Nature Research has announced this year’s winners for the Inspiring Science and Innovating Science Awards. These awards recognise outstanding early-career female scientists and those who encourage young girls and women to make a career in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) subjects.
The winner of the Award for Inspiring Science is Dr Jean Fan for her research into computational and statistical approaches for analysing single-cell data. Through her non-profit organisation CuSTEMized, Dr Fan also leads outreach projects to increase the visibility of women in science and to help young girls see themselves working in STEM subjects. This initiative “encourages young girls to envision themselves in STEM by providing personalised storybooks that depict them in STEM fields.”
The Award for Innovating Science went to The STEM Belle, founded by Doreen Anene. The STEM Belle runs programmes in schools in Nigeria, Ghana and Pakistan, directed at economically disadvantaged girls and aiming to break the gender stereotypes surrounding careers in STEM fields.
Both recipients received a grant of US$20,000 to aid their work. The awards are made possible by a partnership between Nature Research, part of Springer Nature, and The Estée Lauder Companies. The awards ceremony was held on Tuesday 15 October at the cosmetics companies’ central London headquarters.
Communications manager at Springer Nature, Elizabeth Hawkins, said: “Even though the representation of women in science has improved in past decades, there is still a lot to do. Through events like this we can show academia, industry and the broader public that there are excellent women in science. We hope that awards and events like this can inspire future generations of girls to study science and enter scientific professions.”
Film producer: Francesca Battaglia; interviews by Jordan Jones
