First PEARRLs for Girls carried out

As part of PEARRL’s strategy to encourage participation of women in science and to inform male and female pupils and teachers about career opportunities in the field our ESRs Christina Pentafragka (ESR7) and Patrick O’Dwyer (ESR10) collaborated with their local secondary schools to introduce the PEARRL Project and explain to all interested students and teachers what it is all about.

Christina invited two schools to visit the Pharmacy Department at the University on November 24th 2017 in Athens where she and her supervisor Prof. Maria Vertzoni presented to the female and male students about the following subjects:

• An introduction to undergraduate pharmaceutical studies, an overview of the offered graduate studies program and an overall review of the Department.
• The ongoing research activities of our Department.
• An introduction to European Programs and research opportunities supported by the European Union
• Christina’s project as ESR7 in the overall PEARRL project

The students also received a visit to the department’s laboratory of Biopharmaceutics and Pharmacokinetics.

Patrick visited his local secondary school on the 5th January 2018 to introduce them to the potential career and research opportunities with a Pharmacy Degree. In detail Patrick covered the following topics with the students to show them why a pharmacy degree is a great stepping-stone to many career and research opportunities:

• Well-Known Pharmacy Careers
• Pharmaceutical Industry & Regulatory
• Research Opportunities
• PEARRL Project

Patrick’s audience consisted of 16 -18 year old male and female students in their final year of secondary school, who are considering to study pharmacy in university. In total there were around 40 -50 students present at the talk.

These activities are specifically targeted for girls in secondary schools to encourage participation of women in science and will therefore support the EU policy of ‘Women in Science’ (http://science-girl-thing.eu/en) and to stimulate interest of high school students on careers in science and technology