Final Postdoc Coffee of the Spring Trimester

The culturally responsive mentoring programme would like to thank UCD School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Sciences for hosting today’s rotating coffee morning for postdocs in the College of Science. Over the course of the 2 hours, around 25 postdocs dropped by to enjoy some light refreshments while networking with each other across the 7 schools in the college. This was the third and final coffee morning of the Spring Trimester, and it proved to be another great opportunity for making new connections and taking a well earned break.

We would also like to thank all of the postdocs who have attended these events, for showing up and helping to build a strong community of postdocs in the college. It is hoped that there will be more coffee mornings over the summer and into the next academic year, so keep an eye out on further announcements via your UCD email account – or subscribe to our events calendar to make sure you don’t miss out!

[Postponed] Empowerment Workshop with Dr Karen Kelsky from The Professor Is In

UPDATE: Unfortunately this event is being postponed to a later date due to illness. Please keep an eye on our website for the announcement of a new date soon.

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The Culturally Responsive Mentoring Initiative is delighted to invite Assistant Professors in the College of Science to a ‘once-off’ ‘Empowerment Workshop’ with Karen Kelsky, PhD – The Professor Is In.

Karen will be delivering her 2-hour workshop for College of Science Assistant Professors on Friday, 3rd May from 1:30 to 3:30 pm (in-person only). The ‘empowerment’ workshop will cover such areas as managing power dynamics and building confidence to address difficult topics – i.e. identifying sexual harassment (and its structural embeddedness within academia) and dealing with it both at individual and institutional scales, but also wider issues of women’s challenges in academia, and role-playing of methods of setting firm boundaries, recognising the wide range of disempowering situations, and learning to trust one’s own instincts.

We encourage those who identify as under-represented or minoritised in the College of Science to attend. Registration is required by completing the registration form. As spaces are limited, we will allocate them to those who identify as underrepresented or minoritised first.

A sandwich lunch will be offered from 12:30 – 1:15 pm before the workshop starts and I hope you will be able to join your colleagues there beforehand.

Postdoc Coffee for May

Are you a postdoc in the College of Science looking for to network and connect with other postdocs? Our next coffee morning for postdocs in the college will be taking place next week, so if you could do with some socializing with you peers over coffee then make sure to put this in your calendar!

The School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science are excited to host the May coffee morning, and will be looking forward to welcoming you to the Conway Institute from 10am until 12pm on Thursday 9 May. This is a great opportunity to meet postdocs from other schools, to chat about shared interests and potential collaborations.

No registration necessary! Just pop-by (with your keep-cup if you have one!) and enjoy this moment of the relief with colleagues as the end of the trimester draws closer!

School of Chemistry’s Postdoc Coffee

In March around 15 postdocs from across UCD College of Science made time in their morning to connect together over coffee and pastries for the third in our College of Science Postdoc Coffee morning 2023-24 rotating coffee series. The School of Chemistry did an excellent job at hosting the event, with refreshments provided by the Culturally Responsive Mentoring team.

The event gave postdocs an opportunity to meet over the UCD break period to celebrate St Patrick’s day and reflect on the successes of the spring trimester so far.

The next postdoc coffee morning will be hosted by the School of Biomolecular and Biomedical Science later in the trimester, so stay tuned for details to be confirmed soon.

UCD Women in Science Mentoring Awards

We are thrilled to report on the success of the first UCD College of Science Women in Science Mentoring Awards that took place on March 8th, International Women’s Day 2024. The initiative was organised by UCD College of Science’s Culturally Responsive Mentoring team, spearheaded by Vice President for Equality, Diversity, and Inclusion in the College of Science, Associate Professor Catherine Mooney, along with Dr Andrew McCartan from UCD School of Computer Science and Maeve O’Connell, Senior Project Officer in the College of Science.

The Women in Science Mentoring awards acknowledge mentors in the college whose efforts have fostered encouragement and support for women, girls, and other underrepresented individuals within the UCD College of Science community. A nominations process earlier in the year invited staff and students to nominate colleagues, mentors, teachers, and staff who had shown excellence in mentoring. In total, 21 certificates were awarded to the following winners:

The awards were presented to recipients during a special ceremony held on International Women’s Day in the O’Brien Centre for Science, which was beautifully decorated with purple and white balloons and bunting for the occasion. Associate Dean of Science and Associate Professor of Pharmacology & Toxicology, Tara McMorrow opened the ceremony with a rousing speech advocating for the inclusion and encouragement for success of women and girls in science, before handing out the certificates.

Students and staff from throughout the college gathered to celebrate the success of those receiving the awards. International Women’s day cakes and cupcakes were shared, along with tea and coffee. Finally, all award recipients were entered into a prize draw for a 50 euro one4all gift voucher.

March Postdoc Coffee Morning

Over the course of the trimester the College of Science EDI committee and Culturally Responsive Mentoring initiative are facilitating a rotating coffee morning for postdocs and research staff in the college, to take place roughly once a month.

The School of Chemistry is delighted to host next coffee morning for postdocs.

This will take place on Thursday 21st March from 10.30am-11.30am in the 2nd Floor Foyer of Science South.

Please come along and bring along other postdocs from your school. Looking forward to seeing many of you there.

Celebrating Rainbow Week in the College of Science

As part of UCD’s Rainbow Week 2024, UCD College of Science EDI and Culturally Responsive Mentoring collaborated with UCD EDI and the UCD EDI LGBTI Subgroup to host a celebratory coffee morning to show support and acceptance of LGBTI staff and students in the college.
We were delighted to be joined by Dr Niamh Nestor, co-chair of the UCD EDI LGBTI subgroup, and Prof Jeremy Simpson, College Principle, who both gave rousing speeches that spoke to the welcoming and inclusive culture UCD College of Science aims to foster in support of its LGBTI staff and students. Around 30 members of the college community were in attendance, and enjoyed delicious treats and goodies provided by the UCD EDI group. This included a delicious UCD Pride chocolate cake, and highly sought after UCD rainbow lanyards, and Pride pins!
Feedback from the event was extremely positive, and everyone agreed over the importance of such events to formally promote an accepting and supporting culture around sexuality and gender on campus. The event was one of several Rainbow Week events being organized across the UCD colleges, which you can find out more about on the UCD EDI webpage. The event also follows our own Pride celebration event that took place in the College of Science last summer. We will be holding another Pride celebration event this June in the college, so stay tuned for more information.
In the meantime, Culturally Responsive Mentoring in UCD College of Science will be hosting a coffee morning for International Women’s Day on Friday March 8th in Zone 9  (Top floor atrium, Science East) at 12noon-2pm. The event includes the launch of the UCD College of Science Women in Science Mentoring Awards, so if you have experienced or observed good mentoring of women in science please send us your nominations, and then join us on the 8th for more cake and celebrations.

International Women’s Day Event

International Women’s Day is a global day of celebration that takes place every year on 8th March to recognise the social, economic, cultural, and political achievements of women. The campaign theme for International Women’s Day 2024 is Inspire Inclusion, where everyone is invited to imagine a gender equal world that is free of bias, stereotypes, and discrimination. UCD College of Science is committed to creating a welcoming and supportive culture for all women, inclusive of all races, sexualities, ages, abilities, faiths and how they identify.

On March 8th we invite UCD community members to join us for an event to celebrate the achievements of women in the college, with cake and refreshments.

The event will also launch our ‘UCD College of Science Women in Science Mentoring Awards’. The UCD College of Science Women in Science Mentoring Awards recognizes mentors whose efforts have encouraged and supported women and/or girls, or other people who are currently underrepresented in the UCD College of Science. Mentoring efforts may be demonstrated in many ways and we leave it up to you to tell us why you have made this nomination.

If you have experienced or observed excellence in the mentoring of women in science, you can nominate someone to be recognised with an award by completing our online google form. Nominations will remain open until one week prior to the event.

Please help us to spread the word by sharing this event to your friends and colleagues in UCD. We look forward to seeing you on the 8th to celebrate International Women’s Day and the achievements of our wonderful mentors in the college!

Rainbow Week Coffee Morning

We are delighted to let you know that UCD College of Science is collaborating with UCD EDI and the UCD EDI LGBTI Subgroup to hold a coffee morning to celebrate rainbow week on campus. This is an excellent opportunity for our college to formally ‘come out’ in support of our LGBTI+ colleagues and students, and for students and staff to come together to promote an accepting and supporting culture around sexuality and gender on campus. Celebrating Pride affirms the value of LGBTI+ visibility, allyship, and inclusion in fostering UCD’s values of collegiality and diversity.
The coffee morning will take place on Thursday 22 February from 11.00am until 12.00noon in Zone 7 of Science East in the UCD O’Brien Centre for Science, which is the 2nd floor atrium by the staircase. There will be cake and refreshments, as well as fun pride goodies and speeches.
This is an opportunity to stand in solidarity with LGBTI+ people in Ireland against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia, and to expand dialogue between UCD community members for how we can foster greater inclusion of LGBTI+ employees and students.
Please help us promote the event by sharing our poster with students in the college, as well as your friends and colleagues at UCD.
We also hope to see you there!

Faculty Promotions Workshop

On Wednesday 7 February we held our second workshop on Faculty Promotions at UCD. 45 assistant professors from across the College of Science came together to demystify the faculty promotions committee and discuss advice and guidance for going through the faculty promotions process.

We were delighted to welcome Ms Sarah Dunne from UCD HR Promotions and Grading, who delivered a highly informative presentation outlining the administrative components of application process. Sarah has kindy shared her slides with us, which you can find here on our website.

We were also joined by Professor Danielle Clarke, aformer member of the Faculty Promotions Committee (FPC), who shared valuable insights into the function of the FPC in the application process, and offered useful advice for assistant professors thinking of applying for promotion soon.

Following the talks, attendees shared a sandwich lunch together, and everyone enjoyed the opportunity to network and socialize with other assistant professors in the College of Science. Sarah and Danielle kindly stayed to answer questions, and we are grateful that they were so generous with their time.