out in STEM logo

Our Society had a wonderful start to this term, some of our committee including myself visited the Institute of Physics in London for the fourth STEMinar and incoming Chair Molly and I attended the first ever oSTEM leadership retreat  held in Detroit, after having spent the past year taking part in oSTEM's new leadership program. On return from this retreat, we ran a feedback session highlighting skills we'd learnt and ran workshops from the conference to our members.

Avery's and Molly's badges from the leadership retreat

conference badges

In February we celebrated our second LGBT History month. The program for this included weekly talks by members of the committee, a night out with NucSoc and a trip to Bletchley Park with CSS. To finish our events for the history month off nicely, we hosted our first ever conference "STEM, LGBTQ & You" which saw over 75 people across the UK attend including undergraduates, postgraduates, professionals and academics. We had eight speakers from across the world and a range of STEM disciplines from Maths to Material Science and Linguistics and finished with a panel of four discussing future activities in campaigning in recognition of the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. The conference was made possible by the generosity of the Alumni Impact Fund and catering was funded by the oSTEM membership team.

Snapshots from the conference

conference

To end on a personal note, it has been my pleasure to be on the oSTEM committee for the past three years including two years as chair. I look forward to seeing where the new committee will take us.

This year could easily be considered our best year yet, and after taking two awards home at the EPS Societies' Awards last year, we'd love to continue our success. To do this we need your help, so if you have enjoyed our events this past year, please nominate us!