To celebrate the International Day of Women & Girls in STEM, we wanted to highlight some of the talented women working on projects for the Collaborative.

With the technology sector still being incredibly male-dominated, it is inspiring to see women leading and supporting in almost all of our projects, showcasing skills and knowledge across a wide variety of topics. You can hear from two of our talented team members below about why data is important to them, and their top tips for pursuing a career in STEM!

Emma Congreve

Job Title/Organisation:

Knowledge Exchange Fellow, Fraser of Allander Institute at the University of Strathclyde

What are you working on for the Data for Children Collaborative with UNICEF?

I lead the Fraser of Allander’s work on poverty and inequality, and as part of this, we are working on a collaborative project that looks at educational inequalities in the north of Scotland to help teachers and the local authorities gain a better understanding of how different factors impact on children’s ability to do well at school. This work uses data that we have previously gathered for a Scotland wide project, and applies this to the rural and urban context in the North of Scotland.

How do you use data in your day-to-day role?

As an applied policy economist, data is part of almost all the work I do. Data helps identify issues in the economy that are impacting on particular groups of the population. Poverty is one example of where the economic system is excluding part of the population, often due to situations which are outwith their control.  Data is also usually part understanding the solution, alongside a more qualitative understanding of the issues. Involving people with direct experience of the issue is particularly important for designing credible policy. Data is necessary, but not sufficient in isolation in my line of work.

What is your best piece of advice for women and girls looking to pursue a career in STEM?

I’ve been surprised what I’ve been capable of doing when I put my mind to it. I was definitely given the ‘not good at maths’ label at an early age, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been able to apply it when I’ve needed to. Not being naturally good at maths has meant that I’m much more able to think intuitively about economics, rather than falling back on mathematical equations to explain what I’m doing. That has led me more down the applied economics route. So my advice would be – realise that you can a) overturn your weaknesses when you need to and b) your weaknesses can often be flipped into strengths!  

Sam Rhynas

Job Title/Organisation:

COO & Director, Effini

Leadership Team, Girl Geek Scotland

What are you working on for the Data for Children Collaborative with UNICEF?

Our data science team have been working to identify and collate the data that is being captured around Covid 19 and its impact on children and young adults. Our goal was to gather the information into a usable data catalogue providing a central source of reference information to help support future projects in this area.

How do you use data in your day-to-day role? 

As a software engineer and data scientist, I use data to help organisations understand better what’s happening inside them - identifying insights and opportunities to help them improve and grow the business.  This might start with carrying out an audit (how do we use data just now), or it might be defining a data strategy (how do we want to be using data) and roadmap (what we need to do to get there).  Ultimately we will create data pipelines, which merge and transform useful data, and create data visualisations which help show the story of what’s happening with the data to the people in the organisation.  We also look to create innovative solutions using advanced data science techniques like AI.

What is your best piece of advice for women and girls looking to pursue a career in STEM?

Find out about all the different sorts of roles that exist so you can start to see one that fits your personality and the types of things you enjoy. 

There are a huge range of skills needed in STEM, and the range of jobs is growing. 

In the data science area for example, if you like to create and draw, data visualisation is fascinating – you need to understand about how humans interact with visuals,  understand about accessibility needs to create inclusive solutions, and then you can use the creative skills to design the views people will see of their data. 

Or if you’re good at digging into information, and thinking about how and why things are happening – a data analyst would be really enjoyable, where you use the data to help answer those questions, digging into and investigating behaviours.

Ask people you know what sorts of people work with them in similar roles, ask if you could shadow someone one day to see the sorts of things they might do. 

Additional Resources:

United Nations: International Day of Women and Girls in STEM

Women in Science Day