On 9 March 2022, we hosted four incredible women working in STEM, from both industry and academia:
- Dr. Jelena Ponocko: Lecturer at the University of Manchester and IEEE PES Women in Power representative for the UK and Ireland
- Dr. Yaprak Eminaga: Field Application Engineer at Intel
- Alicia Blatiak: PhD Candidate at Imperial College and CEO of Intelliflex
- Dr. Aizaan Anwar: PhD Candidate at Imperial College and physician
The event brought together our four guest speakers from diverse fields and unique professional experiences in a roundtable setting. Amidst their powerful personal stories, these women conveyed their continuous struggle with imposter syndrome and tactics to combat it before it can impede their progress. They reminded the audience that you are not alone in your struggle (everyone feels imposter syndrome) and that, no matter what others say, you deserve to be here because you had to show up at the starting line to go anywhere. It was encouraging to see how they all mentioned immense support from their organisations and friends through any hardships. As for addressing how to increase the number of women in STEM, they recommended encouraging girls from a young age by continuously remind them that it is hard work to succeed, so keep trying! The video recording of the panel is available here:
Imperial College London IEEE Student Branch Team acknowledge Kate Highnam, Asimina Mertzani and WOMENinSTEM@IC for their unlimited support and assistance organizing and managing this event. Also, our team appreciate the support of EEE department (Equality, Diversity and Culture Committee).