HR4RS stamp
Raul Garcia Hemonnet
In 2015, the UN declared February 11 as the 'International Day of Women and Girls in Science. The objective of this day is to encourage women to enter scientific and technological careers, make visible the contribution of women in these fields and create references for the new generations.
Being faithful to that same goal, the URJC's Scientific Culture Unit (UCCI) has launched an initiative in which thirty researchers from scientific and technological fields of knowledge are going to travel to schools and institutes in the Community of Madrid with the objective of disseminating the work they carry out and awakening scientific vocations among the girls of the Community.
For María Jesús Alonso, director of the UCCI, this day and this type of initiative "are necessary because we are seeing that, since 2012, the number of girls enrolled in science and technology degrees is decreasing."
According to Alonso, "it is important that women have access to this type of degree and for this it is necessary that girls have female references to look at and that they see that researchers are close people."
Science beyond care
That idea is what the thirty URJC researchers have in their heads. One of them, the professor of Computer Science, Computer Architecture, Computer Languages and Systems, and Statistics and Operations Research, Estefanía Martín Barroso, will transfer, together with her colleague, the professor Clara Simón, all the projects carried out at the School Higher Technician in Computer Engineering (ETSII). They will be at the IES Joaquín Rodrigo, located in the district of Vicálvaro, at 10 in the morning. “We are going to talk to you about projects on Cybersecurity, transport security, Data Science, mathematics applied to social networks and Virtual Reality and surgical simulators, among others.”
For Estefanía Martín "it is essential to disseminate science among women from an early age because there are no female references and girls continue to associate the figure of women mostly with professions related to care: nurses and teachers."
Even, Professor Martín points out, "when we talk about science, girls are more attracted to those more social applications of science and technology, those related to education and health". One of the objectives of this initiative is to show that there are many other fields where girls can develop science.