Interviewing Ana Gonzalez Segura, Project Coordinator of AI-PRISM
AI-PRISM is a strong consortium of 25 entities plus an affiliate. It represents all EU smart manufacturing value chains and has the key competencies to develop the ecosystem that will make manufacturing workers’ lives easier and healthier with cobots.
Today, our special guest is Ana Gonzalez Segura, Project Coordinator of AI-PRISM. Ana is an EU Research and Development funding expert at NTT DATA. She studied physics and holds a PhD in Medicine. Ana is part of the 38% of women with a PhD in the European Union.
Find below what she told us about her experience and profession as a woman who studied physics and coordinates EU projects.
Hello Ana, I hope you are doing great. We are happy to count on you in the celebration of women in Technology and science.
What is your role at AI-PRISM?
Hello, my name is Ana Gonzalez, and I am the Project Coordinator of AI-PRISM. I am very happy to participate in this campaign, thanks for the opportunity!
My main role is to make sure that the project runs smoothly and that we accomplish all the objectives that we agreed on. And of course, that we do in within time and also in budget!
Although sometimes it is complicated, in general I like my work very much. I always learn a lot from the different projects and from the different people that work on them. I am very excited to work on AI-PRISM since this is a very challenging and interesting project in which we aim to explore the collaboration between human and robots.
And why did you decide to study physics and become a woman in science?
I have always been interested in nature and when I was a child, I always wanted to understand how the world we live in works. I decided to study physics and when I finished, enter the world of research through my PhD because it helped me to satisfy my curiosity.
I enjoyed very much my life in science… Although I am out of it now, I really miss it!!
What is the most common misconception about women working in this field?
It has always been thought that STEM careers are for men, but nothing could be further from the truth. In the University we had plenty of woman, and there are a lot of outstanding she-scientists in the world.
It is truth that the prevalence of woman depends also of and what career you choose, since for example, life sciences have a high percentage of women, against, for example, ICT, or physics. But this does not mean that women are not interested or are not present in science.
It really depends a lot on how you are, your expectations and also how STEM have been treated in school during children’s life (although this is valid for women and men as well), there is a strong stereotype that we need to overcome.
How can we attract more women to work in science and Technology?
I cannot say why this happens, but exposure to STEM at an early age can influence girls’ (and boys) interest in them. This needs to be encouraged since the school period, including more subjects related to science, and make more attractive those that already exist, through laboratories or learning by doing techniques.
We need to make sure that children understand that STEM are useful, and we also need to eliminate the misconception that exist around women and science. It is not helpful at all for girls, as future scientists, that society keep saying that STEM is only for men.