WiE-UC May Newsletter

ISSUE NO. 13 | MAY 2021

WiE - UC Newsletter IEEE Student Branch of the UC - Women in Engineering Affinity Group

ISSUE NO. 13 | MAY 2021

IEEE WiE interviews Filipa Borges Filipa Borges has a degree in Engineering Physics, with a MsC and a PhD in Technological Physics, from University of Coimbra. She is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Coimbra and the coordinator of the Engineering Physics course. She is also a researcher at Laboratory of Instrumentation and Experimental Particle Physics and has been a thesis supervisor to several MsC and PhD students.

1. When you started college, what were your expectations? Was research already in your plans?

When I entered college, as most new students, I believe, I was not very sure of what I wanted to do afterwards. I liked Physics and Maths, but felt that I wanted a more applied job, so I chose Engineering Physics, a course that was new in Coimbra at that time. My course was the 3rd edition of it in Coimbra. Research could be one of the options, but going to the industry was also a possibility at that time.

2. How did you become a Professor? Was it something you had thought of??

In the last year of my course in Engineering Physics we had to make a research project, that was usually in a laboratory of the Physics Department. I chose to do this project at GIAN (Grupo de Instrumentação Atómica e Nuclear) and I got engaged with the subject of radiation detection. So, at the end of the project, when I was asked by the responsible for the group at that time, Prof.

Carlos Conde, to continue my studies for a Master Degree with a scholarship from FCT, I accepted. Then I moved to the PhD and ended as Professor in the Physics Department.

3. Can you tell us a little bit about what you usually do on a work day? What do you love the most about what you do?

And why?

In my working days there is not a rigid routine and that’s what I like most about my job, really. The fact that the time has to be spent on several fronts, like preparing lessons, teaching, investigation, student orientation and nowadays in the issues of the coordination of the course, each day is usually different from the other. From these .

different fronts, I would say that what I like the most is to teach and also to study about a subject that we are exploring at the lab, when the results do not go as expected and we have to try to understand what is happening. Both issues are very challenging, each in a different way, and they complement each other very well.

4. As an author/ co-author of several articles, do you have one that you particularly liked to write?

ISSUE NO. 13 | MAY 2021

I believe that the article that struck me the most was the first one that I wrote, still as a student in the last year of my course. I also presented it in an International Conference at the USA, and I still remember the first phrase of the presentation, almost 30 years after!

5. Have you ever felt misplaced or discriminated against for being a woman during your career or student years? What was the biggest challenge you have faced as a woman in science?

I don’t think I ever felt discriminated, neither as a student nor in my career, but on the other hand I never felt the support that I believe young women, namely those with a family life and small children should have.

When I had my three kids at small ages, it was difficult for me to compete with some of my colleagues, with their availability to go abroad for long periods, to spend more time at the lab, which was surely different from mine.

I believe that the biggest challenge I had in my career was trying to be a present mother to my children and at the same time a skilled professor and investigator. I was not discriminated, but I did not have any special support either and I feel that some opportunities were left behind and were difficult to recover.

6. What is the best advice you have ever received? What would you say to a young woman in the beginning of her career in science?

The best advice I was given was that I should be prepared to fail and that I should not discourage when this happened. Science is not as predictable as one might expect when we study its laws, so simple and tidy. To get the laws to that shape, a lot of wrong steps were made, and we usually don’t hear about those.

So, to be prepared for this process would be the advice I would give to a young scientist.

7. Who is your biggest inspiration?

As a woman in science, I believe that one of my biggest inspirations is Marie Curie, a woman physicist that stood out in a men’s world. A great achievement, even greater at

that time, showing that women are as capable as men in science. My admiration for her started long before deciding to come to this area, but I believe it may have influenced me in my choice.

In other fields I have more closer inspirations, my Parents being my biggest inspiration in the family context.

8. What are your prospects for the future?

This is indeed the most difficult question. I would like to continue studying and teaching and to be able to supervise more students towards their master and PhD degrees, introducing them to their investigation career.

I would also like to continue my participation in the International Collaboration NEXT, that aims at detecting the neutrinoless double beta decay, an hypothetical rare event that, if detected, would prove that neutrinos are Majorana particles. This would imply some important changes in the Standard Model, the actually accepted model for the physical particles and their interactions. So it would be an important contribute to physics, in which of course any scientist would like to be involved!

The involvement in other national or international collaborations, within the area of gas radiation detectors, is also something that I aim for, for the challenge that these collaborations allow.

Finally, as a bit of humor…

9. What was the funniest paper title you have ever seen?

I don’t remember any funny paper title, but I do remember a funny author of a paper!

F.D.C. Willard co-authored with J. H. Hetherington, an article at the Physical Review, a very well-known journal in physics, in 1975.

A little more information about F.D.C. Willard will reveal that F.D. stands for felis domesticus and Chester Willard was the name of Jack.H. Hetherington’s Siamese cat!

So a cat was co-author of a scientific reviewed paper, published in an important scientific journal!!

ISSUE NO. 13 | MAY 2021

This happened because J.H. Hetherington submitted his article to this journal as a single author, but wrote it in the 1st person of the plural. The journal insisted that he should revise the whole text and write it in the 1st person, singular. He preferred to .

add a co-author, and so his cat became a famous scientist :-D

Filipa Moreira

Achievement FLORBELA COSTA

Florbela Costa is a Portuguese Aeronautical Engineer (from University of Beira Interior, Portugal), working for Maxon Group, Switzerland. Due to her work on Maxon Motors, she is also part of NASA's Mars 2020 project - a project that intends to search for signs of ancient microbial life on Mars. The Ingenuity Helicopter is the differentiating element of this mission, since it is the first aircraft to attempt powered and controlled flight on another planet. Florbela Costa was part of the team that developed the six engines that control the movements of the engine blades.

Male-female equality is also a concern of Florbela, whose work as project manager is proof that females can achieve top-level roles on the job market.

SOURCE: CAPMAGELLAN.COM

Carolina Travassos

ISSUE NO. 13 | MAY 2021

Biography MARIA DE LURDES PINTASSILGO Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo, born on the 18th of January in 1930, was an engineer and is best known for her role in feminist movements and for being the first and only women to be prime minister in Portugal.

From an early age she was connected to feminist and student movements, taking leadership of various associations and entities. At 12 years old she was already a part of the “Movimento Feminino Português” (Portuguese Feminine Movement) at her school.

She entered IST (Technical Institute) in 1947 to take her degree in industrialchemical engineering being one of the only 3 girls in her class and one of the few women who chose engineering at the time.

She graduated in 1953 and proceeded her path in Holland where in 1961 she fully dedicated herself to a religious movement called “Chamamento Geral” (General Calling).

Two years after returning to Portugal in 1969, she was asked to represent the country at ONU. Maria de Lurdes was an enthusiast of the April revolution that happened in 1974 and represented the change of the political regime in Portugal.

After the revolution, she played the part of state secretary, ambassador of the country at UNESCO and minister of social business.

Later on, she was chosen as the prime minister of Portugal by the president and became the only woman in Portugal to ever have that role in politics.

In 1983 Maria de Lurdes founded Movimento para o Aprofundamento da Democracia, MAD (Movement to the deepening of Democracy). Two years later she was a candidate for the presidency of .

SOURCE: CIG.GOV.PT

Portugal but was defeated in the first election’s round. After the defeat, she dedicated herself to political thoughts without being attached to any party and to the intervention at catholic movements.

She passed away in Lisbon in 2004 having published several books, articles and reports besides an extensive number of publications in papers and magazines.

Most of her written work is about the important role of women in evolution, in culture and in politics and about the renovation of political theory, practices, spirituality and Christian compromise.

On the 13th year after her death, Maria de Lurdes was honored with a monument made by the sculptor Rui Pereira who said that the monument called “Eu e nós” (I and us) was about sturdiness, which was something that she showed during her life.

Besides that, she didn’t separate the “I” from the “Us” which shows her dedication to others.

The IST also created in 2016 the “Prémio Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo” (The Maria de Lurdes Pintassilgo Award) because of her impact on the Portuguese society and as a way to promote gender equality at IST and acknowledge the crucial play women have in all the Engineering areas.

Rita Manco

ISSUE NO. 13 | MAY 2021

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ISSUE NO. 13 | MAY 2021

Curiosity of the month...

We all have heard of Valentina Tereshkova, the first woman to go to space, but what we don´t know is that she didn't follow the normal route of an astronaut. Coming from a working-class family, she had to drop out of school at the age of 16 to help her family. Years later, at the age of 22, Tereshkova entered a parachuting school in her region and only 2 years later she was chosen to go on a mission to space due to her experience as a parachutist and the fact that she belonged to the communist party (a very important fact for Russian government). Then, Valentina Tereshkova became the first woman to go to space and it was a great victory for her and for the Russian people.

After her first trip to space, Tereshkova never returned, but she continued in the space program and supported the presence of women in science.

SOURCE: WIKIPEDIA.ORG

Today, over 80 years old, she still loves space and astronomy and dreams to be part of the group that will colonize Mars.

Rita Bernardo

DOWN 1. WiE's color.

2. Eugénia ___, a previous interviewee featured on this Newsletter (March 2021 edition).

3. “Hidden ___”, the title of the film discussed in a previous WiE Talk.

4. ___ Lovelace, an English mathematician and one of the first computer programmers.

5. Marie ___, first women to win a Nobel prize, who did groundbreaking research on radioactivity.

ACROSS 6. Affinity ___ , what WiE is within IEEE. 7. ___ 8th, International Women's Day. 8. ___ Pereira, SB-UC WiE Chair.

9. ___ Discrimination Day, celebrated worldwide on March 1st.

10. Beatriz ___, a regular speaker on SB-UC WiE's events, who can always make everyone laugh.