To celebrate International Day for Women and Girls in Science on 11 February 2025, the UK-PHRST spoke to two team members about their roles in the team and what the day meant for them.
 
Gwenda Hughes - UK-PHRST Head of Research and Deputy Director (LSHTM)
 
Gwenda oversees and provides strategic direction for the UK-PHRST’s programme of research, working closely partners in ODA-eligible countries to build a strong evidence base to improve the public health response to infectious disease outbreaks.
 
Gwenda initially completed a PhD in infectious disease epidemiology. After a 4-year post-doc in tropical animal health research, she moved into public health and spent most of her career working on national public health surveillance programmes and research in STIs, HIV and AMR at the national public health institute (now UKHSA). Through this she became accredited with the UK Public Health Register as a Public Health Specialist and built a strong network of research collaborators, both at the national and international level. Despite her eventual career path, Gwenda actually first wanted to be a vet!
 
Who/what inspired you to pursue a STEM career?
 
I was fascinated by Darwin’s theory of evolution and decided I wanted to study zoology.
 
What advice would you give your younger self about pursuing a STEM career?
 
Choose a subject/field that genuinely interests you, not one where you think the job opportunities might be better.
 
In your opinion, which changes, if any, are needed in the scientific system to inspire more women and girls to become future scientists?
 
Things have improved a lot since I first started, however, I think we need to do a lot more to encourage women and girls to study subjects still dominated by men, like mathematical modelling (in my field), and to support their career development so they can become leaders who can encourage others.
 
What is the most memorable thing that has happened to you while working in science?
 
In my previous role I was responsible for national public health surveillance programmes in STIs and AMR and I often had to give live interviews on television and radio. It was terrifying, but it really helped our important work to get prominent coverage both in the UK and internationally.
 
Chioma Achi – UK-PHRST Mpox Study Co-ordinator and Assistant Professor (LSHTM)
 
Chioma's role in the UK-PHRST involves coordinating the mpox research project and teaching at LSHTM. As part of the mpox project, she works with different partners at national, state and community levels to discuss the scientific questions, design the study and develop the tools needed to implement the study. She also regularly travels to train and support the field team members as they implement the research on the ground.
 
Before joining the UK-PHRST, she was a Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Oxford where she was Scientific Lead for Nigeria on the Ineos Oxford Institute for antimicrobial research (IOI) funded burden of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) research. She was also Project co-lead on the arthropods as vectors of AMR research which aimed to evaluate the extent to which flies spread drug-resistant bacteria amongst people, animals, and our environment.
 
Before completing her PhD and taking up the postdoctoral position, she was a lecturer in veterinary public health at Usmanu Danfodiyo University Sokoto, Nigeria for 5 years.
 
Who/what inspired you to pursue a STEM career?
 
Thinking about this, I would say my family (especially my parents) and the environment where I was raised inspired me to pursue a STEM career. I grew up in a culture where STEM courses, especially those in medical related fields were considered impactful and the right choice for anyone keen to make a difference in their world at the time, and I was motivated by the need to contribute positively to my society which was why I chose STEM. I am lucky that despite not having or knowing a lot of role models at the time, I still was able to pursue and build a career in what I loved doing.
 
What advice would you give your younger self about pursuing a STEM career?
 
My older self definitely has no regrets pursuing a STEM career so I would encourage my younger self to be unafraid to pursue more challenging themes and opportunities, to allow myself to make mistakes, enjoy the process and have fun along the way.
 
Growing up, I didn’t have the opportunity to experience what scientific research looked like before I got the chance to actually work on my undergraduate final year project so I worked within the remits of what was available to me at that time. But there are now lots of enjoyable and fun taster sessions available at universities, industries and institutions, including science centres and at museums. If I had the opportunity of going back in time, my younger self would write to organisations and institutions to ask if I could spend more time observing the breadth and depth of STEM so I can appreciate more of what STEM offers.
 
In your opinion, which changes, if any, are needed in the scientific system to inspire more women and girls to become future scientists?
 
Women and girls are encouraged and inspired by role models some of whom have already broken the stereotype of STEM courses being mainly for boys or men. We need more girls to embrace STEM from a very young age. We can do this by developing contents that show girls and women working in STEM related fields, so this picture remains present in their subconsciousness.
 
We can also encourage girls to take up more maths and science classes and support them to participate in STEM summer courses and hands-on-experiences across different organisations. Beyond encouraging girls and women, we also have a lot of work to do on professional development for teachers of early years and primary schools to reduce implicit and systemic biases.
 
This said, it is one thing to encourage girls and stem to take up STEM careers, and another to put in place systems that encourage them to stay on and take up leadership positions, even if they choose to combine having a STEM career with raising a family.
 
What is the most memorable thing that has happened to you while working in science?
 
In my postdoctoral role, I have had the opportunity of working with mothers from poor backgrounds on some of our science research. Hearing first hand from these mothers how the diagnostic tests we provide as part of our research has helped to save the lives of their babies have been more than satisfying. Many parents have lost their babies because of the inability to diagnose sepsis and being able to help the doctors narrow down what the problem is, and what medications works best for the identified pathogen has been truly fulfilling and memorable. I set out from the start to impact lives through my career, and I am grateful that I have the opportunity to do science that is life changing.

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