“It is my hope that the 2020 For Women in Science fellows will help guide each other and serve as leaders and role models in their fields until female scientists are so prevalent that we equalize opportunity at all levels of achievement,” says Aparna Bhaduri, Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Neurology, and 2019 honoree, in this week’s media release about the 2020 fellows. (The L’Oreal Women in Science fellowship and grant program is formally known as the For Women In Science program, making honorees FWIS Fellows.)
"The L'Oréal USA For Women in Science fellowship,” says Bhaduri, “has been incredible in supporting my transition to independence in my work, which is focused on brain cancer, its treatment, and increasing the survival rate. It has given me the confidence to take professional risks and supported the jumpstart of my new lab, which is opening early next year.”
L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Awards is a global philanthropy
The US FWIS Fellowship is just a part of the beauty maker’s larger, global program recognizing and funding women scientists. Since the initiative launched in 1998 in partnership with UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), more than 3,400 scientists from some 116 countries have been a part of the program. And grants are given to women in 54 regional and/or national programs annually.
Early this year, FWIS named the 2020 global laureates and granted each €100,000:
- Professor Abla Mehio Sibai, Medicine and Health sciences, Professor of Epidemiology, Faculty of Health Sciences, American University of Beirut, Lebanon
- Doctor Firdausi Qadri, Biological sciences, Senior Scientist, Head Mucosal Immunology and Vaccinology Unit, Infectious Diseases Division, International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease and Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh
- Professor Edith Heard, Biological sciences, Director General of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Chair of Epigenetics and Cellular Memory at the Collège de France, Paris, France, and former Director of the Genetics and Developmental Biology Unit at the Institut Curie, Fellow of the Royal Society (UK)
- Professor Esperanza Martínez-Romero, Ecology and Environmental sciences, Professor of Environmental Science at the Genomic Science Center of the National Autonomous University of Mexico, Mexico City, Mexico
- Professor Kristi Anseth, Biological sciences, Distinguished Professor, Tisone Professor and Associate Professor of Surgery at the University of Colorado, Boulder, United States of America
L’Oréal announces the 2020 US FWIS honorees
On Monday, L’Oreal USA announced the 2020 FWIS fellows for the US regional program, each receiving a $60,000 for their research.
“At a time in which we are constantly reminded of the importance of science, it is all the more critical to be supporting the representation of women in STEM,” says Danielle Azoulay, Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility & Sustainability at L’Oréal USA, in her remarks to the press.
“L’Oréal USA’s 2020 For Women in Science Fellows represent a depth of expertise across the scientific spectrum, and we are inspired by the world-changing work they are doing,” she says.
The US-based honorees are:
- Cara Brook, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California-Berkeley
- Wendy Brown, a postdoctoral researcher studying the field of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California – Irvine
- Kayla Nguyen, a postdoctoral researcher studying the field of Physics and Material Science and Engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
- Nancy Padilla-Coreano, a postdoctoral researcher studying the field of Systems Neurobiology at The Salk Institute of Biological Studies in San Diego
- Silvania da Silva Teixeira, a postdoctoral researcher studying metabolic diseases at the University of Colorado
