May 22 – 25, 2023
Europe/London timezone

Diversity, Equality, and Inclusiveness Lecture & Workshop

Monday, 22 May

Plenary Lecture | 09:50 - 10:20

Adriana Paluszny
Imperial College London, UK

Watson Forum: A career in (porous media) modelling 

This talk will discuss the Watson Forum Project, a series of informal interviews that seek to highlight the contributions of women in STEM. The mission of the 3-4 min videos is to inspire individuals to pursue lasting careers in the context of maths, physics, earth sciences, and engineering, and aims to project accessible women-in-science role models to the world.  
 
The Watson Forum was developed in 2016 to foster a sense of community among women in the fields of numerical modelling, simulation, and programming, and create a sparse but permanent and accessible record of the women who work in this area. Many of the women interviewed for the Watson Forum are from the fields of earth sciences and porous media, and interviewees often have hybrid careers that combine numerical and analytical modelling with other activities, such as experimental and field work. 
 
Those who participate as interviewees become a part of it, which develops the community among the growing number of featured role models. This talk will describe the project (https://www.youtube.com/c/modellingcareers), and its reach, as well as the motivations that led to its development, and the impact that it has had. 
 

Bio: Adriana has created the Watson Forum,  a series of (informal) interviews that seek to highlight contributions of women in the areas of numerical modelling, simulation, and programming in the context of STEM, in particular Maths, Physics, Earth Sciences and Engineering. The Watson Forum is aimed at motivating young ladies to embark in numerical and modelling topics, and to project STEM role models to the world! Many of the interviewees have hybrid careers that combine modelling with other activities, such as experimental and field work. The videos are collected, edited, and uploaded onto a YouTube channel.

DEI Workshop | 12:35 - 13:45

Later in the day, there will be a lunch-time workshop. This event will be open to all conference participants. Lunch will be provided.

Panel members:

Adriana Paluszny 
Imperial College London, UK

Raffaella Ocone
Heriot-Watt University, UK

Sebastian Geiger
Delft University of Technology, NL

Anna Herring
University of Tennessee, US

Kamaljit Singh
Heriot-Watt University, UK