Mission Statement
Our goal is to provide professional and personal development support specific to women who want to pursue advanced careers in science and industry, and to support and advocate for women postdocs in all aspects of their professional training at MIT.
POWER also provides a platform for the post-doctoral candidates to interact and develop professional connections, through various socio-cultural activities.
Please join us in creating an inviting and enriching environment to address women’s needs, represent postdoctoral women at MIT functions, and plug-in to relevant professional resources!
Stay informed
For any update on our events and initiatives go to our new website!
Join our mailing list, checkout our website, and follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on events.
- Join our mailing list
- Follow us on Twitter @MIT_POWER
- E-mail the board members at power-board@mit.edu if you have any questions/suggestions for POWER or want to be involved in the planning team.
- Join our slack channels
Upcoming Events
Growing your leadership competencies as women in science
When leadership is involved, what works for men might not work for women.
Learn more about inclusive leadership, conflict avoidance and resolution, and how to improve your leadership competencies as women in science by joining us and our speaker Angeliki Diane Rigos for the first POWER (Postdoctoral Organization for Women Engaged in Research) in-person seminar of the academic year.
Please register here. MIT requires that all attendants provide name and contact information for contact-tracing purposes.
Financial Planning Webinars
Speakers : Alicia Andre, certified financial advisor, and Lindsay Pazdan, certified financial advisors, from Morgan Stanley
Join us May 13th 12pm for an introduction to Financial Planning specially designed for MIT women postdocs, from professional financial advisors.
Speaker bios and disclosure: here
————————-
Resources
Networking and Community
POWER slack group : Join our slack channels to meet our community of women postdocs, share experiences and resources, learn about events, plan a coffee break or social meet-up … mitpower.slack.com
Women@MIT : MIT Libraries
ICEO : Institute Community &Equity Office
Professional Development
CAPD : Career Advising & Professional Development
WISDM : MIT Women in Innovation and Stem Database initiative
Personal Development
Work& Life : MIT Center for WorkLife and Well Being
Wellness : Community Wellness at MIT Medical
Advocacy, society, policy
WAG : Women’s Advisory Group
WGS : MIT Program in Women’s & Gender Studies
Past Events
MIT Center for WorkLife and WellBeing Overview.
Speaker : Elizabeth Guttenberg, LCSW | Program Manager
Join us for a presentation by the MIT Center for WorkLife and WellBeing and learn about the comprehensive services and benefits that can help support female postdocs during their time at MIT. Topics include:
- Emotional Health and Well-Being
- Financial and Legal Issues
- Parenting Children of All Ages
- Child Care and Schools
- Planning and Paying for College
- Student Loan Repayment Strategies
- Adult and Senior Care
————————-
Tue April 6th, 4pm
POWER Social Kick-off
After a several years long hiatus, MIT POWER (Postdoctoral Women Engaged in Research) is back.We are pleased to restart our activities with a virtual kick-off event to be hosted on congregate.live on April 6th at 4 pm. Join us if you’re interested in learning more about what POWER can do for you, and connecting with other women postdocs at MIT.
————————-
“Career Paths: Dr. Charmaine Demanuele, Associate Director of Biostatistics, Early Clinical Development, Neuroscience at Pfizer”
Tuesday, June 19, 2018 at 3-4pm
POWER’s professional career development seminars focus on the speaker’s personal experiences, insights into their current work, as well as work-life integration issues. Dr. Demanuele will discuss what has contributed to her success, the challenges she has overcome, and advice for current postdocs. We hope that the interactions will assist postdocs in navigating their careers and will also help them build professional connections.
Speaker bio:
Dr. Demanuele received her B.Eng from University of Malta in Electrical Engineering in 2006. She then pursued her doctoral studies at University of Southampton in Neural Engineering, Neural Science, and Psychology. After completing her dissertation in 2010, she became a postdoctoral researcher at the Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Heidelberg-Mannheim. In 2013 she became a postdoctoral research fellow in Psychiatric Neuroimaging at Harvard Medical School. She was an Insight Health Data Science Fellow in 2016 and became a Data Scientist at Biogen. She is now the Associate Director of Biostatistics, Early Clinical Development, Neuroscience at Pfizer.
“Career Paths: Dr. Jessica Goodmann, Director of Corporate Alliances at Harvard University”
Friday, May 18, 2018 at 3-4pm
POWER’s professional career development seminars focus on the speaker’s personal experiences, insights into their current work, as well as work-life integration issues. Dr. Goodman will discuss what has contributed to her success, the challenges she has overcome, and advice for current postdocs. We hope that the interactions will assist postdocs in navigating their careers and will also help them build professional connections.
Speaker bio:
Dr. Goodmann leads the Corporate Alliances team at Harvard’s Office of Technology Development (OTD). Harvard’s Corporate Alliances team is dedicated to maximizing the value of research alliances by facilitating productive relationships between the faculty at Harvard and partners in Industry. Prior to joining Harvard in 2016, Jessica was a Scientist in the Neurology Department at Biogen where she developed cell-based assays to understand disease mechanisms in Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Jessica also worked as a Senior Program Officer at Prize4Life, a non-profit dedicated to accelerating the discovery of a cure for ALS. Jessica was a NIH NRSA postdoctoral fellow at the Whitehead Institute where she used yeast to study neurodegenerative diseases. Jessica received her B.S. in Biochemistry from Nazareth College of Rochester and her Ph.D. in Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry from Yale University.
“Coffee & Conversations – Hosted by POWER”
May 2, 2018
Coffee & Conversations is a socio-cultural event organized by POWER and advertised by the PDA’s Human Affairs Office. The event was attended by about 25-30 people, allowing postdoc women to network across departments over coffee and refreshments.
“POWER BBQ 2017”
Sponsored by the MIT Postdoc Association (PDA) Posdoc Initiative Grant (PInG)
August 11, 2017
POWER BBQ 2017 is a socio-cultural event organized by POWER. The event was attended by about 30-35 people, which included post-docs, their families, and friends.
“Career Paths: Dr. Anne Bothmer, Scientist at Editas Medicine”
Sponsored by the MIT Postdoc Association (PDA) Posdoc Initiative Grant (PInG)
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
POWER’s professional career development seminars focus on the speaker’s personal experiences, insights into their current work, as well as work-life integration issues. Dr. Bothmer will discuss what has contributed to her success, the challenges she has overcome, and advice for current postdocs. We hope that the interactions will assist women postdocs in navigating their careers and will also help them build the professional connections.
Speaker bio:
Dr. Bothmer received her B.Sc. from Worcester Polytechnic Institute in physics in 2006. She then pursued her doctoral studies at The Rockefeller University in the lab of Dr. Michel Nussenzweig studying DNA repair processes in the context of immune diversification reactions. After completing her dissertation in 2011, she joined the lab of Dr. Pier Paolo Pandolfi as a Damon Runyon fellow exploring the role of non-coding RNA in cancer. Dr. Bothmer joined Editas Medicine in 2015 as a DNA repair scientist. At Editas Medicine, Dr. Bothmer is investigating the DNA damage and repair implications and optimizations with regard to therapeutic use of the CRISPR/Cas9 system.
“Solo Travel 101”
at Graduate Women at MIT’s Empowerment Conference, in collaboration with Graduate Women at MIT (GWAMIT).
Sponsor: Committee on Race and Diversity
April 10, 2017
The Solo Travel 101 Panel consisted of Brienne Miers (Blogger & Writer, A Traveling Life), Beth Santos (Founder & CEO of Wanderful) and Danielle Giannone (Owner of Brave Explorer Coaching) and was moderated by Dina Tsukrov (MIT postdoc). Wanderful is a premier women’s travel community and a global homesharing network for women (https://www.sheswanderful.com/). The panelists talked about their travel experiences and took questions from the audience. Here are a few helpful tips from the panelists:
- Know where you are going. Read about the places you are going to on websites like tripadvisor. It helps to know a local person who can give provide advice regarding the local accommodation, most affordable area, sightseeing tips etc.
- When traveling in non-English speaking countries, write the location of the hotel in native language (take help from hotel front desk) so that it will be easier to navigate and get directions from the locals if lost.
- Scan all documents on phone. Never carry passport on sight seeing. Have multiple options to access money during travels. Use travel bra and anti-theft bags to keep your valuables safe.
- Travel with a first-aid kit. Learn some basic first-aid and be up to date on vaccinations required in the country you are traveling to.
- Observe the culture of a new country and respect the culture and the customs
(Top image L to R) Dina Tsukrov (moderator, MIT postdoc), Brienne Miers (Blogger & Writer, A Traveling Life), Beth Santos (Founder & CEO of Wanderful) and Danielle Giannone (Owner of Brave Explorer Coaching)
“Succeeding in Male-Dominated Fields: Panel”
at Graduate Women at MIT’s Annual Leadership Conference, in collaboration with Graduate Women at MIT (GWAMIT).
Sponsor: Committee on Race and Diversity
October 25, 2016
The panel consisted of Dr. Paulina Hill (Principal at Polaris Partner), Jenny Oliver (Scientific Diver for Department of Conservation), Dr. Barbara Fox (CEO of Tilos Therapeutics), Dr. Maureen Boyce (Founding Parter at Good Growth Capital), Beth Bauman (an accomplished Product Development and Operational Excellence Professional) and was moderated by Dr. Nabia Shalaby (repeat entrepreneur and business executive). The event was attended by about 30 students and postdocs at MIT. The panel gave their perspective regarding diversity in their respective fields and took questions from the audience. Here are a few interesting takeaways from the panelists.
Listen to yourself and figure out what your priorities are. – Nadia Shalaby
Be prepared to fail. Pick yourself up and keep going. Be persistent and have some confidence in yourself. Half of it is mind games. Don’t be plagued by self-doubt. – Barbara Fox
Be the best. – Beth Bauman
Be clear on your big why. Give yourself the tools you need to become confident and strong. – Jenny Oliver
Don’t blame yourself and don’t internalize. Seek out women mentors. – Maureen Boyce
Don’t take it personally. Figure out some sort of strategy. Push back. Be yourself. Find out what you like and stay true to that. Be aware of unconscious biases and impostor syndrome and pretend on a day to day basis to have nothing to do with it. – Paulina Hill
“POWER BBQ”
Sponsor: Committee on Race and Diversity
Category: Diversity & Inclusion
July 21, 2016
POWER BBQ is the second socio-cultural event organized by POWER. The event was attended by about 25-30 people, which included post-docs, their families, and friends. Along with the delicious food, a few games, such as Find Your Match and volleyball were held during the BBQ to promote social networking. Special thanks to the PDA for their help in promoting the event and leasing a few BBQ essentials.
“Life as a Scientific Editor: Gender Equity in Publishing”
Seminar by Dr. Allyson Evans, Senior Scientific Editor at Molecular Cell
Sponsor: Committee on Race and Diversity , Category: Diversity & Inclusion
Organized as a part of GW@MIT’s 2016 Spring Empowerment Conference.
Thursday April 14th
The seminar, ‘Life as a Scientific Editor’, was organized by POWER as a part of GW@MIT, Spring Empowerment Conference. The main theme of the Spring Empowerment conference was ‘Be Gutsy’. Dr. Evans is a Senior Scientific Editor at Molecular Cell.
Dr. Evans spoke about choosing a career as a scientific editor and provided insight into the responsibilities of the role. The role of Scientific Editors is to improve the peer review process and develop special issues of the trending research topics. As a Scientific Editor it is also important to attend conferences and organize conferences and keep in touch with the latest scientific developments in the field. Being a Scientific Editor is intellectually rigorous and constantly challenging. On the downside, it is a desk job and one should have a basic knowledge of several disciplines, which does not give opportunity to do in-depth research on one specific topic.
Dr. Evans also spoke about how to integrate work and life and the facilities at Molecular cell for new mothers. These facilities were made possible by requests of a group of Gutsy women. Dr. Evans referred to the website, crosstalk.cell.com, a blog by CellPress, which highlights the latest scientific developments and also gender disparity issues.
“Seminar by Prof. Kristala L. Jones Prather”
Theodore T. Miller Associate Professor of Chemical Engineering at MIT
Sponsor: Committee on Race and Diversity
Category: Diversity & Inclusion
March 1st, 2016
The seminar by Prof. Prather was organized on March 1st , at noon. Prof. Prather provided insights into her current work, discussed about what contributed to her success and the challenges she has overcome. Prof. Prather also gave advice about how to be successful in Academia and how to integrate work and life. Prof. Prather’s spoke for about half an hour and later answered the queries from the audience. The seminar was attended by about 35 people. The insights by Prof. Prather and the questions from the audience made the session lively and engaging.
“Pizza and Movie Night”
November 20th, 2015
Pizza and movie night is the first socio-cultural event organized by POWER. The event was attended by about 12-15 people, which included post-docs, their families and friends. The first 30 minutes of the event was devoted to social networking. Mulan was chosen as the movie because the storyline addresses feminist issues, such as gender stereotyping, and women empowerment and is also a fun movie.
“Career development seminar with Prof. Marcia Haigis”
Associate Professor of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School
November 5th, 2015
Dr. Haigis discussed about what contributed to her success and the challenges she had overcome. Dr. Haigis advised the postdocs to identify areas where there is prospect for growth and to look for opportunities that enrich postdoc experience, for example teaching, grant writing etc. Dr. Haigis stressed the importance of mentorship and having the right professional support to advance career. Dr. Haigis advised her audience to be strategic when planning personal and professional life and to look for practical solutions.
Dr. Haigis also spoke about her early career challenges. She mentioned that it is important to start the lab with the right people and to devote considerable time for grant writing in the first year (as an Assistant Professor). She also spoke about work-life integration. It is important to prioritize and plan your time so that there is better integration of professional and personal responsibilities.
Dr. Haigis’s takeaway message was to ‘Pick a question whose answer excites you.’
“First session of POWER (October 5th, 2015)”
The first session of POWER was organized on October 5th. The session was attended by about 15 post-docs.
The topics of discussion were focused on personal and professional development. On the professional development front, the post-docs expressed interest in mentoring graduate/undergraduate students, in having workshops on being assertive, conflict and time management. Future events of POWER will be planned to address these interests.
On the personal front the issues raised were rise in cost of housing and bridging the gap between postdoctoral associates and fellows, in terms of salary, healthcare benefits and maternity leave. The incoming (2015-2016) President (Dr. Lillian Hsaio) and Vice President of MIT (Dr. Wasifa Jamal) of PDA (Post Doctoral Association) and the current Postdoc Representative of MIT’s Women’s Advisory Group (WAG) (Dr. Angela Hafner) were present at the meeting. They mentioned that these issues were heard in PDA forums as well and a plan will be charted out in the near future to address these concerns.
See the slides of first POWER meeting which has information about resources for women at MIT here