This program is a part of the Wanger Institute for Sustainable Energy Research (WISER) 2019 Distinguished Lectureship Series.

Digitalization, data sets, computing, technology, and analytics are all rapidly advancing. Our energy analytics approach and collective tool kit of models and capabilities have advanced considerably over the past decades.   Today, we are at yet another precipice of change, with exponential increases in data availability, advanced analytics, and scalable computing power. The presentation will highlight new and emerging capabilities that offer us exciting, unprecedented opportunities for robust insights for scientific research, energy economics, planning, infrastructure, and related decisions.

Join us on International Women’s Day for the second annual large-scale community-building event, where the focus will be on implicit bias, a critical obstacle to STEM diversity and inclusion. Given the strong evidence that unconscious bias is a driving force behind ongoing gender disparities in STEM (Hill, Corbett et al. 2010), the overall goal of this event will be to discuss the impact of implicit bias in STEM and develop counter-strategies.

• The speakers will also shine a spotlight on exceptional local women leaders in STEM and learn first-hand their experiences and motivations during a series of short presentations.
• Next, Dr. Eve Fine, a leader from UW-Madison’s WISELI, a research center at the forefront of evidence-based solutions for implicit bias and increasing female STEM faculty, will deliver the keynote presentation.
• Attendees will interact directly with other attendees, speakers, and additional invited local women leaders in STEM at the closing networking reception.

Together, the upcoming Chicago Women in STEM Symposium and STEM Circuits aim to place Chicago on the forefront of positive change by fostering a sustainable inclusive local community. The Chicago Women in STEM believes that women are an under-utilized resource and that increasing diversity will, in turn, enhance discovery and innovation in STEM to the long-term benefit our global society.

Diversity in academia is in the public spotlight. Yet, despite some important strides for women in academic science careers, many workplaces and their cultures discriminate against women and can endanger them – professionally, psychologically, and even physically. Read more…

Star Wars – the fight of the light side of the force against the dark side – is a story that has fascinated us for the last 40 years. A crucial part of this story is the unbelievable scientific and technological advances – traveling through hyperspace, lightsabers, holograms, the discovery of habitable planets – that fill the universe. Read more…