Meet Alex Sokolowska, who shares her experience about the empowerment of STEM women in the academic environment and the start-up world. Thus, follow her journey from a PhD in Computational Science at the University of Zurich, to a San Francisco start-up and her current position as a post-doc researcher at TU Delft.

Do you know the term “STEM leaky pipeline”? Neither did Alex at first. However, while studying at University of Zurich she realized there were hardly any female post-docs or professors in her department. Therefore, she started reading the scientific literature and reports on gender imbalance. Concurrently, she started a support group with like-minded women in STEM on three different continents to exchange ideas. Based on these experiences, the non-profit organization Women++ was born with the idea of empowerment of women in STEM. In this podcast, she talks about the motivation behind Women++.

Alex shares her thoughts about the importance of networks and why women need to network to be able to shape new and trending topics together with men. For her, technology is the tool to explore the world in a more scientific manner. And we talk about why there is a need for an equivalent of medicine’s Hippocratic oath in technology.

When asked to share her female role model, Alex does not choose just one. The reason you ask? She met so many badass female scientists, founders, executives, managers and much more that inspired her on her own journey.

Book recommendation: Pamela McCauley Bush – Transforming your STEM Career through Leadership and Innovation 

Connect with Alex
– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexsokolowska
– Twitter: @alex_sokolowska
– Women++: www.womenplusplus.ch; @womenplusplus

Picture credit: Luisa Contreras Photography and women++