{"id":11393,"date":"2022-09-16T17:10:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-16T17:10:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/?p=11393"},"modified":"2024-09-09T17:19:07","modified_gmt":"2024-09-09T17:19:07","slug":"the-women-of-embl-heidelberg-it-services","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/blog\/2022\/09\/the-women-of-embl-heidelberg-it-services\/","title":{"rendered":"The women of EMBL Heidelberg IT Services"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Ivy Kupec, EMBL Communications<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the age of five, Dame Stephanie \u2018Steve\u2019 Shirley arrived in the UK from Germany, as part of the Kindertransport that placed young Jewish children in foster care during a war that threatened them and their families. Shirley, whose birthday is 16 September, initially declined a college education because she was only allowed to study botany.  However, she went on to learn computer coding and hardware development, ultimately starting her own software company, Freelance Programmers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Overcoming adversity like this is both remarkable and inspirational for the many women who pursue careers in computer science today. Female role models in IT remain elusive, so Shirley\u2019s accomplishments continue to stand out as she turns 89 years of age this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Dame Stephanie ‘Steve’ Shirley. Credit: Lynn Hart\/Wikimedia Commons<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn times when young women had little to no access to science and education, she tried to make the impossible possible,\u201d said Elena Elenkova, a web developer in EMBL Heidelberg\u2019s IT Services department.  \u201cShe attended maths classes after work to get her degree and with just \u00a36 started her own company. Though not well known, Shirley\u2019s story is inspiring and shows how smart women can make a huge difference in a male-dominated field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At EMBL Heidelberg, IT Services has sought to attract women in its recruitment. Currently, women make up about a sixth of the Heidelberg IT services team. On the occasion of Shirley\u2019s birthday, it seemed fitting to visit with these women to learn more about their diverse career and workplace choices which have led them from Mexico, Bulgaria, Ireland, Brazil, and within Germany to EMBL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was already fascinated by computers at an early age probably because my father has a small computer sales and service company,\u201d said Elenkova, who now develops software that can be deployed to EMBL\u2019s overall infrastructure, including a Data Management Application to support groups in managing their scientific data.  \u201cI think women offer a different way to think about technology and present it to the world. In my opinion, too few women decide to follow computer science-related careers because of the stereotype that IT doesn\u2019t \u2018naturally\u2019 fit women.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, young talents such as Abbie Delaney, one of three Irish trainees in the department due to a collaborative agreement with University College Cork, prove that this stereotype is definitely changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cCareers associated with IT have expanded into many areas, such as design, business solutions engineering, and even sales, so it was a perfect fit for me when I found myself indecisive about my career path,\u201d Delaney said. \u201cAs a college student, I have observed a great camaraderie amongst women in tech. You see it right from the start \u2013 this bond between women in IT.  From this comes increased collaboration and innovation, forming a supportive community of enthusiastic learners and inspirers. It\u2019s something I\u2019m excited to be part of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jessica Klemeier has a background in international relations but works now as a Project Officer at EMBL IT Services in Heidelberg. The main focus of her work is on open science and in particular the European Open Science Cloud, a European initiative to provide seamless access to research data and complementary services across scientific disciplines and borders.  \u201cI see how closely interwoven IT and sciences from all disciplines have become and how much progress a symbiosis of the two can achieve,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Klemeier, an impressive example of this symbiosis and how women play a significant role in this, was when the first image of a black hole went viral in 2019. \u201cOne person made a significant impression on me in that context: Katie Bouman. Of course, this achievement had been an immense team effort. For me, it was the first time I had heard of a contemporary woman, about my age, receiving fame and credit in the field of programming. It has shown me that being young and female are not insurmountable barriers anymore to success and recognition in this field.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Daya Henzler, also an IT Services Project Officer, was attracted to tech because of its ability to change how we live and offered many career opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhile studying economics, I was very much into the field of international cooperation and development aid. But my life took a very different turn when I started working at SAP, one of the largest software companies worldwide,\u201d Henzler said. \u201cI found the diverse, multicultural environment had a lasting impact, including encountering the many female colleagues who showed that you don\u2019t need a degree in computer science to pursue a career in tech. Communication, problem-solving, and attention to detail, combined with a spark of creativity, are also essential to working on IT teams.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her current position Henzler now focuses on IT strategy and project coordination, acting as the glue between the technical and management levels of project work in IT Services.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lilian Lopez Montero has a business administration degree and in her role as Assistant to the Head of EMBL Heidelberg IT Services, she\u2019s been able to leverage her skill managing organisational topics while also learning more about infrastructure and technology. \u201cAttracting IT talent to EMBL and progressively increasing the number of women on our teams has been a challenge since I started in 2015,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have managed to significantly grow the number of applicants by implementing different employer branding strategies and improving IT Services\u2019 visibility. Raising awareness of how indispensable it is to have women in core IT jobs and IT-related jobs is a step forward in EMBL\u2019s EDI vision and our goal to improve women\u2019s professional aspirations and opportunities as a whole.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At EMBL Heidelberg, IT Services has sought to attract women in its recruitment. Currently, women make up about a sixth of the Heidelberg IT services team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2540,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"embl_taxonomy":[],"class_list":["post-11393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general"],"acf":[],"embl_taxonomy_terms":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/IT_120522_01-scaled.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11393"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11393\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11407,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11393\/revisions\/11407"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11393"},{"taxonomy":"embl_taxonomy","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.embl.org\/about\/info\/it-services\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/embl_taxonomy?post=11393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}