A message from Director Dr. Cinda-Sue Davis

The last few months have been remarkable in political history. Senator Hilary Clinton has declared her candidacy for the Democratic presidential nomination. Representative Nancy Pelosi has become the first female Speaker of the House. Representative Louise Slaughter and Senator Dianne Feinstein are now the first women chairs of the powerful House and Senate Rules Committees. All of this would have made Estelle Ramey extremely proud, but unfortunately she passed away last October at the age of 89. Estelle Ramey was a Georgetown University endocrinologist and the third president of the Association for Women in Science. Her advocacy on behalf of women in STEM fields was legendary, matched only by her wit and quick one-liners. Click here for full story.

Estelle Ramey

SWIP sends delegates to undergrad physics conference

In January, WISE helped sponsor a group from the Society of Women in Physics (SWIP) to attend the 2nd Annual Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics at the University of Southern California. Seniors Kate Green (physics) and Kristina Nyland (physics and astronomy), juniors Paige Warmker (physics and math), Katie Crimmins (physics and music), Kaitlin Moore (physics) and Meagan Carr (physics), freshman Becky Jackson (physics), and SWIP faculty advisor Professor Jennifer Ogilvie attended the conference as one of two seed groups, the second of which was from Yale. The seed groups were funded by the conference organizers to attend this year’s event in preparation for organizing similar conferences for their home regions. Click here for full story.

WISE RP Update

The Women in Science and Engineering Residence Program (WISE RP) had a busy month this January. The semester began with an afternoon of teambuilding activities on January 6th, which gave the WISE RP students an opportunity to reconnect with one another after winter break. On January 12th, a group of twenty WISE RP women traveled to Toledo, Ohio to attend a performance of The Phantom of the Opera at the Stranahan Theater. After months of planning, the WISE RP and Michigan Research Community (MRC) students had a wonderful time at the WISE/MRC Formal, which was held on January 20th in Palmer Commons. Click here for full story.

Science Fair outreach

Now in its third year, the WISE-sponsored science fair outreach program took place in January at Scarlett Middle School. The program pairs 40 UM undergraduate and graduate students with 40 Scarlett Middle School students to meet weekly to work on science fair projects. Scarlett student projects include: What affect do mirrors have on the brightness of the light spectrum? How does the temperature at which microwave popcorn is stored affect how well it pops? Click here for full story.

Mind your manners

Forty undergraduate and graduate students recently attended a Formal Etiquette Lunch in the College of Engineering in preparation for formal dining situations, especially those meals that will take place during their upcoming job or internship searches. Where should I place my butter knife? Is it appropriate to request a vegetarian meal? Should my napkin go under my chin? These and other questions were answered during the session conducted by Engineering Career Resource Center intern Amber Brown and sponsored by the Women in Engineering Office and the Engineering Career Resource Center. Click here for full story.

Playpumps founder Trevor Field visits campus

In an effort to demonstrate how an engineering project can help people worldwide, WISE brought Playpumps developer Trevor Field to campus to talk to students from a variety of disciplines. Field, a retired advertising executive, had done well in life and wanted to give back to his community. He noticed that in many rural African villages, the burden of collecting water fell mainly to the women and girls of the household. Each morning, he would see them set off to the nearest borehole to collect water. They used leaky and often contaminated hand-pumps to collect the water. They then carried it back through the bush in buckets weighing 40 pounds. Click here for full story

Engineering Teamwork and Interactive Theater

In the mid-90’s, the WISE Program introduced interactive theater to the UM campus as a mechanism to spark conversation and dialogue among faculty, students, and staff about issues of multicultural education and experiences in STEM fields. Gender and Pedagogy, a sketch illustrating the experiences of women in a largely male physics class, was the first to be developed and is still presented to this day. In 2000, the WISE theater troop moved to the Center for Research on Learning and Teaching and became known at the CRLT Players. The program has vastly expanded over the years and now has a roster of over 20 sketches, including a brand new one that should be of interest to science and engineering faculty and students. Click here for full story.

Parenting in the Academy Panel

When is the right time to start a family? How do you make time for yourself? How do you find daycare providers for when your child is sick? What does your typical day look like? How do you tell your advisor that you can’t write a report overnight because you have family obligations? These questions and more were answered this month at the third annual Parenting in the Academy Panel for science and engineering graduate students and post docs, held this month at Rackham Graduate School. Sponsored by WISE and Rackham, the panel featured four UM faculty members at different stages of their careers talking about balancing parenting with an academic career. Click here for full story.