On November 4th, She is Science, an artistic and educational exhibition about twelve prominent Ukrainian female scientists, which inspires girls to follow a scientist career, was opened in the Consulate General of Ukraine in San Francisco. The opening took place within the framework of the official reception on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Independence of Ukraine.
SHE is SCIENCE is an educational art project, organized by STEM is FEM with the support of the international organizations UN Women in Ukraine and the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) in Ukraine. The project is part of the UN Women's campaign “Generation of Equality” which promotes gender parity among young people and provides women's leadership in technology and innovation. The Consulate General is grateful for the support extended by the Ukrainian American Coordinating Council in organizing the exhibition in San Francisco.
The project aims to correct the unfair diminishing of women's contribution to the development of world science and encourage girls to become scientists by providing them with successful role models. The twelve heroines of the exhibition are biologists, mathematicians, physicists, and other scientists. The exhibition features a collection of stylized portraits of the scientists. They were created by the leading Ukrainian illustrators, including Sergiy Maidukov, whose illustrations were published in La Times, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and other American outlets.
“Promoting gender equality in science is very important for any country. It has long been proved that gender balance in any field leads to positive advances. Role models are the best way to encourage young people,” Dmytro Kushneruk, the Consul General of Ukraine in San Francisco, emphasized.
Captions to the portraits became a special feature of the exhibition. They were written by girls aged 14-21 and chosen as the best in the All-Ukrainian essay competition.
“The United States has always been one of the countries which most actively promotes gender equality. It is also a country that has a history of unfairly non-recognition of female scientists for a long time. For example, the life story of Miriam Menkin. This scientist made a breakthrough in reproductive medicine, she became the first to achieve in vitro fertilization. But for a long time, this merit was attributed exclusively to John Year, her supervisor,” Sergey Tokarev, the initiator of the exhibition She is Science and a founder of the technology company Roosh, noted.