Executive committee

I've followed my passion for mathematical modelling and network biology from Berlin via Oxford and Los Angeles to Seattle. In all these places, I noticed the discrepancies in the opportunities and challenges that women and men encounter throughout their careers. Empowering fellow women researchers has become an important part of my life and I love doing it! As the president or vice president, my primary goal would be to organize a council and a sustainable election process that will ensure the existence of a council that can build the society's infrastructure over the years to come. It is also very important to me to establish WiNS as an inclusive society that takes the needs and concerns of women of colour, members of the LGBTQ+ community, and WiNS from all continents seriously. I hope to recruit members of many different communities to get involved in shaping this society to their benefit.

I've pursued my passion for solving biomedical problems with network science ever since high school, from Harvard to Janelia. As president or vice president, I would create an accessible, global research community, such as by coordinating career workshops for academia/industry, mentorship circles, a database of female/nonbinary researchers, and article or podcast profiles. I have seven years of experience running organizations to foster national and international research communities. As communications chair at the iGEM Foundation, I built a community of 30,000 synthetic biologists around the globe by organizing three conventions, starting a podcast, and publishing a magazine. I also directed the US's largest student run research conference and a mentorship program for first generation college students. My experience in leadership and communications will enable me to establish WINS as a sustainable organization that can best serve the needs of its diverse, global community for years to come.

Sofia Teixeira holds a Ph.D. in Information Systems and Computer Engineering from the University of Lisbon (Portugal). Currently, she is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Informatics, and LASIGE researcher, at the Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon. Previously she was a research scientist at Hospital da Luz Learning Health in Lisbon and a postdoc at Indiana University and a fellow at Indiana Network Science Institute. Sofia's research interests include modeling and analyzing complex systems through the development of new algorithms on graphs and the application of network science and machine learning methods. Her fields of interest, among others, are Human Behavior, Computational Epidemiology, Network Neuroscience, Cognitive Science, Network Medicine, and Artificial Intelligence.

I would be happy to aid the development of the WINS council by being Treasurer. I have experience in organization and managing budgets in a variety of professional settings. In my role I would seek your feedback on places the organization can search for funding. Regardless of whether or not I am elected, I am happy to be a member of an organization which I hope will represent the wide range of identities that are in the field of Network Science.

My name is Meg, and I love social network analysis! I got “into” it at the end of my PhD and have been using/applying it in my public health-related research ever since. I love that network science challenges me, connects me to scholars across disciplines from all over the world, and continues to evolve. As the academic director, I hope to foster a supportive environment for those of us in academia and find ways for WiNS to grow/develop individually and collectively. I think this could include opportunities to collaborate on, learn from, support, and champion one another’s work.

I am an applied mathematician studying problems in mathematical biology. I’m running for the position of communications secretary both because I’m excited about this society's mission and because I believe that effective communication is vital to a society as diverse as WiNS. In this role, I plan to build on existing channels (e.g., emails, Slack) and establish new ones (e.g., WiNS Twitter, newsletter) so that they can be used not only to disseminate information to the members (e.g., seminar info, society events) but also to amplify information that members wish to share with the community (e.g., activities they are organizing, employment opportunities). It is also important to me to increase the visibility of scientific work by women in network science. In addition to highlighting publications on Twitter, I would be excited to work with the website manager to curate and publish lists of presentations by WiNS members at various conferences in network science.

I studied mathematics in Bonn and in Oxford, which is where I discovered my passion for Network Science: an interdisciplinary field in which I can combine my interests in Maths and Psychology. Therefore, I am now doing my PhD in the Computational Network Science Group at RWTH Aachen University. I love to bring people together. As the social secretary (or similar), my primary goal would be to organise events which make everybody feel welcome and provide a space for conversation and support. I would be excited to establish brainstorming sessions as well as regular non-academic get-togethers, in which both collaborations and friendships can be built. Moreover, I want to establish a mentorship scheme in which more junior members can exchange with members, who are more advanced in their careers.

I'm a postdoc and my research lies at the interdisciplinary interface of network science, machine learning, nonlinear dynamics and data science applied to a variety of social and biological systems. I feel strongly about representation and equal opportunities in science. As the outreach secretary of WiNS, I hope to develop programs and tools that are accessible to researchers from various geographical locations and walks of life, providing resources and community. Check out our podcast WiNS Voices on the WiNS website to hear the stories of some of our brilliant women in network science, and maybe get inspired to write your own!

I'm a Latina researcher connecting complexity with education, social and public health studies through network science. Currently, I'm a PhD student at the University of Exeter, and my research focuses on studying the social behaviour of researchers. As a web content manager of WiNS, I hope to connect women and underrepresented populations in network science through the platform and give visibility to WiNS research and career paths. Knowing the testimonies of WiNS achievements in being recognized will serve as role models to young researchers and help build the paths to thrive together.

Both within & outside my research in network neuroscience, I’ve always been interested in how things are connected and how connections influence the distribution of resources. As a graduate student representative, I want to cultivate a space where resources are shared openly. To do this, I plan to develop WiNS’s resource network. I envision our resource network expanding to include job openings & career tips, advice for navigating power imbalances & advocating for ourselves, and supporting & empowering those of us with intersecting underrepresented identities. This way, none of us will have to reinvent the wheel; we can learn from each other. As a queer, first generation woman in science, one of the biggest positive influences on my career has been facilitating a community of individuals with similar experiences who openly share what we know. I am hopeful that I will be able to do this as a graduate student representative for WiNS, as well.

I had been learning and working in social network analysis for more than four years now. Topic that I am trying to perfect during my current PhD in Manchester, UK. Since then, I worked closely with the hispanic community for SNA (lista redes), and the chilean one (from where I am). As academic program director, I would like to promote the development of the people interested in this type of work, with a sense of community and helping each others. Even though the pandemic does not allow us to have face-to-face events, this could be an excellent opportunity to promote a global community, using the online platforms to reach other continents and groups. I had experience working in academic events, even in an online way. Also, the creation of a program of mentoring would it be incredible for many in WiNS. I am open to the idea that this position could be done better by more than one person. Besides that role, I am proposing myself to help as a postgraduate rep. I am very much interested in promoting a community where we could learn together. In particular, I am thinking of facilitating a workshop for mentoring, including all the different academia stages. Also, I would like to create a safe space for learning together useful methodologies, tools and softwares.

My interest for understanding real-world systems led me to pursue a unique career path from Kolkata, India to New York, US (via Virginia and Chicago); starting with research in statistical physics to network science to consulting in industry. Throughout my journey I realized that it is very beneficial to network with others, not only to learn more from them about their work or have information on different career options but also just to have a supporting community. I have always been lucky to have a great support system which helped me keep pursuing research in physics and then change my career from academia to industry. I love helping people and I want to share my experiences and connections in the hope that it would empower others to follow their goals. I enjoy working in cross-disciplinary fields, learning new things and connecting with people from diverse backgrounds. As an industry ambassador for WiNS, my intention is to create a bridge between academia and industry.

My love of social network analysis has taken me down a unique career path with research experience across academia, government, and private industry. I am passionate about connecting people with diverse perspectives and have previously created cross-disciplinary research groups. As an industry ambassador for WiNS, I would work to foster creative relationships between academic and industry researchers. I intend to: • Organize networking events to connect with researchers in industry. • Co-develop workshops to help explore and prepare for career opportunities. • Build cross-industry relationships to help develop future opportunities for internships, collaborations, and jobs. It is important to me to support the diversity of backgrounds and interests across our community. I recognize people have different career interests and also different challenges. If elected, I will seek collaborations with members with alternative perspectives to ensure everyone’s voice is heard.

As faculty representative, one of my main goals would be to oversee the design and deployment of both a peer mentorship and a faculty/trainee mentorship program for WiNS. Given that interdisciplinary work is especially common in network science, I also hope to leverage my own professional network to pair more junior members of the WiNS community with domain specialists and collaborators that are relevant to their research interests.

Academia has a long history of exclusionary practices toward women and other targeted identities which has not been adequately addressed. In order to dismantle structural oppression, reach innovative discoveries, and solve the problems facing our society, promoting the inclusion and engagement of researchers with diverse backgrounds and perspectives through supporting their training and application of rigorous methods is crucial. My current research focuses on one-mode projections of bipartite network data of scholars' collaboration networks to examine gender representation and homophily at my institution’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards Program hub and simulating interventions so that two waves of COVID-19 don’t negate four waves of feminism as work from home disproportionally impacted women who were faced with additional domestic responsibilities. In this role, I will be an empowering advocate for self-identifying women and their intersecting identities in network science.