WISE 2018: more socials, more conferences, more outreach!

This year has been really busy for WISE and has seen us extend our outreach work, hold more conferences and run some amazing socials!

Our Outreach Officer (and newly elected President for 2018/2019!) Alex Munro-Clark has organised our amazing outreach programme for this last year. We’re now involved with two local schools: Selly Park Technology College for Girls and Hillcrest School. For the former we’ve run a weekly after-school club for girls in years 7-10, doing experiments such as making lava lamps, red cabbage pH indicators and an egg drop. Our outreach is based on encouraging a passion for science and technology in girls in the community, where we hope to continue growing our programmes in the coming year. Anyone who is interested in taking part in outreach, or working with WISE, we’re planning on running weekly more after-school clubs so do get in touch!

This year we’ve also held two amazing conferences. The first was our annual Women in Technology Conference in November. This event was supported by EY, FDM, Goldman Sachs and IBM, and was aimed at female undergraduates at the University and included inspirational talks from women working in industry and academia. The day provided insight into careers in STEM beyond university and celebrated all the women making and inspiring progress in one of the world’s fastest growing industries.

Our second conference, in honour of International Women’s Day, saw us partner with oSTEM  and EESE Soc for our first Women in Engineering Conference. This event included a panel of engineers and members from the Department of Education discussing their experiences as women in the workplace.

We were very excited to host Dr Emily Grossman, a professional science communicator and molecular biologist, in our first ever Outreach Workshop in February. We now there is a great passion for outreach across the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences so the event was open to all those with a passion in sharing our enthusiasm for STEM subjects. Dr Grossman shared hints and tips from her broadcasting experience, and saw some of the College’s societies demonstrate their own outreach activities. It was a huge success and we hope to run this workshop again next year for any who are interested in outreach, science communication or working in STEM.

As well as our events and conferences we organised a social to see Sleeping Beauty at the Birmingham Hippodrome, and hosted a cocktail making session with one of our sponsors KPMG!

Finally, we’d like to introduce you to our new committee for 2018-2019:
President – Alex Munro-Clark
Vice-President – Izzy Marshall
Treasurer – Harriet Mitchell
Outreach Officer – Poppy Nathan
Secretary – Marriyum Hasany
Publicity and Social Media Officer – Beth Soanes

We welcome undergraduates and postgraduates, staff and alumni from all STEM backgrounds and organise a range of events including socials, industrial visits, talks and outreach activities. If you want to get involved, join our mailing list, check out our website  or find us on Facebook!

We’re looking forward to celebrating another amazing year at the EPS Societies’ Awards in June. We’ve got a brilliant record of taking home trophies and would love to continue our success. If you’ve worked with us or enjoyed what you’ve read about us please nominate us!

Beth Soanes
Publicity and Social Media Officer 2018/19