Katriona is Senior Lecturer in the Assisting Living & Learning Institute, Department of Psychology, Maynooth University. She is also a memoirist and her first book, Poor, debuted at #1 on the Irish Non-Fiction bestseller list. She is the Principal Investigator on the STEM Passport for Inclusion project, featured recently on RTE Changemaker series. She has held research grants from the Irish Research Council and Science Foundation Ireland leading an initiative to tackle digital inequality in education.  She also successfully led the largest HEA PATH funded programme entitled Turn to Teaching which focused on diversifying teacher education. She has been an invited speaker at the World Education Forum, the European Gender Action Workshop on Women and Digitalization and most recently at the UN gender equality workshop. She has worked with Irish policy makers to develop policies around education and inclusion. She has published research on equality, gender, education, inclusion and STEM.  

Title: “We are not all the same!” Why we need to consider more than just gender equality in STEM education and employment

Abstract: We know that women are under-represented in many STEM fields, and that this poses significant challenges for the emerging workforce. But when we think about women we tend to see them as belonging to one homogenous group, we develop our equality activities based on this assumption, often failing to consider that many of us populate different social identities which can also act to support or stop women from seeing STEM as a viable option for them. In this keynote address I will discuss the importance of considering social class alongside gender in STEM participation, I will describe my own personal journey through education and employment to demonstrate the added challenge that class brings, as well as describing my research on how and class impact on girls STEM opportunities. This keynote will discuss the importance of taking an intersectional approach to STEM Participation.