Category Archives: Policy

From despair to repair: Empowering communities to restore their oceans

Posted on by
Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson with Barbuda Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer.

Dr Ayana Elizabeth Johnson with then Antigua and Barbuda Prime Minister, Baldwin Spencer. (Image: Waitt Institute)

Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson is a marine biologist and Executive Director of the Waitt Institute. Johnson’s mission is to collect, create, actualize and amplify the best ideas in ocean conservation. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, on her blog for National Geographic, in The Atlantic, and elsewhere. She holds a Ph.D. from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, a BA from Harvard University in Environmental Science and Public Policy, and has worked on ocean policy at both the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). You can find her talking oceans on Twitter @ayanaeliza

“People used to talk about the size of the fish they caught vertically,” says a perspicacious 15-year-old Curaçaoan holding his hands off the ground at head height. “But now we show fish size horizontally.” As the young man lowers his hands at shoulder width apart to demonstrate this, it is strikingly clear the great fishing catches of old have all but gone in the southern Caribbean Sea.

The vibrantly scenic shores and glistening beaches of this bustling island are in stark contrast with the rather gloomier outlook of the once thriving Caribbean ecosystems that supported local fisheries. Speak to any of the older residents or fishermen on Curaçao and they’ll swear by the unprecedented changes they’ve seen in their oceans in the last half century.

This is a familiar picture across the Caribbean, which is suffering from the same threats of overfishing, climate change, pollution and habitat loss, seen worldwide. In August 2014, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) listed 20 species of coral as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, including five Caribbean species. Projected impacts of global warming and ocean acidification motivated this action, but as marine biologist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson eloquently writes in a New York Times op-ed: “climate change really is only half the story.”

Johnson’s encounter with the young Curaçaoan and his jarringly precocious words struck a chord with her eight years ago, in the midst of her PhD research. Focusing on fisheries management and ecology in the southern Caribbean, she interviewed more than 400 fishermen, scuba divers, and locals in Curaçao and Bonaire, to inquire what major changes they had seen in their oceans.

“It is critical to understand what local people see as the threats to the ocean, as the perceived problems have a huge influence on what the perceived solutions should be,” says Johnson. “Often scientists’ outside perspective can be very different to the local one – and this can lead to disconnect when discussing sustainable policy and solutions.”

Continue reading →

UNESCO Regional Chair on Women, Science & Technology, Dr Gloria Bonder, talks women in science and gender equality

Posted on by

“What I would love to see is more qualitative research not on why women can’t and why so few, but who the women are that are successfully developing careers in engineering, technology or sciences.”

In part four of our five features this week celebrating prominent women in science and technology across the world, we speak to Dr Gloria Bonder, the coordinator of the Global Network of UNESCO Chairs on Gender and the UNESCO Regional Chair on Women, Science and Technology in Latin America. She talks about UNESCO’s latest global figures on women in science, changes that need to be made in both policy and education, and the necessity for more qualitative research on the women who are successfully developing careers in engineering, technology and science.

Dr Gloria Bonder is the Director of the Department of Gender, Society and Policies of the Latin American Postgraduate Institute of Social Sciences (FLACSO Argentina). She coordinates two regional programmes including the UNESCO Regional Chair on Women, Science and Technology in Latin America and the e-learning master’s programme on Gender, Society and Public Policies. Bonder is the coordinator of the Global Network of UNESCO Chairs on Gender. Since 2014, she has coordinated the region’s activities in the global GenderInSITE programme, through her role as the UNESCO Regional Chair. The programme aims to influence policies and policy makers in science, technology, innovation and engineering, to integrate gender equality principles and goals.

She is a researcher and consultant on Women, Science and Technology for several national, regional and international organisations such as: Minister of Science and Technology in Argentina, United Nations, Women and Development Unit, ECLAC and the Office of Science and Technology, UNICEF, UNIFEM, UNDP and UNESCO, among others. Bonder has developed several research projects on gender issues and/in technology and science, education, communication, health and youth, and published books and articles both national and international. She is a member of the advisory board of UN Women for Latin America and the Caribbean and WISAT (Women in Global Science and Technology).

“What I would love to see is more qualitative research not on why women can’t and why so few, but who the women are that are successfully developing careers in engineering, technology or sciences,” strongly asserts Gloria Bonder, coordinator of the global network of UNESCO Chairs on Gender and the Regional Chair on Women, Science and Technology in Latin America.  She continues: “We should look at why they chose that career, what their experiences have been so far, and what they like and don’t like, as well as how they overcome obstacles. We must move away from the basic question of why so few.”

Dr Bonder is not one to mix her words lightly. Having worked on gender studies for more than 40 years in science and technology, she has an authoritative voice and is deeply respected across the world. During unstable political times in the mid-1970s in her home country of Argentina, she was the catalyst behind the creation of a women’s study centre, carrying out independent research on different aspects of gender studies. At that time, it was quite the pioneering community and as a result led to the introduction of a postgraduate programme on women’s studies at the University of Buenos Aires, which Bonder was the founding director of between 1987 and 1999.

Fundamental Changes

As we look back at Dr Bonder’s achievements having set up the Gender, Society and Policies Institute in 2001 at FLACSO-Argentina, there is something on her mind that won’t shift. She interjects: “We need to not only attract both women and men to these careers, but make fundamental changes to the workplace culture and promote that both genders share caring responsibilities. If I was young now, would I choose the science and technology subjects that are taught today? No. To go into laboratories or industries  and make a career in such a way that you have to choose between having a family and enjoying other dimensions of your life, or being a successful scientist, is just plain wrong.”

At FLACSO, Bonder has been quite the influential director coordinating regional programmes across Latin America. The institute runs two huge programmes, which consist of the e-learning Master’s Programme on Gender, Society and Public Policies, and working on training and research projects for UNESCO and other organisations, alongside Bonder, in her role as the Regional Chair on Women, Science and Technology in Latin America.

Continue reading →

Oreoluwa Somolu: The Nigerian woman empowering young women in Africa to engage with technology

Posted on by
"Lots of the girls who attend the centre have never seen or met a woman who is a computer scientist or engineer, so the prospect of becoming one, is not within the realms of possibility."

“Lots of the girls who attend the centre have never seen or met a woman who is a computer scientist or engineer, so the prospect of becoming one, is not within the realms of possibility.”

In the third of our five features celebrating Ada Lovelace Day and prominent women in science and technology across the world, we speak to Oreoluwa Somolu about empowering young women in Africa to engage with technology and pursue careers in science and technology.

Ada Lovelace Day, marked yesterday across the world, is an annual celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

Oreoluwa Somolu Lesi is the Founder and Executive Director of the Women’s Technology Empowerment Centre (W.TEC). Somolu worked for several years in the United States at an educational non-for-profit organisation on a number of projects, which explored the interplay between gender and technology and which sought to attract more girls and women to study and work in science and technology-related fields. She has a Bachelors degree in Economics from Essex University, U.K, a Master’s degree in Analysis, Design and Management of Information Systems from the London School of Economics & Political Science and a Certificate in Applied Sciences from Harvard University’s Extension School. Her interests are the applications of technology in improving lifelong learning and also to raise the economic and social conditions of people (especially women and children) in the developing world.

Somolu also has some research experience, which includes working on the Gender Equity in Math and Science (GEMS) project, while working at the Education Development Center in MA, U.S.A from 2001 to 2003. She is a 2014 Vital Voices Lead Fellow, 2013 Ashoka fellow and a recipient of the Anita Borg Change Agent Award for her commitment to issues of women in computing in Nigeria.

It was while volunteering in a downtown Boston community centre and women’s shelter, that Nigerian-born STEM enthusiast Oreoluwa Somolu realised the severe lack of awareness around the benefits of using technology. Every day she would teach women and children from across different parts of the US city how to use computers, answering questions and offering guidance on web design and basic programming. It would often surprise her how “mysterious” computing was to many, but made her fully grasp the profound impacts technology could have on people’s lives.

“I naively expected everyone to be able to use a computer as this was America, but found that to be far from the truth,” remarks Somolu. “It was an eye opener to the real world, where more women and people from ethnic communities considerably lacked computer skills. Some had never turned on a computer before, let alone knew the benefits. It was so empowering to see women return to the centre a few months later to report they had found a job as a result. They had a new found self-confidence.”

Continue reading →

Nature India Editor Subhra Priyadarshini on the Indian science boom and the role of journalism

Posted on by
"India is now transitioning from a developing country into an emerging economic superpower and as a result many areas of development, including science, are catching up quickly."

“India is now transitioning from a developing country into an emerging economic superpower and as a result many areas of development, including science, are catching up quickly.”

In the second of our five features celebrating Ada Lovelace Day and prominent women in science and technology across the world, we speak to science journalist and Nature India Editor, Subhra Priyadarshini about the new resurgence of Indian science and the role science journalists play in narrating the country’s success stories.

Ada Lovelace Day, marked today across the world, is an annual celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

Subhra Priyadarshini is an award winning science journalist and currently Editor of Nature India, the Nature Publishing Group’s (NPG) India portal. She was a deadline-chasing journalist covering politics and sports, fashion and films, crime and natural disasters in mainstream Indian media for over a dozen years. She finally chose to come back to her first love – science – in 2007 launching Nature India. Subhra has been a correspondent with major Indian dailies The Times of India, The Indian Express, The Asian Age, The Telegraph, news agency Press Trust of India (PTI) and environment fortnightly Down To Earth. She worked briefly for the Observer, London. Priyadarshini received the BBC World Service Trust award for her coverage of the ‘Vanishing islands of Sunderbans’ in the Bay of Bengal in 2006. She received letters of commendation from the PTI for her coverage of the Orissa super cyclone in 1999 and the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004. She is a regular contributor to BBC Radio’s Hindi science programme ‘Vigyan aur Vikas’ (Science and Development) and taught science communication at University of Calcutta.

The scientific landscape of India is a constantly fascinating and fluctuating one. In a country poised to be a global super power, yet fighting issues of poverty, healthcare and education, Indian science has seen something of a new resurgence over the last decade. Research output and publications have increased significantly and an evolving technology industry has been reaping just rewards. And yet for all these exciting developments, in a country where more than 1.2 billion people live, there has until recent years been one fairly absent protagonist: the media.

When Subhra Priyadarshini, who started Nature India in 2006, first specialised in science journalism after nearly 10 years covering everything from economics to sport, she found there were certain challenges to getting science on the news agenda. “In the early 2000s you would be lucky to find a science journalist working on a newspaper or magazine in India. You had to be a generalist and would find yourself one day covering Bollywood and the next looking at financial markets,” says Priyadarshini, who has worked at the Times of India, The Asian Age and the Press Trust of India, among others. “Science was always my first love and I used to get the kind of fulfilment from a science story that I would not get from say a political reportage.”

Phenomenal growth

Priyadarshini is still today only one of a small handful of science journalists in India who are helping to narrate the ever evolving stories of Indian science. She believes many more science stories are now starting to be reported in the mainstream media, a distant reality when she first started specialising in 2000. “Scientific stories that were not popular interest ten years ago are now starting to creep into mainstream media and basic science research is getting more in-depth coverage,” Priyadarshini says. She cites new genomes being mapped or a new nanomaterial with applications in a variety of themes as the types of stories that are now starting to garner media coverage.

Continue reading →

Distinguished South African Professor Tebello Nyokong on science, education and innovation

Posted on by
"When I talk to schools or parents, the first thing I say, is let your children touch and explore, it’s the first path to science.” Image courtesy of Ettione

“When I talk to schools or parents, the first thing I say, is let your children touch and explore, it’s the first path to science.” Image courtesy of Ettione

In the first of our five features celebrating Ada Lovelace Day and prominent women in science and technology across the world, we speak to Professor Tebello Nyokong, an internationally renowned Chemist, on African science, education and innovation.

Ada Lovelace Day, which this year takes place on October 14, is an international celebration of the achievements of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM).

Prof Tebello Nyokong holds a DST/NRF professorship in Medicinal chemistry and Nanotechnology at Rhodes University in South Africa.  She is also Director of the DST/Mintek Nanotechnology Innovation Centre (NIC)-Sensors at Rhodes University where she joined in 1992 after lecturing at the University of Lesotho for five years. She has been undertaking research on applications of phthalocyanines in healthcare: as photodynamic therapy (PDT) of cancer agents in combination with nanosized metal nanoparticles and quantum dots. In September 2009, a special motion was passed in the South African National Assembly acknowledging Professor Nyokong’s role in the transformation of science in South Africa. Nyokong has also been award the title of Distinguished Professor at Rhodes University and recognized by the Royal Society in Chemistry/Pan African Chemistry Network as a  Distinguished Woman in  Chemistry. 

“I keep telling people I’m no longer a role model, I’m too old, too straight and not hip enough,” asserts a hysterical Professor Tebello Nyokong in her own typically modest and charismatic demeanour. Of course, her defiance is far removed from the truth. The quick-talking, affable and extremely accommodating distinguished professor is today not only one of the most internationally respected scientists in the world, lauded for her pioneering research into photodynamic therapy for cancer treatment, but is a constant source of inspiration for students across Africa.

Brought up in politically unstable times in her home country of South Africa, she was sent to live with her grandparents in the mountainous terrain of Lesotho. As an eight-year-old, she would work as a shepherd on alternate days from school, learning the traits of a hard day’s shift. It was here where she found “much solace in nature’s beauty” and learned to appreciate the great science around her.

Challenging expectations

Initially dissuaded by her peers to study sciences at school, Nyokong was desperate for a challenge. After three years studying arts and humanities, she realised they had guided her in the wrong direction. “There were no role models to look up to back then. You just learned to follow your peers,” says Nyokong. “They told me science was too hard and way beyond me, but I was adamant I wanted to do it and with two years left switched courses.”

Nyokong pins much of her determination and steely resistance down to her upbringing and this is evident in her unerring enthusiasm for teaching as the director of the Nanotechnology Innovation Centre at Rhodes University in South Africa. “I was brought up to work hard, whether it was as a young shepherd or working long hours mixing cement and concrete for my father’s company. I was just used to touching things,” brims Nyokong. “Now when I talk to schools or parents, the first thing I say, is let your children touch and explore, it’s the first path to science.”

As an influential voice in South African education, she is not afraid to express her fearless views on the teaching of science and believes much needs to be changed. “In South Africa we have this system that constantly strives for 100% pass rates at schools. Many of the teachers themselves find science hard, as very few are trained in teaching the discipline, and therefore under great pressure, they discourage students from courses. It is a deeply flawed system,” notes Nyokong despondently.

“Science is not just part of our culture, it is part of our everyday life, and role models are crucial in promoting this." Image courtesy of Sophie Smith.

“Science is not just part of our culture, it is part of our everyday life, and role models are crucial in promoting this.” Image courtesy of Sophie Smith.

Continue reading →

Chief Scientific Adviser to the European Commission discusses evidence-based policy and nurturing and supporting a European scientific culture

Posted on by
"The policy world very much mirrors what we do in science today." Image: (c) European Union

“The policy world very much mirrors what we do in science today.” Image: (c) European Union

Professor Anne Glover joined the European Commission as Chief Scientific Adviser to the President in January 2012, and is the first person to hold this position.

In this role she advises the President on any aspect of science and technology, liaises with other science advisory bodies of the Commission, the Member States and beyond, coordinates science and technology foresight, and promotes the European culture of science to a wide audience, conveying the excitement and relevance of science to non-scientists. She also chairs the recently established Science & Technology Advisory Council of the President.

Prior to her current appointment she was Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland from 2006-2011. Professor Glover currently holds a Personal Chair of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of Aberdeen. Most of her academic career has been spent at the University of Aberdeen where she has a research group pursuing a variety of areas from microbial diversity to the development and application of whole cell biosensors (biological sensors) for environmental monitoring and investigating how organisms respond to stress at a cellular level.

Professor Glover holds several honorary doctoral degrees and is an elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, the Society of Biology, the Royal Society of Arts and the American Academy of Microbiology. Professor Glover was recognised in March 2008 as a Woman of Outstanding Achievement in the UK and was awarded a CBE for services to Environmental Science in the Queen’s New Years Honours list 2009.

When Professor Anne Glover finished her five-year term as Chief Scientific Adviser for Scotland, the biologist was lauded for not only raising the visibility of science in Scotland and the UK, but for further increasing the role of scientific evidence in the policy-making process.

These fruitful five years led her to the challenging and geographically diverse role of Chief Scientific Adviser to the European Commission (EC), which she leaves after three years in the position, at the end of 2014. As the first ever scientist to be tasked with the responsibility of independently advising politicians and policy-makers governing more than 500m people across 28 member states, this was no easy assignment.

Continue reading →