Friday, May 5, 2023

Women in Mathematics seminar examines the Social "Threatwork"

International Women in Mathematics Day is celebrated on May 12 every year, and aims to promote and support women's achievements in mathematics. WiM at the University of Waterloo has organized an event to commemorate the day next Friday.

The Social “Threatwork”: Connecting Women's Exclusion from STEM Social Networks to Implicit and Explicit Gender Stereotypes will feature Dr. Hilary Bergsieker from Waterloo's Psychology department. The event takes place Friday, May 12 from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. in MC 5501.

"When, why, and with what effect are women sometimes excluded from informal social networks in STEM fields?" says the talk's abstract. "Drawing on social identity threat and structural hole theories, a series of studies assess social network dynamics that may limit women's full inclusion in STEM circles."

"In experiments with 1,065 Waterloo undergraduates enrolled in male-dominated STEM majors (including math), women (but not men) anticipated reputational penalties if they associated with a woman who expressed stereotypically feminine interests. Women whose social network positions gave them less brokerage (i.e., reduced ability to manage information flows between unconnected friends) were less willing to befriend and socially integrate other women with feminine- (vs. STEM-) stereotypic interests. Next, in field research with 1,247 full-time employees working at North American STEM organizations, men who held stronger STEM=male implicit associations reported less often choosing to socialize with their female teammates. In turn, for women at these same organizations, receiving fewer social ties from male teammates was associated with worse workplace outcomes: lower engagement, self-efficacy, and feelings of fit, plus greater concerns about being judged on the basis of gender at work. Finally, a series of mathematical simulations model the estimated impact of men intervening to counteract gender bias and support women's full inclusion in STEM workplaces."

"Implications for advancing gender inclusion in STEM fields are discussed."

Dr. Bergsieker will speak for 45 minutes, and there will be an opportunity for Q&A.

Dr. Bergsieker is Assistant Professor of Psychology, where she leads the Diversity and Intergroup Relations Lab and serves as her department's Program Area Lead for Equity, Diversity, Inclusion and Anti-Racism. As a Fellow of the Engendering Success in STEM research consortium, she collaborates with industry partners to use evidence-based interventions to advance the inclusion and success of women and other underrepresented groups in science, tech, engineering, and math. 

Everyone is welcome to attend. Register through ticketfi.

Engineers tap into good vibrations to power the Internet of Things

In a world hungry for clean energy, engineers have created a new material that converts the simple mechanical vibrations all around us into electricity to power sensors in everything from pacemakers to spacecraft. 

The first of its kind and the product of a decade of work by researchers at the University of Waterloo and the University of Toronto, the novel generating system is compact, reliable, low-cost and very, very green.

“Our breakthrough will have a significant social and economic impact by reducing our reliance on non-renewable power sources,” said Asif Khan, a Waterloo researcher and co-author of a new study on the project. “We need these energy-generating materials more critically at this moment than at any other time in history.”

The system Khan and his colleagues developed is based on the piezoelectric effect, which generates an electrical current by applying pressure — mechanical vibrations are one example — to an appropriate substance.

The effect was discovered in 1880, and since then, a limited number of piezoelectric materials, such as quartz and Rochelle salts, have been used in technologies ranging from sonar and ultrasonic imaging to microwave devices.

The problem is that until now, traditional piezoelectric materials used in commercial devices have had limited capacity for generating electricity. They also often use lead, which Khan describes as “detrimental to the environment and human health.”

The researchers solved both problems.

They started by growing a large single crystal of a molecular metal-halide compound called edabco copper chloride using the Jahn-Teller effect, a well-known chemistry concept related to spontaneous geometrical distortion of a crystal field.

Khan said that highly piezoelectric material was then used to fabricate nanogenerators “with a record power density that can harvest tiny mechanical vibrations in any dynamic circumstances, from human motion to automotive vehicles” in a process requiring neither lead nor non-renewable energy.

The nanogenerator is tiny — 2.5 centimetres square and about the thickness of a business card — and could be conveniently used in countless situations. It has the potential to power sensors in a vast array of electronic devices, including billions needed for the Internet of Things — the burgeoning global network of objects embedded with sensors and software that connect and exchange data with other devices.

Dr. Dayan Ban, a researcher at the Waterloo Institute for Nanotechnology, said that in future, an aircraft’s vibrations could power its sensory monitoring systems, or a person’s heartbeat could keep their battery-free pacemaker running.

“Our new material has shown record-breaking performance,” said Ban, a professor of electrical and computer engineering. “It represents a new path forward in this field.”

The study, Large piezoelectric response in a Jahn-Teller distorted molecular metal halide, appears in the journal Nature Communications.

Wellness Collaborative Community of Practice session coming in June

A message from the Wellness Collaborative Community of Practice (CoP).

The Wellness Collaborative Community of Practice (CoP) is hosting our next session on MS Teams from 9:30 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. on Thursday, June 1, and will feature a panel discussion on ways to enhance accessibility and apply a disability inclusion lens to wellness initiatives and how they are communicated.

Our panelists are:

• Christine Zaza | Workplace Accessibility Specialist
• Jennifer Gillies | Associate Director, AccessAbility Services
• Joyce Barlow | Associate Director, Disability Inclusion
• Karen Parkinson | Manager, Occupational Health

The Wellness Collaborative Community of Practice brings together UWaterloo campus community members across job descriptions, disciplines, department/units, and affiliated colleges to increase awareness of health and wellness-related work across campus. It is open to any students, staff, or faculty interested in networking, building professional development capacity, or identifying opportunities to coordinate and leverage each other’s health promotion and wellness work. All are welcome to join the CoP’s MS Team to receive invitations to upcoming sessions.

To submit questions for the panelists ahead of time, visit Questions for Disability and Wellness Panelists. A recording will be made available to members of the CoP who are unable to attend.

Red Dress Day, a sidebar sunsetting, and other notes

An event marking Red Dress Day will be held on campus today.

"Red Dress Day marks the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirited people in Canada," says the event announcement. "Join Elder Myeengun Henry to honour and remember our missing and murdered sisters and to show solidarity with their family and loved ones."

The event will be held from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. on the BMH Green.

The month of May is Jewish Heritage Month. President Vivek Goel marked the occaision on social media recently:

Read individual Tweet on Twitter

The When and Where to get Support sidebar, having served its purpose, will be heading off into the sunset as we start a new term on Monday. Established in March 2020 to provide information about services available to employees and students alike as the University navigated the COVID pandemic crisis (and to make up space that had been previously filled with on-campus event notices that were in terminally short supply during lockdown), the support sidebar will be transitioning to a menu item on the Daily Bulletin's website and will no longer be published daily as part of the e-newsletter.

The support page will continue to see updates as the information on it changes or goes out of date. Academic support units can continue to send updates to the Daily Bulletin as needed and we will make the appropriate changes.

On Saturday, May 6, Canada will mark the coronation of His Majesty King Charles III, who acceded to the throne in September 2022 upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II. As you may recall, Canada is a constitutional monarchy with the King serving as its Head of State. If you want to watch the ceremony at Westminster Abbey live, you'll need to get up early tomorrow morning: CBC coverage of the event begins at 4:00 a.m. EST; the Royal procession departs Buckingham Palace at 5:20 a.m. and will arrive at 6:00 a.m. at Westminster Abbey. There, Charles will be crowned King and his wife Camilla named Queen.

A ceremony will be held in Ottawa at 10:00 a.m. to mark the occasion. There will also be special events at Rideau Hall, the official residence of the Governor General, on May 6 and 7. There will be local events celebrating the coronation as well. And if coronations aren't your thing, Saturday, May 6 is also Free Comic Book Day, a great time to visit your local comic book store and pick up a free comic. No word on whether any of the free comics have to do with the Coronation.

Office of Research to host NSERC Town Hall: University of Waterloo faculty, staff and graduate students are invited to a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Town Hall on Wednesday, May 10.

This Town Hall is an opportunity to hear from Alejandro Adem, President of NSERC and Manal Bahubeshi, Vice-President, Research Partnerships, NSERC. They are visiting Waterloo to meet with our community about NSERC’s programs and will also tour labs on campus.

The town hall takes place Wednesday, May 10 from 9:15 to 10:00 a.m. in the Enterprise Theatre in East Campus 5.
 
Please register to attend as seating is limited.

Finally, lectures and classes for the spring 2023 term get underway on Monday, May 8. Also kicking off is the co-operative work term. Good luck to all incoming and returning students.