YOU BELONG!!! - IWD2021

As we celebrate International Women's Day 2021, I wish to reflect on how I #choosetochallange through my initiative STEM Sisters.

As an international PhD student from Sri Lanka, I started my PhD journey in STEM at Victoria University the Institute for Sustainable Industries and Liveable Cities. Gender Bias is a massive contributor to the issues women face in trying to secure a STEM career. Additionally, racial bias plays an equal role for people of colour in Australia. The difficulty is elevated with the combination of the two. However, things seemed slightly scary when I noticed women coming from diverse, multicultural backgrounds with a passion matching my own, we’re unable to pursue a successful STEM career. STEM qualified females born in Australia have an unemployment rate of 3.3%, while STEM qualified females born overseas have an unemployment rate of 14.1%. So it became clear to me that the problem is much more deep-rooted than I had initially thought. 

Once I became more aware of this underlying issue, I began seeking resources to help my career. Furthermore, I started sharing my newly obtained knowledge with my acquaintances. My passion grew from pursuing my own STEM career and sharing and supporting my peers in reaching their's full potential. This is when I started STEM sisters, home to a diverse group of female international students and female migrants committed to an intersectional approach for empowering Women of Colour in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics fields. 

Our Mission is to achieve professional liberation, the freedom to pursue one’s professional goals, to the extent of one’s own aptitude without externally imposed limitations, for all women, particularly those from historically underrepresented populations. Through the journey, my goal became clearer than ever and my excitement for the project has continued to grow. I was even recognised as one among the twelve STEM Women Changemakers in 2020 by the Australian Academy of Science for using knowledge, experience, and networks to share ideas and solutions for gender equity in Australian science. 

STEM Sisters have successfully implemented initiatives aligned with empowering, supporting and celebrating STEM women of colour in Australia. Specifically, our STEM Sisters Mentoring program enables international female student mentees to upskill and seek the guidance of experienced mentors from relevant areas of expertise. A pilot version of the mentoring program was conducted from October 2019 to March 2020. This program offered multiple workshops for networking, collaborating with peers, developing skills, hearing from industry leaders, and tailored sessions on leadership, personal branding, etc. 

In 2020 we developed an initiative to respond to the urgent needs of international students facing challenges due to the COVID-19 situation. We have also partnered in the #StayConnected program that runs weekly online sessions to support our community's emotional, mental, and physical well-being.

We also encourage the STEM women of the colour community to be aware of and act on new career opportunities. We actively share resources and information for job seekers on our professional social media group on Linkedin, “STEM Sisters - Increase Awareness of Opportunities”, which has about 450+ members and is growing.

Our big sisters STEM story podcast initiative shines a spotlight on our STEM women of colour in Australia and allow them to freely share the gift of their experiences based on their journeys, demonstrating resilience through courage, innovation, strength, and empowering younger women in reaching their full potential.

We also spread awareness about the need for diversity in STEM and our other advocacy through all our social media platforms (Linkedin, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram ) in the form of Visualisations/ infographics and our content has been shared by many other organisations.

I am in debt of gratitude to Victoria University for all the support provided to me as a research student to reach my full potential both personally professionally and also for their continuing support for my passion project STEM Sisters. STEM Sisters will not stand here today without the support and guidance provided by VU and very special thanks go to Professor Ann Marie Hede, Professor Hua Wang, Professor Yanchun Zhang, Dr Ashim Debnath, Dr Lesley Birch, Professor Stephen Gray, Dr Scott Bingley, Professor Vasso Apostolopoulo, Naomi Dempsey, Bronte Neyland, Hannah Gee, Marian Cronin, Fleur Taylor and Natalie Zaibak

Many thanks to Data61, CSIRO for offering me a full PhD scholarship which helped me immensely as an international student and a very special thanks to my Data 61 supervisor Dr Mahesh Prakash for continuing to guide me through my PhD. Also, I wish to extend my gratitude towards the APR.Intern and the Victorian Department of Transport for the internship which allowed me to build long-term relationships and gain invaluable experience working in the Demand Forecasting team managed by Rick Williams.

Victorian government through their international education state initiatives have supported STEM Sisters and a very special thanks go to Dr Amanda Caples Victoria's Lead Scientist (The Chair of STEM Sisters Advisory Panel), Megan Mundy, Chris Lee, and Emma Last for their continuing support.

Though I am the visionary of this project I have an amazing group of volunteers working tirelessly supporting STEM Sisters and together we #choosetochallenge Australian STEM industries for diversity and inclusion.