The Supernova Foundation

The majority of my outreach effort at present goes into my role as founder and Director of the Supernova Foundation Mentoring Programme for women and gender minorities in physics, established in 2017.

The gender gap in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields is a serious international societal problem which needs to be addressed. Many women, particularly women from disadvantaged backgrounds, do not often have access to women role models to inspire and guide them. It is extremely challenging for women of many cultures to find mentors they can easily talk to and get advice from. We aim to remedy this by connecting women students in Physics to established women researchers around the world to receive mentoring.

The Supernova Foundation aims to:

• Provide personal mentorship for women students as they transition to postgraduate studies by established women physicists.

• Provide guidance on various topics including: career choices, application process, CVs, work-life balance and gender-specific harassment.

• Connect and provide a support network for women in Physics across the globe at different stages of their career.

• Host and record webinars with useful advice and interesting discussion.

As of February 2024, the Supernova Foundation has 123 active mentors and 203 mentees from 51 countries, and has reached a total of 609 people throughout the history of the programme.