Fahrenheit University Women's Club.

On the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we invite you to a Radio Gdańsk broadcast during which editor Michał Pacześniak will talk to prof. dr hab. Ewa Łojkowska from IFB UG and MUG, President of the Fahrenheit University Women's Club and Chair of the Jury of the Polish edition of the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Programme.

According to the analysis available in the RAD-on system (Academic Teachers report, June 2024), women make up 48% of the total number of academic teachers in Poland, but while in the humanities and social sciences the proportion of women conducting research is 50%, in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) it is only 33%, and in some disciplines (e.g. automation, electronics, electrical engineering) even less than 10%! Female researchers in STEM fields also face more barriers in their professional careers and in their efforts to obtain academic or management promotions. That is why the ‘Perspektywy’ Educational Foundation is promoting the choice of science as an attractive career path for women through the ‘Girls into Science!’ project.

The project ‘Girls into Science!’ is aimed at female high school graduates, students and doctoral candidates in technical and scientific fields, as well as female scientists in STEM.

The project showcases the work of outstanding female researchers currently conducting their scientific activities at universities and research institutes, supports women's careers by highlighting the barriers they face along the way, and finally inspires girls to embark on a scientific path.

Female scientists from Gdańsk as ambassadors and mentors in the project ‘Girls into Science!

Among the more than one hundred female scientists involved in the project “Girls into Science!”, there is a large group of female researchers from Gdańsk. They act as Ambassadors (promoting pro bono scientific careers among younger girls and women, e.g. during meetings, open days or science festivals, but also in social media) and Mentors (since February, they have been voluntarily conducting 1:1 mentoring for 8 months with a selected female student/doctoral student studying in the STEM area).

Female scientists from the University of Gdańsk are also involved in the project:

• dr hab. inż. Agnieszka Chylewska, prof. UG - as a Mentor and Ambassador in DDN

Teacher, researcher, wife and mother of Superkids. Her scientific achievements include: 50 publications in JCR journals, authorship of chapters in books and university scripts, participation in (over 100) and organisation of scientific conferences. Winner of the international Journal of Coordination Chemistry award (2016, England) for her contribution to the development of coordination chemistry, after which she joined the editorial panel of this journal (a position she holds to this day). Recipient of numerous awards, scholarship holder. She managed grants (KBN, NSC). Senator of the University of Gdańsk, supervisor of the Chemists' Club of the University of Gdańsk, member of the Promotion Committee of the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Gdańsk.

• dr hab. inż. Agnieszka Gajewicz-Skrętna, University of Gdańsk - as a Mentor in the DDN

Passionate about the development of computer methods. Her scientific interests focus on the development and application of chemoinformatics, artificial intelligence, machine learning algorithms and exploratory data analysis in the process of broadly understood virtualisation of the chemical safety assessment process and the design of safe and sustainable chemicals and new generation materials. The numerical methods that she is working on provide very important support for traditional experimental methods. The possibility of computer evaluation of the properties of, for example, newly designed new generation materials before their actual synthesis in the laboratory, has primarily economic and ethical dimensions, as it significantly reduces the time and cost of research and the number of laboratory animals used for research.

• dr Alicja Mikołajczyk, University of Gdańsk - as an Ambassador in the DDN

Since 2013, she has been affiliated with the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Gdańsk, where she obtained her doctorate in 2017, and since 2019 she has been an assistant professor and co-owner of QSAR Lab, a spin-off company established together with the University of Gdańsk. Over the past decade, she has completed 8 internships abroad, including in the USA and Ecuador. She is the author of 49 publications in scientific journals from the so-called Philadelphia list (including ‘Nature Nanotechnology’) and industry magazines (including ‘Forbes’). Winner of numerous awards and distinctions, including the Ministry of Education and Science Scholarship for outstanding young scientists, the START FPS Scholarship, Raising Star award from the American Chemical Society, PAS award, Sustainable Nanotechnology Organisation award in Washington, Businesswoman of the Year - Leaders in New Technologies, PTChem award for the best doctoral dissertation, L'Oréal-UNESCO for Women in Science, 50 Women of the Year 2024 Forbes Women and others.

The project ‘Girls into Science! Encouraging women to pursue research careers in technical and scientific fields’ is run by the ‘Perspektywy’ Educational Foundation and is financed from the state budget allocated by the Minister of Science as part of the programme Social Responsibility of Science II - Popularisation of Science.

Partners:

Polish Young Academy of the Polish Academy of Sciences: https://amu.pan.pl/
Women's Club of the Fahrenheit University: https://kobiety-faru.edu.pl/
National Representation of Doctoral Students: https://krd.edu.pl/
Agreement of Doctoral Students of Technical Universities: https://pdut.krd.edu.pl/