The Department of Chemistry at Lancaster University in collaboration with the Department of Mathematics & Statistics and Lancaster University Women's Network are pleased to host this panel event to address the issues of inequality in science and what needs to be done to improve it.

Inspired by the 'Picture a Scientist' film screening our panellists will be discussing the themes raised in the film and offering an open discussion around why the current system we have in place to support diversity in science isn't working and offer suggestions on what we need to do to change it.

We hope that this event will contribute to current discussions around inequality and underrepresentation in the academic environment.

Event host: Professor Joe Sweeney, Chair in Synthetic Chemistry, Head of Chemistry Department at Lancaster University

Confirmed Panellists:

Professor Christina Hicks, Lancaster Environment Centre

Christina is an Environmental Social Scientist interested in the relationships individuals and societies form with nature; how these relationships shape people’s social, environmental, and health outcomes; and how they create sustainable livelihood choices. Christina is a professor within the Political Ecology group at Lancaster University’s Environment Centre. She gained her PhD in 2013 from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University; after which she held an Early Career Social Science Fellowship at the Center for Ocean Solutions, Stanford University. Christina main source of research funding comes from an ERC Starting Grant: FAIRFISH, and she was awarded the 2019 Philip Leverhulme Prize for Geography. Christina’s work is global with particular field sites on the east and west coasts of Africa and in the Pacific.

Dr Sarah O'Connor, Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology

Sarah O’Connor received her degrees in chemistry from the University of Chicago (BS) and MIT (PhD), and performed her post-doctoral work at Harvard Medical School. She has been a Professor and Project Leader in Biological Chemistry at the John Innes Centre since 2011, and became Director of the Department of Natural Product Biosynthesis at the Max Planck Institute of Chemical Ecology in summer 2019. Her research interests focus on the natural products of plants, with a particular interest in the iridoids and alkaloids. Her research group takes a broad approach to understanding plant biosynthetic pathways, ranging from gene discovery, mechanistic enzymology, and metabolic engineering.

Dr Rebecca Killick, Lancaster University Department of Mathematics and Statistics

Rebecca is a Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Statistics at Lancaster University. Her research interests includes developing statistical models and methods for: nonstationary time series; changepoints; multiscale methods in statistics and wavelets in time series analysis. She take pride in working with businesses and organizations to "close the loop" - applying methods she develops to time series that arise from business, environmental and health applications.

Dr Elisabetta Boella, Lancaster University Department of Physics

Elisabetta is a Physics lecturer at Lancaster University (Lancaster, UK). Her research focuses on the kinetic behaviour of plasmas and the link between these microscopic scales with the plasma macroscopic evolution. Her studies are based on the development and deployment of massively parallel kinetic algorithms. She uses these powerful tools to investigate the physics of collisionless shocks and magnetic reconnection in laboratory and astrophysical plasmas. Elisabetta is particularly intrigued by the recent prospect to probe astrophysical phenomena in the laboratory with the use of powerful laser beams. She am also interested in the possibility to employ these beams to develop compact plasma-based accelerators.

Dr Crystal Sissons, Independent Historian

Crystal Sissons holds a Ph.D. (2008) and Masters (2004) in history from the University of Ottawa and an Honours Bachelor of Arts and Education (2003) from Lakehead University. She is also a Senior Program Officer, Policy and International at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada where she has worked in various capacities since 2010. Today, she will be speaking in her capacity as an independent historian.

Don't forget you can register to watch the 'Picture a Scientist' film here: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/picture-a-scientist-lancaster-university-screening-tickets-142220253607