In May 2017, I met Rachael Ainsworth, a passionate, curious and talented scientist at the HER+Data kick-off in Intercom, Dublin. Rachael was just finished her PhD in Astrophysics and was about to move to Manchester to to join the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at University of Manchester as a Research Associate. She really enjoyed the meet-up, so much so that she expressed an interest in setting up a Manchester chapter once she moved and got settled in her new city! I was blown away that the HER+Data community was being so well received and so excited that other women in other parts of the world might get to experience that.
It didn’t take Rachael long to get settled and to setup HER+Data MCR, the Manchester chapter of our group. In September she hosted the MCR kick-off event where Rachael, Geraldine Gallagher, and Angeliki Loukatou spoke about their inspiring careers in data to date. ~40 women turned up on the night and since Rachael has continued to build out the community and it’s events. It’s so amazing to see HER+Data flourish in another city and it’s been a pleasure to work with Rachael to promote and grow our community.
If you’re interested in joining HER+Data MCR, check out their twitter and meet-up pages.
Note the feature image was taken by Anna Scaife who attended the kickoff. Our community was originated called XX+Data but we renamed it to HER+Data after this kickoff to reflect that our groups are open to women and people who identify as female.