Women in Innovation and STEM Database at MIT announces fellowship program | MIT News

WISDM, the Ladies in Innovation and STEM Databases at MIT, celebrated the initially anniversary of its digital launch on March 8 — Intercontinental Women’s Working day. To mark the event, the remarkable progress of the WISDM community, MIT Innovation Initiative (MITii), which manages the system/local community, declared the WISDM Fellowship System.

WISDM promotes the visibility of women in the MIT tutorial local community, increases gender range in innovation and entrepreneurship, and can make it less complicated to find gifted and varied speakers for many occasions. In partnership with MITii, WISDM founder Ritu Raman, an MIT postdoc and AAAS IF/THEN Ambassador, used for and was awarded a $10,000 AAAS IF/THEN Ambassadors Grant for community engagement with science functions that train, encourage, and boost the future generation of women in STEM. With this funding, WISDM released a fellowship plan for scientists intrigued in bettering their community talking abilities.

“When I had the prospect to implement for the grant, I immediately imagined of WISDM as a excellent local community of girls who could gain from professional progress means supported by this funding,” states Raman. “We all know from encounter that the most impactful position types are often highly productive communicators. The WISDM Fellowship Program will aid girls leverage their scientific abilities by combining it with a formalized speaker training software with The Tale Collider, and will also financially reward gals for speaking engagements through honorariums. This new application is significant to me due to the fact it reiterates the main philosophy of WISDM: Women’s experience and time are beneficial property, and we want to make various voices a element of each and every dialogue in STEM.”

As a result of the WISDM Fellows software and review procedure, 20 remarkable women were selected to participate in the program. They are:

• Taylor Cannon, Division of Electrical Engineering and Personal computer Science
• Cecile Chazot, Division of Elements Science and Engineering
• Mara Freilich, MIT-Woods Gap Oceanography/Used Ocean Science and Engineering
• Stephanie Gaglione, Section of Chemical Engineering
• Miela Gross, Section of Electrical Engineering and Laptop Science
• Ayse Guvenilir, Media Lab
• Fatima Husain, Section of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences
• Eugenia Inda, Division of Electrical Engineering and Pc Science
• Jessica Ingabire, Institute for Details, Techniques, and Modern society
• Lakshmi Amrutha Killada, Office of Mechanical Engineering
• Zanele Munyikwa, MIT Sloan Faculty of Management
• Ufuoma Ovienmhada, Media Lab
• Cadence Payne, Section of Aeronautics and Astronautics
• Krista Pullen, Office of Biological Engineering
• Julie Rorrer, Department of Chemical Engineering
• Erica Salazar, Office of Nuclear Science and Engineering
• Stephanie Smelyansky, Section of Chemistry
• Kayla Storme, Section of Chemistry
• Abigail Taussig, Office of Chemical Engineering
• Jacqueline Valeri, Section of Biological Engineering

“In my family members, storytelling has often been crucial,” claims WISDM Fellow and Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering graduate college student Erica Salazar. “Every getaway period, my loved ones gathers at our yearly tamalada (the place we make tamales) to tell tales. It has the powerful ability to deliver us nearer together when we are apart most of the year. Storytelling is a different medium to have interaction an audience to absorb abstract or challenging ideas in a own way. I am honored, by this fellowship, to learn how to harness storytelling strategies to build a own bond with others — and specially, to interact younger girls and little ones in STEM.”

Given that its digital launch last March, the community has grown to 135 associates, and the platform has gained in excess of 16,000 website page views from much more than 9,000 distinctive buyers in 83 international locations. Current MIT graduate students, postdocs, complex associates, or exploration personnel customers who detect as a female are qualified to sign up for.