UIC Barcelona has, for another consecutive year, celebrated International Day of Women and Girls in Science, which is commemorated on 11 February. The University marked the occasion by holding a series of events open to the public to give prominence to female scientists and encourage girls to take an interest in science and technology.

The virtual activities kicked off at 8 a.m. with the online Escape Room “Women in Engineering”, which was designed by students on the University’s Bachelor’s Degree in Bioengineering. The online game was aimed at upper secondary school students, and managed to attract more than 3,700 students from 32 secondary schools across Spain to solve the Escape Room’s scientific enigmas.

The UIC Barcelona Equality Office also organised the online seminar “Female Scientists, what sparked this shift?” This second online activity was held at 3 p.m., and has was attended by around thirty people.

The event was moderated by the head of the Equality Office, Consuelo León, and spotlighted the progress women have made in the field. Two scientists were also invited to speak: Mara Dierssen, neurobiologist and coordinator of the Neurobehavioral Phenotyping Group at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) and Mònica Roca, engineer, vice president of the Barcelona Chamber of Commerce and director of the isardSAT Group.

The celebrations on 11 February closed with the online seminar titled “Feeding your brain to bolster your memory”. This seminar, organised by the Department of Basic Sciences, outlined the impact different diets can have on general health and learning and memory processes. Participants were also able find to discover how effective these diets are for reducing cognitive decline associated with neurodegenerative diseases.

Some 25 attendees joined to event to hear Núria Amiel, holder of a diploma in human nutrition and dietetics, and Ruth Fadó, member of the Neurolypid Research Group and lecturer on the Bachelor’s Degree of Biomedical Sciences, discuss the stages in our lives in which we are most susceptible to the negative effects of diets, and whether they affect men and women in the same way.

In addition, this year, female scientists from UIC Barcelona took part in the third 100tífiques programme, organised by the Catalan Foundation for Research and Innovation. Yolanda de Roo, Begoña Bosch and Jenifer Olmos, all researchers at the Bioengineering Institute of Technology, have helped bridged the gap between science and students in their sixth year of primary school, by explaining their research and their personal and professional experiences.