“There's progress in drawing female students into engineering.”

As women continue to face unequal pay and challenging conditions throughout academia and in the general workforce, much progress is still needed to ensure equal treatment. And the International Women in Engineering Day (INWED) is a good occasion to address these issues and hear from female researchers themselves about their experiences in academia.

To celebrate INWED, let’s meet with a small selection of outstanding women researchers in EPFL’s School of Engineering (STI), which is doing its part to break the gender equality barrier, with 57% female researchers in Tenure Track PATT positions in 2022, up from 38% ten years ago. According to Dean of Engineering Ali H. Sayed, “the nomination of female scientists to these early career position shows a concerted effort on behalf of STI and EPFL to strive towards greater gender parity in the professorial body.”

Josie Hughes develops new fabrication and design techniques for sustainable robots that can perform in unstructured environments at the Computational Robot Design and Fabrication Lab (CREATE lab). The raspberry harvester, published today in Communications Engineering, addresses the sustainability problem of food security but is also an important contribution to the academic field of robotic design. When asked about positive trends in how science is conducted, Hughes doesn’t focus on gender: “For me, it’s hard to see these things from a gender perspective. But I definitely believe that there’s a generational change for the better in moving towards more sustainable engineering. This goes for a more sustainable approach to work as well, in order to avoid burn outs and foster creativity.”

Stephanie Lacour heralds this generational change as well, and goes as far as saying that it is, at least in part, due to the greater inclusion of women in science. “Now that there are more women in the scientific workforce, there are more conversations about a fair division of labor in the household and workplace. This translates into a greater emphasis on a healthier work and life balance in the lab, which benefits the science as well.” Lacour, whose work focuses on employing soft electronics to the nervous system at her Laboratory for Soft Bioelectric Interfaces (LSBI), has recently made an important advance regarding unfolding electrodes that can be deployed under the skull and over the surface of the brain.

Maartje Bastings, head of the Programmable Biomaterials Laboratory (PBL), has spent her first six years at EPFL exercising her creative energies to prove a radical hypothesis: Geometrical patterns of proteins in cells are critical for the activation of the immune system. As she nears the resolution of this phase in her research, she reflects on how these six years have also corresponded to her starting a family. “My generation is doing science differently,” says Bastings, “and this toxic mentality of expecting science to be the top priority in your life at all times will naturally become extinct in a few years, leaving room for a healthier working atmosphere, fostered in part by a greater inclusion of women in lead scientific roles.”

Esther Amstad takes inspiration from nature to process polymers into structures that perform better and break down more easily for efficient recycling. Her laboratory, Soft Materials Laboratory (SMaL), recently developed a 3D printable ink that hardens after printing due to the inclusion of bacteria. “A supportive work atmosphere depends a lot on which institute you work in, who the institute’s director is, and if there are women who set the example before you came on board.” When asked to give an example, a smile spreads across Amstad’s face and she mentions how EPFL Professor Anna Fontcuberta i Morral was the Institute of Material’s first tenure track professor to have small children during those important six years. “She really showed me that women can be caring mothers and run a fantastic lab at the same time.”

Mahsa Shoaran builds cutting edge system-on-chip devices for treating neurological and psychiatric disorders at her Integrated Neurotechnologies Laboratory (INL). Her work combines the power of AI algorithms with advanced integrated circuits to create innovative devices that can potentially transform the way brain disorders are understood and treated. “A lot of progress has been made in drawing talented female students into engineering at EPFL in recent years. When I was a postdoc in the US, I participated in and greatly benefited from the EECS Rising Stars workshop. Prof. Ali H. Sayed, Dean of Engineering, and I have been in discussion about how to bring a similar program to Europe.”