The Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC, CSIC-UV) organises the first meeting about string theory and gender, where international experts will reflect about the reasons of the under-representation of women in lifelong posts in the research of this field, and consequently, in physics in general, mathematics or engineering. The workshop will take place on 6 and 7 july in ADEIT headquarters with the participation of around fifty researchers.
Minority within a minority. This is the situation dedicated to string theory research. This theory, that proposes that particles that compose everything are part of a more basic structure in the way of filaments or strings, is a movement inside physics and, at the same time, one of the scientific disciplines with less presence of women, thus the role of female researchers may seem marginal. To avoid this, Instituto de Física Corpuscular (IFIC, CSIC-UV) organises the first meeting about string theory and gender, where international experts will reflect on the reasons for the under-representation of women in lifelong posts in the research of this discipline, and consequently, in physics in general, mathematics and engineering.
The workshop is organises within the international network “The String Theory Universe” that gathers women and men dedicated to string theory research in 23 countries with European financing through the programme “Cost”. According to María A. Lledó, researcher in Universitat de València who coordinates the aspects of gender and disclosure in this network and who organises the meeting, “this network emerges as a necessity of women in the string theory community to make visible their situation.”
The presence of women in physics is one of the lowest of all science disciplines: women represent about 20% of the field of Science and Physical Technologies of CSIC, reducing their presence as they progress in the research career. In the universities the situation is similar, with just the 5,6% of female professors in Physics. But in string theory the situation is still worse: according to Lledó, just the 10% of the lifelong research staff is female.
It is the first meeting organised within this international network where the scientific debate on string theory (that will occupy the afternoon sessions) with the reflection on the women situation in research in careers such as physics, mathematics or engineering, that will be developed in the morning sessions. For that, with the participation of gender experts such as Capitolina Díaz, from Universitat de València, or Georgina Rippon, from Aston University (United Kingdom), that in her talk “GENRE AND BRAIN: are scientists nature or nurture?” will discuss the social determinants that define the choice of the research career.
As well as identifying the reasons, the researcher that participate aim to give solutions. To María A. Lledó, an action that can be carried out is giving talks in every educational level, also in the first years of the Physical Sciences career, to try to motivate female students. “We lose women for the research in every level”, indicates Lledó, for whom the situation emphasises in a such specialised field where “the lifelong posts in research are very scarce”.
In relation to the situation of string theory, Lledó acknowledges that since the launching of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) of the CERN, the options to discover supersymmetric particles, which could support the string theory, are not very promising. Nevertheless, there are other productive fields, such as the conjunction of the gravity with Gauge theory (that explain quantum mechanisms of the elementary particles), or such as the way of studying black holes, authentic “theoretical laboratories” that allow for putting to the edge the gravity and quantum mechanics, the two irreconcilable ends.
In the meeting, that takes place on 6 and 7 July in the headquarters of the University-Business Foundation (ADEIT), participate about fifty researchers. The attendance to the sessions about the women situation in science are open to the general public through enrolment in this link
Last update: 6 de july de 2015 07:00.
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