TALKFEST - Diversity in science online

Monday 4th April 2011

18:00 - 20:30

Charles Darwin House, London

 

There had been a lot of talk about barriers for women in science blogging in the preceeding few months - both within science blogging communities and from larger organisations such as the UK Resource Centre for Women in SET. We looked to continue this discussion, and also broaden the debate to talk about women in science and writing and to consider diversity in an appropriately 'diverse' way.

 

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Other hot-button topics like race, class and sexuality were explored. There are a fair number of celebrated British science bloggers with learning disabilities, perhaps because of the UK science blogosphere's interest in 'anti-quack' activity, but we asked whether people with other disabilties are underrepresented. Further, as Martin Robbins has suggested, we talked about a lack of political diversity too.

 

After the event:

Listen to a podcast of the event (with huge thanks to Steve Cross for recording. Some equipment paid for by the STFC and Wellcome Trust)

Advance warning: The podcast does contain some strong language.

 

Blog posts:

Richard P Grant - Life of a lab rat - On diversity - 5 April 2011 

Elaine Westwick - The Stuff of Life - Diversity in science blogging: a call for action - 5 April 2011

A Purcell - I, Science - Ich bin bloggerin, Je suis blogueure, Soy bloguera - April 7 2011 

Martin Robbins - The Guardian - Do women science bloggers tweet differently to men? - 11 April 2011

 

Chair and panelists:

 

Alice is a senior teaching fellow in the Science Communication Group at Imperial College, London. Alice blogs - on her own blog and on the Guardian - and is a member of the gang behind Geek Calendar.  She recently wrote the article, 'Sexual discrimination against women in science may be institutional'. You can follow Alice on Twitter.

Hannah is a Science Correspondent for The Times and Eureka (£ subscription required).  She recently wrote the article 'Are we all rampant sexists?' in which she examined why there were only 12 women in the Eureka 100 list.  You can follow Hannah on Twitter.

Heather is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Education Studies at Goldsmiths, University of London.  Her doctorate looked at the much discussed question, 'Why do girls choose not to study mathematics as much as boys?'.  More recently, Heather was involved in a piece of research with the UKRC SET called 'Monitoring the presence and representation of women in SET occupations in UK based online media'. You can follow Heather on Twitter.

Martin is a researcher and science writer who blogs for The Guardian.  He has written about the risk of alienating large potions of the public through a lack political diversity among science writers and crowd-sourced a list of women science bloggers.  He also edits The Lay Scientist (relaunching in Summer 2011), a community blog about science, pseudoscience and evidence-based politics. You can follow Martin on Twitter.

Jenny is a researcher at University College London, creator of Lablit.com and instigator of the 'Science is Vital' campaign.  She blogs about scientific life at Mind the Gap.  On the issue of women and science, she recently wrote the article, 'Give postdocs a career, not empty promises' for NatureNews.  You can follow Jenny on Twitter.