"Everyone interacts with a doctor, ours is a job that nobody knows what it consists of"

BarcelonaWhen she was little, Maria Recasens, now 26, had many hobbies: in addition to school, she participated in the Lego robotics league, went to the hideout, went climbing and really liked reading and painting. She wanted to be an astronaut then and that's why she got into astronomy until a physics book fell into her hands. She found it so interesting that she set her mind to studying something that would allow her to understand it. Years later she graduated in physics at the University of Barcelona, ​​​​she has completed an interuniversity master's degree in quantum science and technology and has started a doctorate at the Institute of Photonic Sciences (ICFO). This career and everything she remembers thinking about science when she was little is what she shares this Tuesday in a talk at the Menéndez Pelayo Institute in Barcelona, ​​​​in front of 1st year ESO students. For the first time she has joined the #científicas program, which for seven years has brought science and research to schoolchildren.

Although he is only 26 years old, he is aware that research work is not known among teenagers starting secondary school. "Just as everyone interacts with a doctor, ours is a job that no one knows what it consists of," he explains. "I am going to explain to them what physics is, but above all I want them to see how I work," says Recasens. For this reason, he has prepared a presentation with many images of the lasers and mirrors they work with and the synchrotrons he has visited thanks to his academic career. "It seems that there is a barrier between the reality of teenagers and what I do," he explains: "I think they should see that doing science is possible and feasible and that you can get there without being exceptional."

With this objective, #científicas is giving more than 600 talks to 38,000 students on Tuesday, coinciding with the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, in a comprehensive programme that, in addition to going through educational centres, offers training to both female scientists, to prepare for the talks, and to teachers. This is important for awakening scientific vocations among girls.

Beyond the white coat

She had never had a clear vocation, but she did have a curiosity to learn about very different areas such as health and planetary well-being. Her concerns have pushed her to train in many different sectors and now, at 31 years old, she can say that she is dedicated to research. Ariadna Moreno is a project manager at the Centre for Studies in Planetary Well-being at Pompeu Fabra University (UPF), where she alternates research with a management aspect in which she can combine all her training: chemical engineering, a master's degree in industrial management and innovation and a master's degree in medical anthropology and global health that she is currently studying. She dedicates herself "for the satisfaction of being active and constantly evolving."

Shannon O'Brien also did not know that she would be a scientist because when she thought about science she related it to physics or biology and she was more interested in the world as a whole. She is from Oregon and has studied environmental science and gender studies, a cross-disciplinary education that has sparked her interest in inequalities on the planet and, above all, in research. "To make changes you have to do science, study and reach conclusions," explains Shannon. She landed in Barcelona to do the master's degree in global health at the UOC and from there she got the opportunity to carry out a project related to deforestation in Bolivia. "I got into science because of my love for nature and my knowledge of inequalities in the world," says the researcher.

Neither Ariadna nor Shannon, both researchers from the Barcelona Interdisciplinary Research Group on Planetary Health (BITAL), had clear role models when deciding their career path and, perhaps for that reason, they have been meeting without thinking about it. In their imagination, science was a much more specific field and they associated it with the image that has traditionally been given to it: a laboratory, a pipette and a microscope. For this reason, the international community dedicates a day to breaking stereotypes and to publicizing research work so that girls in particular can reflect on it.

Women scientists in perspective

For Ariadna, the desire to continue learning is what she likes most about dedicating herself to research and being part of the knowledge system, but at the same time it is a double-edged sword: she always feels that she needs more knowledge. She found that the discourse in her environment is that women do not feel "valid" and that merits "are not their own." For Ariadna, the self-demand is very high and she shares with other female researchers the feeling of exhaustion that arises from these established gender roles. Therefore, she places women's self-perception as the main limit to overcome by "reevaluating the belief system" that currently prevents women from reaching decision-making spaces.

This is the main problem detected by the Association of Women Researchers and Technologists, with a section in Catalonia, and regrets that in recent years no great advances have been made and that inequalities in the field of science continue to be great. She gives the example that only three of thirty research centres in Catalonia are run by women, even though there are more female researchers. For this reason, Azuzena Bardají, president of AMIT-Catalunya, believes that small actions must be carried out, such as commemorating 11 February, to make women visible and normalise them in science.