#BustingStereotypes with Sebastiana.

On Tuesday 28th October the BBC ran a special day of events celebrating the achievements of inspirational women. You might have seen us joining in, by tweeting about our own University of Sheffield women who are #BustingStereotypes. Today we have a post about a young family who are also #BustingStereotypes in the way they've decided to divide up childcare - and what that means for their careers.

It's a well-known fact that studying for a PhD requires hard work, commitment, dedication and the drive to succeed. It's also a well-known fact that being a mother is difficult - sleepless nights, nappy changes and the challenges of parenting all take their toll. A lot has been written about the challenges of balancing an academic career and parenthood - but what about those who become parents while they're still studying?

Sebastiana, who studied Industrial Chemistry and Chemical Engineering undergraduate and masters degrees at the University of Catania (Sicily) before moving to Sheffield with her Italian husband earlier this year, is in the first year of her PhD in Synthetic Ecology - and also in her first year of bringing up a young daughter. We caught up with her in the Mappin Café to find out about the challenges of bringing up a family, overcoming stereotypes and why some of the same skills are needed in both engineering and parenting.

Sebastiana decided to become an engineer after being inspired by her husband and sisters, who both have engineering degrees. "In Italy, being an engineer is prestigious - it's a title, like 'Doctor', people might refer to you as Engineer. It means you have a good education and good skills. There is some dirty work, but fundamentally it's a top position." Having studied Chemistry, she realised that engineering has a more practical focus, working on solving real-world problems, and this is what attracted her. It wasn't an easy choice - in Italy only two out of twenty people studying her course were female, and she acknowledges that it was harder for her than others. "As a woman in science, I had to work to be better than everybody else - not only academically, but I had to work harder to prove myself, because I am a woman. Some of my professors had old-fashioned views about things."

Sebastiana was six months pregnant by the end of her Masters degree, and she knew she wanted to carry on with a PhD at Sheffield. Although her parents were extremely supportive of her career choices, that wasn't the case for everybody in her life. "In Sicily, where I come from, there is still this perception - why do you need to work? Your husband has a job! You're expected to stop working when you have a baby," she says. "But I was very clear with my husband from the start - this is what I want to do. He supports me in that."

So, in the last weeks of her pregnancy, she prepared and submitted her research proposal, choosing Sheffield because of its place in international university rankings and the research interests of her supervisor. Just one week after she gave birth to her daughter, she was interviewed - and offered a place. She and her family made the move to Sheffield earlier this year. Now, she spends her days in the lab, while her husband looks after their daughter. "I didn't want to put my career on hold because I had had a baby - I felt like I'd miss opportunities. My husband doesn't speak much English - when the baby is a little older he can go to English classes - so this was the best choice."

"In Sicily this would be really unusual. But studying for my PhD, that's my 'me time'!" she laughs.

How does she balance her responsibilities? "I come into work early, take just a 30 minute lunch break, and focus on what I have to do while I'm here. My husband looks after the baby in the day and when I'm home in the evening that's my time for my husband and my family - though I do sometimes work at the weekend, if the baby is asleep. The supervisor is important - PhD students can feel isolated because there's just you and the research. But my supervisor is really supportive. When I said I had a baby, he said "that's great!" He treats me just like he treats everybody else. In the future I want to move into a post-doctoral position and carry on researching."

Would Sebastiana encourage other women to follow a career in engineering? "I don't think we should distinguish between men and women," she says. "It should be about whether you have the skills and the capacity. But I think females can be better than males! Women don't fear challenges and problems and can deal with a lot of things - we are multi-taskers. You need all these skills as an engineer."

I ask how having a daughter has changed her. "I am more patient now. Things go wrong in parenting and you have to try to find solutions. The baby can't talk! But it's the same in the lab - things don't work as they should and you have to try to fix it. It's all research."

Would she want her daughter to be an engineer? "She might have different aspirations. Both her parents are engineers, so no pressure! I want her to know that she has options and can choose - she can be whatever she wants to be."


Finally, I ask Sebastiana whether having a baby and studying engineering means that she still has to be better than everybody else - do people doubt her commitment to her role? Does she still have to prove herself all the time? "I still work hard, but because I want to work hard and do well, because I want the University to be proud of me like I am of belonging to it...not because people doubt my value. But being both a mum and an engineer doesn't make me that unusual. When you are motivated and you have one true dream, you find inside you the strength to do what you want to do."

Sheffield academic nominated in the 2014 WISE Awards!

If you've been following us for a while, it will come as no surprise that the University of Sheffield's Faculty of Engineering has plenty of inspirational female role-models. So we're delighted that one of our own has been nominated in the 2014 WISE Awards! Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon, Professor of Enterprise and Engineering Education, Director of Enterprise Education in the University of Sheffield, Faculty Director of Communications and External Relations, and (last but certainly not least!) former Faculty Director for Women in Engineering, has been shortlisted for the 2014 WISE Champion Award.

WISE (or Women into Science, Engineering and Construction) works to inspire girls to choose science, technology, engineering and mathematics pathways and has the target of increasing the number of girls in the STEM workforce to 30% by 2020. The WISE Awards is an annual event which recognises and celebrates the achievements of individuals and organisations which are actively working towards WISE's goals. For her work in encouraging the recruitment, retention and progression of women in STEM subjects, Elena has been nominated as "an individual champion who has used their position to influence others to take positive action to promote female talent in STEM, within their own organisation or beyond." Elena was tasked with setting up the Women in Engineering project at Sheffield and led the initiative for three years.


The award ceremony will take place on Thursday 13 November at the Grange Hotel, Tower Bridge, London, and we'll keep you up to date with the winners. Congratulations, Elena!

Imagination Can Take You Anywhere - National Women in Engineering Day Monday 23rd June - Celebrate With UoS

Date: Monday 23rd June 2014
Time: 4pm – 8pm
Venue: Mappin Hall, Sir Frederick Mappin Building, Mappin Street, Sheffield, S1 3JD

Imagination, curiosity and creativity has given us electricity, steam engines, cars, planes, medicine and mobile phones. Somebody had to dream of these things before they were made real. An imaginative child will become an imaginative adult, likely to create, to invent. Likely to change the world.

To celebrate National Women in Engineering Day we’re opening our doors and inviting you to join us for loads of activities that explore science, engineering and most of all imagination.

Amongst many other activities there will be sumo-fighting robots; a giant tetrahedron; exploding coca-cola and you can also watch our excellent academics duke it out to prove which engineering discipline is the best!

All activities and events are free!

Engineering Imagination - where will it take you?

International Women's Day 2014

We have been recently involved in organising the celebration of International Women’s Day at Sheffield Town Hall, together with other organizations, all put together by Councillor Jacqueline Drayton.

The structure of the morning was very simple: firstly we listened to Kathleen Roberts, one of the Women of Steel. She discussed her experience during the Second World War when the men were called up to war and the women had to work in the steel industry. It was a moving story where she explained that there was not a choice, it was hard work and she did not like it. The only bit that she liked was the actual engineering behind her manual work: she loved tearing the machine apart to understand a problem or to change the roll. She fell in love with engineering but she did not have the opportunity to pursue an engineering career as the men retook the women’s places in the steel industry, once the war was finished.

‘I loved every minute of dismantling a machine, a bit of engineering involved there! I wish I had the chance to do engineering but we didn’t get the change to do it!’
Kathleen Roberts

Afterwards, the women present chose specific workshops to attend. As a society, we volunteered to organise a workshop regarding ‘Gender Traps’ in the work place. Attendees read a brief biography of successful business person and then they discussed the likeability and abilities of these characters. 

The story was the same but the gender of the main character changed. People who read the story where the main character was male, described him as a nice guy, approachable, skilled and focused. People that read the female version, described her as an opportunist, career-focused and bossy person, not very friendly. Good discussions followed to reflect on the barriers that we, as women, put in front to ourselves in the workplace. Different generations and various work environments present different challenges and the feedback that we received was very mind opening.

The morning was concluded by five amazing women that talked about their journeys from their home countries to Sheffield, UK. Journeys caused by various reasons, from escaping the nazists during the Second World War to seeking political asylum or to start a Master degree. They were inspirational and it was useful to remember how privileged and protected we are to grow up in Europe.

Ultimately, Councillor Drayton auctioned a Jessica Ennis signed poster to raise money to build a statue of the women of steel, just outside Sheffield Town Hall. They are short 20k and need all the help that they can get! Prof. Rodriguez-Falcon won the auction and the poster will be in the Faculty of Engineering of the University of Sheffield. 

The prototype of the statue is as the picture:

To help fund the statue,University of Sheffield Enterprise are running a unique fundraising challenge: Can you turn a tenner in to 100 quid? If 200 staff or students in the Faculty can do it, the Women of Steel fund will reach the final twenty thousand pound target for their campaign. 
If you  think you can do it, test your mettle and find out more about how to sign up and get enterprising here: 
http://enterprise.shef.ac.uk/event/women-steel-university-challenge

If you want to know more about the Women of Steel:

https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/planning-and-city-development/urban-design--conservation/public-art/women-of-steel.html

http://www.storyingsheffield.com/project/women-of-steel/

http://www.justgiving.com/womenofsteel

Body building, but not as we know it...

Lindsey Dew is a PhD student in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering. Her work specifically looks at skin tissue engineering. Here she talks about tissue engineering, how she got into this exciting field and why women need to know what engineering actually involves in order to increase female representation within the profession.

Women in Engineering: it's how you sell it that counts

Christina Georgiou, PhD student in the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering at the University of Sheffield, explains how communicating a passion for engineering to the next generation of female engineers is a great way of encouraging smart young women into the discipline. She argues that contrary to this, well meaning initiatives aimed at women in engineering can be discouraging.

Education, careers and gender: it's not just women who miss out

In his article, Pro-Vice Chancellor Paul White argues that whilst the Women in Engineering initiative is breaking down the gender barrier for the engineering discipline, it is not the only academic area that is affected by gender assumptions. He highlights subjects which are seen as the preserve of women and suggests that we should be doing more to tackle social gendering, which prevents both men and women entering professions they can thrive in.  

"We clearly need to counter the ‘expectation’ that an engineer or a computer scientist will be male – but we also need to counter the ‘expectation’ that a speech therapist or a social worker will be female."

The Art of Engineering - Introducing the Faculty's new Artist in Residence.

Women do you know what an engineer does? You should.

Professor Rodriguez-Falcon

Professor Elena Rodriguez-Falcon is the Faculty of Engineering's Director of the Women in Engineering initiative, a post which she has held for the last 15 months. Originally from Mexico, she is a Mechanical Engineer, involved in enterprise and helping to tackle the issues of getting women involved in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) subjects. 

My Sheffield Adventure

Ilida Ortega Asencio is a bioengineer in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering.  Her work includes stem cell research and a corneal implant that could reverse corneal blindness.  Here, she talks about leaving Spain and her Sheffield Adventure.

What would life be like without engineers?

Pro Vice Chancellor Professor Tony Ryan imagines what life would be like without engineers and talks about how much of our scientific achievements should be credited to the engineers that made them possible.