How team manager Serena Cooper ended up in IT and her thoughts on how we can support our female colleagues.
I started with the Research IT team in May 2020 during lockdown. I love this job as it brings together my background in research with my experience managing IT teams as well as my desire to use IT to do good. I am proud to say I am a feminist, a strong independent woman who has had some excellent role models and advocates. My journey into IT was the long way round with a bit of avoidance along the way.
I grew up surrounded by computing, my father was a computer engineer and my mother a programmer when computers filled rooms and code was made by punching holes in bits of paper. Programming and hardware were normal dinner time conversation and my two brothers absorbed it like sponges. I, on the other hand, found it boring and lacking in creativity. After briefly considering becoming a scientific illustrator, I pursued a career in biochemistry. I ended up in the computationally heavy area of protein X-ray crystallography and, although I worked alongside the CCP4 Team at Daresbury Labs, I was a user of IT and not a contributor.
X-ray crystallography was wonderfully female discipline not just with its big-hitter heroes like Dorothy Hodgkin, Olga Kennard and Rosalind Franklin but also the continued strong presence of women and how normal and expected that was. It was a stark contrast to the host chemistry department where even in the mid-90s there was not a single female lecturer. I always remember a colleague contemplating a temporary lecturer post being worried she would get all the pastural work and didn’t want the feeling of pressure of being the “first one”. That particular department is doing slightly better, a quick look at their website now and I see they have six female lecturers!
Messing around with high energy X-rays, liquid nitrogen and high-end graphics was fun, but the day-to-day reality was of pipetting small amounts of liquids in a damp cold-room, of lack of results, and of a strong personal feeling of being an imposter. So, in a turn to the side, I joined the Research Councils as a portfolio manager, and it is here through various good managers I lost my imposter syndrome and made the slow slide into IT.
I was recognised by the formidable Jo Booth Davey as someone who could articulate user needs in a way the “techies” understood. All those years of being in a vaguely IT literate environment had paid off! Jo was EPSRC’s software development lead and, like a great general, inspired not a lfear but much loyalty, said it as it was, took no nonsense and got things done. She was a massive influence on me and a fantastic advocate and mentor, not least because I decided I liked the look of what she did and wanted her job! Five years later when she retired it became a reality.
Whilst my particular journey has included a lot of fantastic female colleagues, IT is still male dominated. As I have moved along, I try to be a good peer and mentor and give back the encouragement, advocacy and support I received and still receive. I have also had, and taken, opportunities for female-centred training and support and would encourage others to do the same.
Through those past advocates I have gained the confidence to speak up when I see unfairness or issues that need to be addressed. IT will only change with visible role models, if recruitment is less to a type and support given to those entering teams as “the first”. Those who can must be supportive of those who don’t – yet – have confidence, and highlight all the undesirable behaviours or situations for the continuing benefit of all.