Women in STEM
[Music]
[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
[Music]
you