Source: Mariam Rasheed Aboumorra
Just last year I was standing in a lab in front of an extruder trying to recycle PET from an old shoe for my master’s degree. Today my research spans various topics related to the transition towards a circular bio-based economy, including the ways in which digitalised infrastructures can help us move towards more sustainable production and more transparency, so we can all (finally) become better informed consumers.
My journey up until now has been led by a ton of curiosity which moved me to try myself out in more than one field and I’m so thankful for how interdisciplinary my thinking and therefore my work have become as a result. And no matter how many papers I write in passive form, my research will always remain inseparable from my womanhood, my cultural background, my experiences and my being an artist. While it is our responsibility to always guarantee the objectivity and integrity of our scientific work, to pretend that our personal values and subjective assumptions don’t influence our choices and motivations is a dangerous bias. A lack of diversity in the scientific community is a great loss for our societies and specially for the most vulnerable ones among us. So today and every day let us celebrate every person who contributes to science who a few years ago wouldn’t have been allowed to and let us push towards more diversity.
To every woman working in science, whether by choice or circumstance, with a certificate to show for it or not. To those who aspired to become scientists but had every opportunity taken away from them. To all women overlooked by science. To those eclipsed by the pages of history. To everyone bridging gaps and shortening ways for others. To us all: happy women in science day.
Back to the aricle #WomeninScienceDay: “We have to be role models for each other”