Women have made tremendous progress towards increasing their participation in higher education, but are still under-represented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines all over the world.
The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) and its partner agencies like The Nature Conservancy are challenging the status quo and placing women at the forefront of STEM fields.
Meet some of these women from across the Caribbean who have been making a difference in their respective roles!
From the emergency room to emergency response
Dawn Byng is the IFRC Health Officer for the Dutch- and English-speaking Caribbean who coordinates public health interventions during emergencies. She studied Clinical Nursing but also has degrees in Psychology, Political Science and International Relations and most recently, started pursuing further studies in International Disaster Management with minors in Public Health and Climate Change Adaptation.
Dawn started working in nursing in 1993, moved into Health Sector Reform in 2001 and has been working in the field of Public Health in Emergencies with the IFRC since 2009. She transformed her love for working in the hospital emergency room to supporting large-scale field emergency response operations in different parts of the world!
When she isn’t making waves in the health arena, she’s making waves in the kitchen, as she considers herself a consummate foodie and loves cooking and feeding others.
Her advice to others who want to use any form of science to change the world, even in emergencies?
“Yes, go for it! Women are often perceived as victims in disaster settings however because of their experiences, women can and do offer valuable inputs into the development of a disaster safety culture in their communities.”
Transforming passion into purpose
Keisha Sandy is the IFRC Technical Officer in charge of Climate Change & Environmental Sustainability in the Dutch-and English-speaking Caribbean. Her role involves supporting national societies to implement their climate and environment programmes.
She studied Zoology & Botany in undergrad & natural resource management specializing in climate change for her post-graduate studies. Why this specific area? “The environment always calmed me, and I was distraught at the destruction that was going on. We use the environment as if it is a finite resource. I had to find a way to help while still allowing people to thrive,” she shared.
Having transformed her passion into purpose, Keisha has been in the environmental science field for many years and believes there are many opportunities for women there. She encourages women and girls to
“find your passion and work at it. I love the ocean and so I found opportunities to work in marine science and livelihoods.”
With her love for the environment, it’s no surprise that she also loves swimming and diving.
A love affair with research
Did you know that less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women? Arlini Timal is one of them.
Arlini is the Manager of the IFRC’s Caribbean Disaster Risk Management (CADRIM) centre, whose role broadly involves several spheres of learning, including training, advocacy, inclusivity, research and revision and adaptation of documents. She also fosters relationships with institutions of science and academia for knowledge sharing that can impact resilient change in the Caribbean.
Her love for investigative research and her passion to help others and share knowledge led her to this field, which she has been in for the past eight years.
She believes the COVID-19 pandemic has made the gathering of data and areas of research even more critical and opines that designing, collecting and categorizing useful data for research that could assist with decision making, inform new strategies of operation and fill response gaps have to be approached with cautious urgency.
Arlini encourages girls and women who may want to enter the world of science to
“keep striving and expanding your learning goals. Science is an ever-evolving field of possibilities.”
When she isn’t buried in research and managing her team at CADRIM, she is enjoying activities that include a bit of nature, art and meditation.
Promoting primary care and public health
Dr. Cindy Badaloo is a Primary Care Physician and the Medical Director for the Trinidad and Tobago Red Cross Society (TTRCS), as well as a member of the TTRCS Executive Board. She studied Medicine, then later Family Medicine and Public Health and now has under her purview a major primary health care facility with close to 100 staff members.
Cindy started out in the emergency room and has been in the field of primary care and public health for 16 years. She notes that her early years spent in the hospital setting have assisted her in ‘finding her way’ to family medicine & public health. She mentioned that too often, she would see the consequences of uncontrolled chronic diseases — stroke, heart disease, kidney failure, etc. as well as multiple cancer patients and felt that many of the cases she saw were preventable if the proper primary care management and health education of the patients had taken place.
She believes that poor primary care poses an enormous burden on secondary care and also contributes to the socio-economic decline of these patients and their families who are dependent on them. This is one of the reasons she is happy to help manage the TTRCS Henry Dunant Clinic which was opened in March 2021. The clinic allows for increased access to care by clients who may not be able or willing to access a public or private health care facility, including the most vulnerable populations such as migrants, sex workers and the socially displaced.
Cindy has a special interest in Research Ethics and currently chairs the Regional Research Ethics Committee in the Regional Health Authority. She also serves on other research ethics committees at a national level.
Her message for those who are interested in pursuing science?
“For all the women and girls out there, if this is your dream, follow it! If you want to make a difference, this is where you’re needed. There is no success without trials and sacrifice but when you get to where you want to be, it will be worth it all.”
When she isn’t trying new gourmet meals, she is reading for fun!
Tending to the vulnerable
Dr. Sonia Johnson volunteers with the Grenada Red Cross Society (GRCS) and journeys with the COVID-19 response teams to various communities to provide free preliminary medical services to those in need.
She studied Psychology, Medicine, and Sport and Exercise Medicine and has been practicing as a physician for over 22 years. Sonia has worked with athletes and coaches and now applies her years of experience to help those impacted by COVID-19.
For women and girls entering this field, she encourages them to go for their dreams.
“Let it be a choice out of love for wanting to help others, and not for personal gain. Work hard, be dedicated and don’t think of the sacrifices that must be made, as it will all be worth it in the end,” she said.
When she isn’t tending to patients, she is tending to her garden and also loves swimming.
For the love of the environment
Kimmoy Tulloch studied Environmental Biology and currently works at the Jamaica Red Cross (JRC) as the Field Officer for the Resilient Islands project which is being implemented in partnership with The Nature Conservancy. This project is aimed at reducing the vulnerability of coastal communities through nature-based solutions by boosting their adaptive capacity to respond to the effects of climate change.
She is also the Project Manager for the Capacity Building Initiative which is geared towards improving the capacity of the National Society to prepare for, respond to and recover from emergencies while supporting the enhanced resilience of communities.
After learning about climate change and the negative impact that it has on the environment, lives and livelihoods, Kimmoy felt a calling to pursue a career in a field that allows her to help others to understand how their actions contribute to climate change and how they can help to preserve the environment.
While she has been in this field for only a few years, she is grateful for the opportunity to make a difference engaging with individuals while gaining an up-close understanding of the world we live in.
Her encouragement to girls and women interested in entering this field is to
“go forth and cross that imaginary boundary set by society and do not let anyone nor anything discourage you or rob you of your imagination, creativity and curiosity!”
As someone who did not want a job where she would be stuck behind a desk every day, it is no surprise that Kimmoy’s love for exploring the environment goes beyond her job. She is often referred to as ‘Kimmy the Explorer’ by friends, as one of her favourite pastimes is to travel to unique places and explore all that the world has to offer.
Inspired by a hurricane
Dr. Natainia Lummen is a Climate Change Adaptation Specialist from one of our partner agencies, The Nature Conservancy (TNC). She holds a Ph.D. in Architectural and Civil Engineering with a Specialty in Coastal Environmental Engineering.
Natainia’s role includes serving as Jamaica’s Project Manager for TNC as well as the Resilient Islands (RI) project, a partnership between TNC and IFRC. Her duties include conducting different types of environmental, risk and vulnerability assessments, among other tasks. The RI project aims to advance the use of nature-based solutions as adaptation strategies that, when implemented, will provide added protection for communities especially those located along the coast.
Natainia’s interest in this area came after she personally experienced difficulties after Hurricane Gilbert in 1988 and became intrigued with hurricanes, storms and floods. She wanted to know what was so unique about these events that caused them to typically result in havoc and so she studied Geography, with an interest in Geomorphology. As she immersed herself into Geography, Geomorphology & Applied Sciences, she was introduced to Disaster Risk Management as a sub-specialty and went down the proverbial rabbit hole.
She enjoys her work especially at the community level, which allows her to see first-hand individuals and communities transforming their mental and physical spaces as well as their approach to the environment.
She is inspired by Marie Curie, a STEM superhero, who was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, the only woman in history to ever win it twice, and the only human to ever win a Nobel Prize in two different sciences.
“If you have the passion for something, go for it. Any inclination at all requires pursuing. In the words of Marie Curie, remember ‘that the way of progress was neither swift nor easy,” Natainia added.
She loves to travel and explore new places, different cultures and food and is working towards conquering the seven continents, a feat which COVID-19 has currently brought to a halt. She also loves sports, especially tennis & plays whenever she can.
From designing buildings to protecting the environment
Nealla Frederick is a Climate Change Adaptation Specialist with The Nature Conservancy (TNC) for the Eastern Caribbean. She initially studied and worked in Architecture but went on to pursue a graduate degree in Urban and Regional Planning, with focus on Environmental, Land-use & Community Planning and Geographic Information Systems (GIS).
In her current capacity, she manages the At the Water’s Edge (AWE) project being implemented in the Grenville Bay Area in Grenada, which focuses on enhancing coastal communities’ resilience to the impacts of climate change utilizing hybrid Ecosystem-based Approaches (EbA). She is also the project coordinator for Grenada’s component of the Resilient Islands (RI) project; Integrating Ecosystem and Community-based Approaches to Enhance Climate Change Adaptation in the Caribbean, while also providing technical support in areas such as sustainable conservation and environmental management strategies and practices, to other projects being implemented in the Eastern Caribbean.
Nealla has been working in this field for over nine years but points out that she didn’t intentionally choose it. According to her “it was more like stepping into it accidentally, but what a ‘wonderful’ accident!” After working as an Architect for a few years, she decided to pursue graduate studies in an area unrelated to the environment. However, due to circumstances beyond her control, she decided to change the focus of her studies and is now working in this field which she loves.
She especially enjoys the opportunity to work with diverse stakeholders and communities to enhance their resilience to the impacts of climate change with the use of innovative Nature-based Solutions (NbS) at a critical time, particularly for island nations grappling with the effects of climate change such as increasing sea levels and more frequent and intense hurricanes and storms which threaten lives, livelihoods & homes.
Nealla encourages women and girls thinking of entering this field to do so because, according to her,
“this is an incredible field and there are a number of avenues and opportunities one can pursue. However, at the end of the day, the opportunity to work with, and assist persons in this changing climate, is priceless — so go for it!”
She enjoys reading and if she had to choose a superpower she could have, it would be the power to make herself invisible sometimes!
Translating scientific data into strategies for resilience
Montserrat Acosta-Morel is a climate scientist with The Nature Conservancy and is based in the Dominican Republic.
She initially focused her studies on economics, trying to find innovative solutions to the world’s poverty crisis, however she went on to pursue a master’s of science programme, which later became a doctor of philosophy (Ph.D.) in the United States of America. It was during these studies that she discovered the problem that was large enough to affect many people globally, yet explicit enough that the science and research that she was developing could address — climate change.
Montserrat realized that climate change impacts the most vulnerable, the poor, and minorities disproportionately but she also discovered that nature and people could integrate to reduce the negative consequences of climate change.
Since then, her climate change work has focused on translating complex, scientific data to actionable, on-the-ground strategies that can help increase the resilience of local communities. Her work is based on the premise that people who are resilient to the adverse impacts of climate change have a higher likelihood of rebounding after a climate-related event. As such, she has advocated for including nature in national climate change policies and supported small communities in evaluating how climate change impacts their daily lives finding ways to mitigate those impacts. She also ensures she leads by example by recycling, reducing and reusing, while also reducing her carbon footprint.
“Climate change is a global problem but each and every one of us has the capacity to make a difference,” she shared.
