Women in STEM

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[Applause]

okay

good morning everyone my name is talalak

with pawagit you can call me

owan i am now a lecturer in nano

engineering program

at international school of engineering

jalalungan university

and actually i’m here as a

representative of women

in stem you may wonder what stem is

it does stand for science technology

engineering and mathematics s-t-e-m

so i’m in the engineering field

i wanted to be an engineer since i was

15

because my father he is an electrical

engineer

and at that time when i was young i feel

like being an engineer is cool

so i wanted to be a cool person so i

decided back then that i wanted to be

the

engineer since then so i chose to study

in the engineering field

for my bachelor degree at jalalang

university

in the major of nano engineering because

at that time like 15 years ago

nano engineering was something very new

to thailand

and i still remember how i felt when i

was first introduced to nanotechnology

i was like wow i was fascinated how the

technology

can do to this world so i was like if i

can use

this technology in the future to do

something for the society that would be

great

that’s how i jumped into the

nanotechnology

so after that i studied my master’s

degree more toward the nanotechnology

and then i feel like i want to extend my

expertise

on the optics and photonics which of

course related to the nanotechnology

so i did my phd in photonics and

electrical engineering

at frederick university cyprus and city

of university london

in uk with the iras mutmandu scholarship

it is one of the biggest european

funding for

education so after i finish my phd

i feel like i still don’t have enough

experience to work in this field yet

so i decided to start working as a

postdoctoral researcher

in the university of limerick island for

about three years

and during that time i got a good

opportunity

to participate in the global clinical

research

training from harvard medical school for

a year

so during that time i gained a lot of

experiences

developing the sensor for biomedical

applications

why biomedical applications because this

day people tend to

take care of their health more they want

to be healthier

they want to live longer so it would be

good if we can develop the

technology that can improve their

quality of life

so during that time i gained a lot of

experiences

and then after that i came back to

thailand in 2018

to be a lecturer in the international

school of engineering which i’m still

doing it now

so this made me to focus on the research

under the topic of developing the

optical sensor

for the biomedical applications because

optic is

everywhere we can see like we use the

light in our daily life

for example like i developed the optical

fiberbed sensor

the optical fiberbed sensor to detect

the prostate cancer

as you all may know that prostate cancer

is the most common cancer found in men

and one of the way to treat the prostate

cancer is to put the radiation

seed like that radiotherapy so we need

to put the radiation seed

to be implanted inside the prostate

tumor

but in order to do so the clinician has

to take the sample out

using the biopsy in order to check for

the grade of the tumor

and then the clinician can accurately

calculate for the radiation dose that is

going to be put in

but this way the patient has to be in

pain twice

the first time when the clinician take

the sample from the biopsy

and the second time when the clinician

insert the radiation seed

into the prostate cancer using the

brachytherapy needle

so the clinician and our research group

was thinking like it would be better if

we can develop the sensor

that can be putting together at the same

time

when the clinician put the radiation

seat into the patient’s body

so in this case we can measure the tumor

grade in real time

continuously and the patient will be in

pain just only once

when they get applied when they get the

application of the radiation dose

so this you can see that the ultimate

goal

of the researcher like in our field is

to develop something

some device that can help

improve the quality of life of the

people in the society

so in this case we improve the quality

of life both

patients and clinicians

so this is just an example of the work

that i have been done

for the past 14 years that i have study

and work in the engineering field in the

technology

field i can say that people in our field

we really promote the equality and the

diversity

to encourage all the individuals to

achieve their

potentials free of prejudice

and discrimination so actually everyone

will be treated the same

no matter who you are where you are from

or what your gender is

you will get the same respect same

reputation

and based on my experience i never felt

such a sex discrimination

in any way not in the education not in

the employment

so everything is the same for me so

there is no

gender working in there is no gender

boundary

working in this field but of course it’s

going to be depend

on your behavior your manner your

capability

your proficiency so

it’s all about you not the gender

okay but talking about the gender

we need to admit that the number of

women working in the technology and

engineering field

is less compared to them the number of

men

but if you look at the world’s

population the number of women is

actually higher

but just only small amount of women

wants to work in this field this can

be due to the strong idea

strong belief especially in some

countries that

due to their cultures and they think

that the work in

engineering field technology fields are

the work for men

but this is actually the perspective

from the outsider

looking at our field but

actually me as a person who’s already in

the field

i i don’t feel that i feel like

both men and women can work in this

field

it’s about your interest if you are

interested

even though you are a man a woman then

you can jump in to be in this field

but i can say that because i’m already

in the field

but for those especially young women

researcher

who’s not in the field yet they might

feel like

what would be the difficulty how can i

jump in how can

i be the part of this community

so actually in order to help that we do

have many organizations to support the

younger women researcher

for example why w

i s e which is for women in sensors

it’s a global organization that we want

to promote the

young women researchers who work in the

sensing technology

to have a collaboration to have a

further discussion

around the world and i’m also a part of

the committee

in the wise organization the wise

organization

is a part of the ieee

organization ieee i’m not sure if you

have ever heard of itpoe before

but in my field in engineering and

technology

i triple e or i e e e

is the world’s largest technical

professional organization

and it is dedicated to the advancing

technology

for the benefit of the humanity as i

said ultimate goal for us

is to do something for mankind and ieee

is strongly committed to the diversity

and equality as we see no place for

hatred

and discrimination in our society

so we do have these things to support

the young woman researcher who still

hesitated to be in the field

at least they know that they can get the

support from us

but sometimes in order to promote and

encourage this

we have to be very careful because it

can be sensitive

sometimes if we overdo it we don’t have

like a balance

then we will be the one who draw a

thicker battery between men and women

so we have to make it balanced for

example

when i went to the international

engineering conference

and we do have such like this kind of

events like

women in engineering section during the

conference

and at that time we really encouraged

the

younger women researcher to participate

in the event

but then during the break there were

senior males researchers not just one

many of them come to ask us like

wow this event is very interesting but

by the name they are not sure if they

can really participate

because it’s women in engineering

so we say like oh for sure you can

participate

you are very welcome and it’s actually a

good idea to get like the men’s point of

view

and from that point we realized that

it’s not just us

as a woman who want to encourage another

woman to be in the technology and

engineering field

but it there is actually guides

males researchers who also want to

support us

they really want to support and

encourage the woman to be in the field

more

so we have to balance we want to

encourage women

but we don’t want to discourage men

and this case like there are many people

also ask me like is there any difficulty

being a woman working in the engineering

field

because so far seems like there is no

problem at all

i would say it may be hard

in the beginning so when you start

especially if you are young you are a

young woman researcher

you may need to try harder you may need

to work harder

in order to be accepted by the senior

advisor

especially in my generation it’s

unavoidable to have a

male advisor because in the older

generation

like the idea of having men to work in

the engineering field is much stronger

than today

and by the nature men and women we do

have a different

mindset we do have different ways of

work

for example as a woman we are very

into detail right we can pay attention

to every step we take

into a very single thing but men

they can just look in the overall

picture

but actually there is no right or wrong

in both way

it’s just the way you want to work but

both of the way will lead you to the

final destination so if this happened to

you don’t be offended don’t take it

personal

it can happen not just only male and

female

it can happen for the same gender as

well

so if it happened then you just need to

adjust yourself

learn how to compromise try to find a

midway

be patient to explain so you can explain

and try to prove that the way you want

to work

can make things done beautifully

then you should be more flexible we are

human

we are not computer that has just only

zero

and one we are human we can be

at 0.5 so be more flexible

and the most important thing be more

ethical

this is the most common things not just

only for engineering field

but for all the field in the in your

career

so be more ethical and then the rest is

just to keep

up your good work finally you’ll be

accepted

by the senior advisor and once you get

accepted

you are creating a career path for a

younger

researcher so i would say that

technology is for everyone not just only

for men

or women it’s for everyone it’s

everywhere around us

now we are in the nanotechnology world

already

looking around you all the things you

are using this day

is made of nano technology smartphone

smart swat without the nano technology

you will not get such a

flat thin light and fast

smartphone the ship that we use to

fabricate

for the smartphone is made of

nanotechnology

the anti-reflection coating of your

sunglasses

the nanoparticles to reflect the uv

ultraviolet from the sunscreen the

cosmetic

sport equipment everything

is made of nanotechnology so it’s really

everywhere

it’s around you but you may not be aware

of it because you are the end user

so you use this you don’t know that it’s

made of nano technology

without the technology we are not going

anywhere

10 years from now 20 years from now we

are going to be the same there will be

no improvement

there will be no development there will

be no evolution

so we need technology in order to make

our life

better easier healthier and even live

longer

without the technology we couldn’t

get the vaccine for coffee 19.

without the technology we couldn’t get

the mask

like n95 or even n99 mask

to filter out the pm 2.5

so we do need technology and it’s for

everyone

for all the gender so there is no gender

battery for technology

so i would like to encourage both men

and women

especially in the younger generation to

be a part of technology to use

technology

and apply the technology to make a world

a better place thank you very much

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