International Women’s Day 2018

Department of Life Sciences Equality Diversity and Inclusion Committee present Dr Nathalie Pettorelli ‘Taking to Our Soapboxes to Tackle Inequality in Science’

Summary: Soapbox Science is a grass-roots science outreach initiative that brings cutting-edge science to the public on urban streets while promoting gender equality and diversity in science careers. Soapbox Science challenges stereotypes of what scientists look like by providing more diverse role models for the next generation, and also wants to revolutionise how scientists integrate their science with society. The initiative has been very successful, with events now established in Canada and Germany as well as the UK and with almost 1000 women in science having participated. But Soapbox Science is not just about the event organisation; the initiative acts as a networking platform for a growing community actively seeking to address gender imbalance in STEM. This talk will introduce Soapbox Science, describe its achievements so far, and discuss how initiatives such as these can help improve overall diversity in STEM.

Bio: Dr Nathalie Pettorelli is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London. Her expertise is in methods to assess, predict and mitigate the impacts of changes in environmental conditions on species and ecosystems. She has authored/co-authored two books and over 130 scientific peer-reviewed publications on this topic. Nathalie sits on the editorial board of Journal of Applied Ecology, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society and Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, a journal she launched in 2014. She is the Secretary of the Conservation Specialist Interest Group for the British Ecological Society (BES), while also being a member of the BES Equality and Diversity Working Group and the BES Policy Committee. She also heads the GEO BON working group on ecosystem functions, which seeks to research, identify and derive essential biodiversity variables related to ecosystem functions.

If you have any queries please contact dols.edi@imperial.ac.uk.