EVENT: "WOMEN AND SCIENCE" LECTURE

For thirty years Margaret Wertheim has been a pioneer in communicating STEM subjects to women and is uniquely qualified to speak inspiringly on this topic. For 10 years in her native Australia, Margaret wrote monthly columns about science and technology for women’s magazines including Vogue Australia and Australian Elle, and may be the only journalist in the world to have held such a position. Her Crochet Coral Reef project is a unique nexus of mathematics, art, craft and feminism. Now the largest participatory art & science project in the world, the Crochet Reef has actively engaged over 10,000 women in a dozen countries and has been seen by over two million people. Wertheim's interest in gender and science is reflected in her book Pythagoras Trousers, a cultural history of physics that also explores how women have been systematically excluded from this field. Her commitment to gender equity led her to conceive, write and co-direct a six-part television series about science and technology aimed at teenage girls, for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Titled Catalyst (ABC, 1990), the series won awards around the globe and remains a landmark in television science programming. Margaret's work in the area of science and gender aims to both illuminate the obstacles women face to full participation in STEM fields, while also celebrating science and math as domains of wonder to which women can have access – often through methodologies or subjects neglected by canonical forms of science outreach and journalism.