Two UNE scientists recently named Superstars of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) hope to provide inspiration to a new generation of young women and help address persistent gender gaps in their fields.

Biologist Dr Mary McMillan and palaeontologist Dr Marissa Betts plan to use the Science & Technology Australia spotlight to highlight the range of roles available to women in STEM. They are among 60 women selected to receive training in public speaking, media and communications to enable them to share their experiences with high school students, the media and decision-makers.

Both are already active science communicators and mentors with the Curious Minds program run by Australia Science Innovations to ignite girls’ passion for STEM, but believe there is considerable work to be done to achieve gender parity.

Mary, who works within UNE’s Brain and Behaviour Research Group studying the biological and genetic markers for mental illness, said while she has not experienced overt sexism during her own career, other gender discrimination has been more subtle.

“I think I have been pretty lucky, compared to many female scientists,” she said, “but as you move into more senior roles, there are fewer and fewer women. Small things build up over time, like not being invited to an all-boys’ lunch, micro comments, and men being hand-picked for opportunities over women.

“Superstars of STEM is less about promoting a group of individuals and more about building a critical mass of women in STEM. It’s about trying to ensure that women are represented when science is talked about in the media. Because young women can’t be what they can’t see.”

Marissa’s research on the fossils of the Cambrian Period  “one of the most exciting times in the history of life on Earth”  has taken her around the world exploring evolution and ecological change. However, she is often the only woman in field teams and describes the gender diversity in geoscience as “very poor”.

“It’s been a problem for ages,” Marissa said. “I don’t have evidence that I have personally been discriminated against because of my gender  it’s difficult to gauge where the glass ceiling is when you can’t see it  but it can be very subtle and even perpetrated by other women.

“Superstars of STEM provides a platform for women to be more visible in their professional STEM roles and to normalise their position as experts. The point is to level the playing field and to make it easier for young women to achieve parity in their workplaces of the future.”

While she doesn’t believe that gender has limited her career progression to date, Mary fears that may change now that she is mid-career. “The data tells us that it often gets harder for women to advance after this level and that we have less success with grant funding,” she said.”That worries me.”

Mary and Marissa share the belief that diversity of all kinds creates better teams and, ultimately, better science. “When you have a more diverse team, you have different points of view expressed, and different ways of looking at things and solving problems,” Mary said. “Research shows that the most successful leadership teams are the more diverse ones.”

Although there has been a push to encourage more girls to study STEM subjects in recent years, the gender gap across many scientific fields persists.”The progress we are making to close that gap has been slow,” Marissa said. “We have to keep making noise about it. And it’s not just a numbers game, but where women are sitting in terms of leadership. We have to ensure that women are represented across all levels and are paid the same as men doing the same job.”