On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of women obtaining the right to vote in Switzerland, all NCCRs have joined forces in the #NCCRWomen campaign, which highlights the importance of women in the Swiss research landscape. From International Women’s Day on 8 March until 31 October, the date of the first federal vote in which women were able to participate in 1971, each NCCR will present a series of videos portraying the work of some of its women scientists. These short films illustrate the key roles that women play in all fields of research in Switzerland.

 

The NCCR Microbiomes, co-organiser of this initiative together with the NCCRs Digital Fabrication, QSIT and Automation, is thrilled to open the campaign on Monday 8 March. Until Friday 12 March, five short films will show NCCR Microbiomes women scientists working on Salmonella, soil microbiomes or food immunology; using computational and experimental approaches; carrying out PhDs or postdocs or leading their own labs.

 

Although there is still much work to be done, in the past 50 years many things have changed and improved. Approximately 50% of the NCCR Microbiomes members, and 25% of its professors, are women: the researchers portrayed in the #NCCRWomen campaign are only a very small subset of the many women that make our NCCR possible. The NCCR Microbiomes strives to create working conditions that reduce the hurdles faced by women in science, and to promote equal opportunities among our collaborators, independently of their gender, identity, age, sexual orientation, ethnicity, religion or disability. We are grateful for our diverse community and look forward to seeing it grow over the next years!

 

Discover some of the women at the heart of the NCCR Microbiomes here:

Senka Causevic is a microbiologist and PhD student at the Department of Fundamental Microbiology at the University of Lausanne. She studies how microbial communities interact in the soil.

 

Emma Slack is an immunologist and professor of mucosal immunology at the Department of Health Sciences and Technology at ETH Zurich. Her research focuses on the influence that microbial communities in the gut have on our immune system.

 

Evangelia Vayena is a chemical engineer and PhD student at the Laboratory for Computational Systems Biotechnology at EPFL. She develops computational methods to study cellular metabolism.

 

Alyson Hockenberry is a microbiologist and postdoc at the Laboratory of Microbial Systems Ecology at Eawag and ETH Zurich. She studies host-microbiome dynamics to identify mechanisms of disease resistance.

 

Sara Mitri is a systems biologist and professor of microbiology at the Department of Fundamental Microbiology at the University of Lausanne. Her research focuses on how microbial ecosystems evolve over time, and how they are shaped by the interactions taking place between individual microbial cells.

 

To meet the #NCCRWomen from all NCCRs in Switzerland, visit our YouTube and Instagram #NCCRWomen channels. For more information, please contact eavan.dorcey@nccr-microbiomes.ch