Women in geosciences - Session in EOS – Educational and Outreach Symposia at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2017, 28 April, Vienna

Convener: Maria Bostenaru Dan 

Co-Conveners: Ira Didenkulova , Magdalini Theodoridou , Mirela-Adriana Anghelache , Maja Miše , Riia Chmielowski , Giovanna Avellis

This session was aimed to evaluate the involvement of women in geosciences and to enhance their involvement in the future by means of success stories and role models. The event was widely advertised among different branches of Geosciences community. Moreover, all EGU participants were be invited to take part in the discussion.

We invited talks related to female activity in geosciences and its analysis without any specific limit to the topic. We equally welcomed talks related to gender equality in research, engineering and industry. Welcome were also gender dimensions in geosciences related challenges.

1. “Role Models for boosting mobility of women scientists in geosciences” by Giovanna Avellis and Magdalini Theodoridou was presented by the second author and presented the role models booklet of GEMS.
2. “Mobility support and networking for women in STEM” by Giovanna Avellis and Ira Didenkulova was presented by the first author and presented the Humboldt innovative networking project of Ira Didenkulova from which the session has emerged.
3. “Women in landscape architecture and heritage conservation” by Maria Bostenaru-Dan, Magda Theodoridou, Mikiko Hayashi, and Mirela Adriana Anghelache was a presentation of the personal accounts of the Romanian chapter through fellowships in Italy compared to historical role models. Two networks were approached: EPISCON and ROSE school.
4. “We4DRR: A brand new European network for women in Disaster Risk Reduction” by Maria Papathoma-Koehle, Margreth Keiler, Catrin Promper, and Maria Patek was presented by the first author. It was preceded by a Splinter meeting on Tuesday to present the network to which everybody can adhere, it is not only German speeking as the website might suggest. Following the EGU GA it is the general assembly of the network in Trento.
5. “Women in EPOS: the role of women in a large pan-European Research Infrastructure for Solid Earth sciences” by Elisa Calignano, Carmela Freda, and Laura Baracchi was presented by the first author. The session was listed as special interest for EPOS (European Plate Observation System). The paper basically presented the representation of women at different levels of EPOS.
6. “Recipe for Success: Field Geologist Katharine Fowler-Billings (1902-1997)” by Carol Frost was presented as recording, as the author had to fly on that day. It is a historical role model like some in the third presentation, to be compared with examples of today such as the following one.
7. “The path from geoscience to road engineering: experience in Russia and Norway” by Elena Kuznetsova presented a personal account of mobile women today in geosciences.

The session was very well attended and it was also advertised in EGU today, a selected leaflet of the General Assembly.

Marie Curie Alumni Austrian Chapter Spring Meeting

TU Wien

The participation was a result of an invitation by the chapter chair Dr. Mostafa Moonir Shawrav and chapter networking working group chair Dr. Matthew di Franco to exchange between chapters.

The Romanian chapter was present in the open part after lunch with two presentations:

“Gender equity for mobile Marie Curie fellows” &

“How to write a Marie Curie Individual Fellowship in Engineering”.

During lunch there was a lively discussion on mobility and dual careers preceeding this, while the proposal writing talk matched well the other talk by the Austrian national contact point for MSCA.