ANU joins leading universities to promote gender equity in STEMM

STEMM's got talent, but nearly lost it. Here's what happened.

ANU has joined forces with a number of leading universities and organisations to ensure the talents of women are better represented in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM) education and careers.

Over eight months, ANU and its partners contributed energy, ideas, and action to ensure STEMM-related fields benefit from diverse minds, diverse knowledge and skill-sets, and diverse human networks to respond quickly, intelligently and in impactful ways.

This project resulted in the cross-institutional video 'STEMM's got talent, but nearly lost it', which captures the stories of successful individuals who have pursued careers in science; how at times, they nearly turned away from STEMM, and how a range of obstacles were overcome along the way.

The participating institutions are ANU, the University of Canberra (UC), CSIRO, University of South Australia (UniSA), University of Sydney, and University of Cambridge.

ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Brian Schmidt AC said ANU was taking part in the Science in Australia Gender Equity (SAGE) program, and university leaders were committed gender equity in science.

"For ANU, the SAGE initiative is a program that will help the University both think about the problems around gender equity, and then find ways to fix those problems," Professor Schmidt said.

"We are delighted to be working with other research institutions in our region to break down barriers and inspire more women to have rewarding careers in STEMM."

The film features epidemiologist and public health physician Professor Emily Banks (ANU), physicist Professor Tanya Monro (UniSA), early-career researcher and biochemist Dr Anna El-Tahchy (CSIRO Agriculture and Food), mathematician Professor Nalini Joshi (University of Sydney), Dr John Rolley researcher in nursing and clinical medicine (UC), Professor Frances Shannon epigenetics and immunology scientist (UC), and Dame Ottoline Leyser, Plant developmental biologist and Director of the Sainsbury Laboratory (University of Cambridge).