ISSUE NO. 4 | AUGUST 2020
WiE - UC Newsletter IEEE Student Branch of the UC - Women in Engineering Affinity Group
ISSUE NO. 4 | AUGUST 2020
IEEE Interviews Sofia Prazeres Sofia Prazeres was born in Valença do Minho, Portugal. When she was eighteen, she moved to Coimbra where she became a Biomedical Engineer after five years. Her first job experience was abroad as a researcher in the University of Alcalá (Madrid, Spain). Now, she is living in Dubai where she is looking for new challenges. 1. What did you want to do when you were at school? Did you ever imagine yourself as a researcher, working in a lab and performing "crazy” experiments? Since I was a child my dream was to be a scientist. Actually, I used to say I wanted to discover “life’s formula". And here I am, a Biomedical Engineer trying to discover something that can improve people’s health. 2. Biomedical Engineering is an interdisciplinary major, where students are required to be extremely versatile and excel in different scientific areas. Did you ever felt any self-doubt during your journey? Yes, just because sometimes it was difficult to understand the connection between all subjects studied. Though I never doubted it about the course, my choice was also based on the importance of understanding the job of an engineer and at the same time understanding the job of a physician as also the job of a chemist and how they are related to each other. 3. As a Marie Curie Scholarship student, what would you say were the most challenging aspects? And the most gratifying? The most challenging aspect was to work in different countries with people from all over the world. Being able to build a good teamwork with people with different backgrounds stills represents a big challenge to me.
As a scientist, the most gratifying moment was when I published my first article in a scientific international journal. 4. Part of the program required that you moved to Spain and France to pursue your research. Tell us a bit about this international experience.
In France, I worked with a very demanding teacher who taught me a lot. Moreover, in France people worked based on an established timetable which was very different from Spain where I was able to build my own schedule on a daily basis based on the tasks I had to do on that day. It was also very interesting to find that the working methods were so different between these two places. This project allowed me to make new friendships all over Europe. 5. What did a typical day in your laboratory involve? What was the most exciting thing and how did you handle unexpected situations? What did you learn that you couldn't have learned in a classroom? Normally, I used to draw a scheme about all the tasks I needed to perform. After that, I used to go to the lab to do the experiments. And finally, the data collected was analysed using a specific program.
ISSUE NO. 4 | AUGUST 2020
The most exciting thing was the moment where I was able to fully understand the data I was collecting because at a very beginning I faced my biggest challenge which was trying to understand all the information. During this project, I was able to develop new skills in the lab such as the ability to create something from the very beginning, to work independently, to develop new personal skills like self-motivation and perseverance. 6. What would you say to girls in college who may be considering Engineering as a career choice? I want to emphasize that your career should be chosen taking into consideration what you really like to study and where you see yourself in
in the future. If you want to be an Engineer, you should not try to be anything else based on better marks, social and parents’ pressure or even if in your country there are simply not a lot of female engineers. If it is your dream to be an Engineer, just do it. 7. We're heard that you are the number one fan of Mr. Been, is that true? What's your favorite episode? Yes, ah ah. I really feel relaxed every time I watch that silly British man. I am simply amazed by the fact you don’t need to talk to make someone laugh. For me, it works like a therapy. My favourite episode is when he fell down from a pool jumping board and he lost his shorts.
Her legacy, now more than ever, will forever be cherished.
Miriam Santos
Achievement DIANA PRISCILA PIRES
Every year L’Oreal promotes four women in science for their remarkable studies and investigations. This year, Diana Priscila Pires was one of the premiered. Diana Pires is part of the Biological Engineering Center, at the University of Minho, where she works with bacterial viruses that are none lethal to the human race, but that can infect noxious bacteria, known as bacteriophages. Her investigation consists on using these bacteriophages as a “weapon” against P. aeruginosa, a bacteria that is resistant to antibiotics and associated with hospital infections and which WHO (World Health Organization) has already considered a risk to public health. Therefore, Diana’s main goal is to use this weapon has a tool, by manipulating the genomes of the bacteri countries,
SOURCE: FCT NEWS
bacteriophages in order to improve antibacterial features. If the results vitro are promising, they can then tested in vivo in lab animals to verify efficiency.
its in be its
This investigation may revolutionize the use of antibiotics, since the resistance to this medication is becoming a major problem, so this alternative therapy can be a groundbreaking solution.
Eva Anjo
ISSUE NO. 4 | AUGUST 2020
Biography CAROL SHAW The first professional female video game developer Carol Shaw, born on January 1st, 1955, was raised in Palo Alto, California, in a house filled of technology. Since her father was a mechanical engineer at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, she spent much of her childhood playing with model trains, building sets and other things that stimulate her young mind. Shaw blossomed into a gifted mathematician at an early age and in high school found a love for computers as well. In the 1970s, she attended the University of California, Berkeley, for both her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science respectively, when there were few women in the field. In 1978, she moved directly from college to work in video games for her first employer, Atari, becoming the first professional female video game developer. She worked on several games for the company’s VCS console (later renamed the 2600) including Polo, Video Checkers and Super Breakout. In 1980, Shaw’s 3D game Tic-TacToe became the first commercially released video game designed by a woman. A few years later, in 1982, she left Atari and took a 16-month position at Tandem before being recruited by Activision where she was again the first female designer. Also in 1982, Shaw created the game River Raid, a title almost universally regarded as a masterpiece of game design for the Atari 2600 console.
SOURCE: CICE.ES
River Raid ended up being a huge hit for Activision selling over a million copies and it also received praise from critics across the board and garnered a couple of awards including Inforworld’s Best Action Game and Best Atari 8bit Game of the Year. Shaw also wrote Happy Trails for the Intellivision and ported River Raid to the Atari 8-bit family and Atari 5200. Shaw left Activision in 1984 and from 1984 to 1990 worked at her former employer, Tandem. She retired in 1990 and subsequently did some voluntary work including a position at the Foresight Institute. She has credited the success of River Raid as being a significant factor in enabling her to retire early. Shaw lives in California and has been married to Ralph Merkle, a researcher in cryptography and nanotechnology, since 1983. She was recently awarded the “Industry Icon” honour at The Game Awards 2017. Although her early retirement in 1990, her influence has radiated out to all parts of the industry and has inspired many women over the decades to pursue careers in game development, not just for breaking ground among female game developers but also for bringing woman in the industry out of the shadows of her male colleagues and into the spotlight.
Her legacy, now more than ever, will forever be cherished.
Rita Mendes
Curiosity of the month... By Beatriz Negromonte
The first woman mathematician, astronomer and philosopher was Hypatia of Alexandria (born around 355 AD). She was responsible for works in geometry and algebra, and also contributed to create physical instruments used in astronomy or physics (such as astrolabes and hydrometers). She was also greatly respected for her work as a philosophy teacher and lecturer, being even an heroine to Voltaire and an inspiration to Charles Kingsman.
Fictional portrait of Hypatia by Jules Maurice Gaspard, 1908