In 2022, I had the opportunity to win the WIS Professional Development Scholarship. With the funds, I attended the 5th Annual Learning for Dynamics & Control Conference at University of Pennsylvania in June 2023. It was a great opportunity to learn more about hybrid modeling to apply it to my current research. In this blog post, I would like to explain simply and briefly what hybrid modeling is and how I'm using it in my project. Imagine two artists who claim to know how to paint landscapes. We know that the techniques they use to choose colors are different: Artist 1 has seen thousands ..read more

If you have been following along with the Courage Campaign these past few months, you might be thinking, how are we still here? It’s 2024, and we’re talking about equitably compensating the majority of the American workforce! But zoom out and it becomes clear that we have actually made significant progress in a shockingly short period–only about the last sixty years. Have women been advocating for equal pay for centuries? Yep. The “second wave” of the women’s rights movement, as it’s often called, is built on the foundation of women’s suffrage and activism that dates back to the 1800s. But in ..read more

WISDom Pdx Source: JoCrebbin/Shutterstock It can be a battle trying to stay engaged through a long meeting or monotonous task once that afternoon slump hits. A short nap – often referred to as a cat nap – sounds ideal before pushing through your later tasks. But for highly preyed upon species like the chinstrap penguin, a 20-minute nap may have fatal consequences. To combat this, they rest via thousands of daily “microsleeps” instead. A group of neuroscience researchers from France, Germany, and Korea recently published a sleep study of 14 nesting chinstrap penguins existing under constant th ..read more

Mother and baby pictured- Unsplash As a woman, building a happy and healthy family is a goal I hope to achieve. However, there is something to say about what life looks like for a woman after birthing a child. I would like to preface this article by saying that while working in a patient facing setting, I have witnessed the lack of care postpartum women receive in this pivotal time. Although I may not know what it means to be a mother- for the bad and the good moments- one thing I do know for sure is that bearing children is not an easy road. Getting an insight into people’s lives has been ea ..read more

About the Author CurieousGirl84 is a 9-year-old explorer living in Raleigh, NC. She practices anime-inspired drawings and the kawaii style of drawing cute anthropomorphic objects.  She reads voraciously and likes discovering famous women in STEM fields. Her current D&D character is a Half-Elven Bard named Eveneer. She’s also a Minecraft gamer who received her first parent-issued ban for a month at the tender age of 6. At 7, she won 3rd place in a chess tournament that her dad dragged her to and made her first and last instructional chess video on YouTube. She also plays the piano and ..read more

The Equal Pay Act was passed into federal law in1963–that was sixty years ago! Yet we still haven’t achieved its stated goal: equal pay between employees in comparable roles, regardless of gender. We’ve made significant progress with women now earning 82% of the equivalent male’s salary compared to the paltry 59% of 1963. But that 82% has not budged in the last twenty years! What factors prevent the gap from closing further? It’s difficult to pinpoint the various factors that contribute to the ongoing disparity  in lifetime earning potential between women and men. Varied circumstances, in ..read more

WISDom Pdx A cartoon image of multicolored microorganisms in the shape of a stomach against a white background Ample research in gastrointestinal health highlights the influence of the gut microbiome on wellness, with a healthier gut having more diverse microbial species present. A variety of yogurts, kombuchas, and probiotic supplements often mention this in their advertisements. While the microbiome is already a popular scientific topic today, it’s becoming increasingly relevant in the mammoth field of cancer research – particularly, the gut microbiome’s influence on immune checkpoint thera ..read more

Image credit: Pexels Gender diversity rates in the U.S. workforce are at an all-time high. In February 2023, The Bureau of Labor Statistics revealed that women aged 16 years and older make up around 47% of all U.S. employees. In addition to this, a report from Built In showed that women are also rising industry leaders — currently, there are 53 women CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, the highest it’s ever been. Despite women propelling forward with their careers, many are leaving their companies and switching jobs at record rates. Dominant reasons for changing career paths are rooted in th ..read more

Let’s clarify something: Gender-based oppression is not an individual issue. It is not the fault of women or other gender minorities. Gender-based oppression is a systemic and structural issue built upon many long-held beliefs of who can and should be in power. While nearly all women have and will face gender-based oppression at some point in their career, the problem is not us, the problem is the system. Much like other systemic issues, while individual action is helpful, the biggest change comes from those with the most power. At Women in Science Portland (WIS PDX), we are dedicated to crea ..read more

Graduate students and postdocs are often taught that leaving academia for an ‘alternate career’ in industry puts you in the minority  of STEM profressionals. But the myth of non-academic careers as ‘alternative’ is no more. In reality only 30% of STEM graduates stay in academia. More and more, STEM graduates choose industry careers in pursuit of better work conditions and greater real-world impact.   Despite this norm, without proper career training the job search can be overwhelming. Graduates are often left wondering: What options are there for scientists outside of academia ..read more