Building Inclusive Communities Seminar Series: Keynote speaker Prasha Sarwate Dutra
September 24, 2020
New England GWiSE hosted the first seminar of our 2020-2021 virtual speaker series, “Building Inclusive Communities,” with Prasha Sarwate Dutra! The series features a guest speaker each month to discuss the roles that we can play on our campuses to make learning and research more inclusive for everyone.
The seminar started off with a brief introduction from Michelle Sugimoto, who is currently serving as professional development chair for NE GWiSE. She passed the (virtual) mic to Prasha, who talked us through her background and how she became such a powerful voice in the women in STEM worldwide community. She shared a poignant story about her marriage ceremony, where she was joined and supported by close friends from around the world that were all women with solid careers in STEM disciplines such as Cisco, Unilever, and Amgen. She then discussed her feelings at the time about her own job working as an engineer at Rhode Island; at the time, she felt lonely and isolated with no one that she felt she could relate to in her workplace. After seeing her friends join her for the wedding, she had a thought: “If I can find people who look like me, maybe they can help me see myself succeeding in STEM.” With this realization, she implored the audience to consider our existing communities, and whether we see ourselves succeeding in STEM careers. We need to feel included in order to be successful – an idea that she then explored throughout the remainder of her talk, as she highlighted the meaning of inclusion and its necessity in building communities. After her talk, she answered questions from the audience about how to have empathy and respect for others that don’t share your same views, the importance of sincerity, and the strength that comes from creativity in science.
About the Speaker
Prasha Sarwate Dutra (she/her/hers) moved to the US from India in 2012 to pursue her Masters in Mechanical Engineering. She has a Bachelors in Chemical Engineering. She has been working in the manufacturing industry for the last 5 years and has been a manager for the last 2 years. In 2017, after working on an all female engineer team, Prasha wondered why no one was sharing the amazing stories of the women in STEM that surrounded her at work and in her personal life. As a result, she started Her STEM Story – a weekly podcast where she interviews women in STEM from around the world. In the last two years, she has interviewed 125 women in STEM, created a community of 10,000 women from around the world, and has given a recent TED talk on her work bringing women together. She loves podcasting, public speaking, coaching women in STEM & creating valuable content to empower women!
If you are interested in hearing more from Prasha, here are some suggested episodes of Her STEM Story:
Ep 80- What Not To Do In Your STEM Careers
