Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.
Report on "The Future of Female Students in Junior High and High Schools 2022
Kotaro Kono (Director, Gender Equality Committee / Professor, Institute of Astronomy)
The event "The Future of Female Junior and Senior High School Students at the Faculty of Science, the University of Tokyo" was held on July 30, 2022 (Saturday) to promote higher education for female junior and senior high school students, their families, and teachers. As in the previous year, it was interesting to note the high percentage of female junior high school students (33 out of 85 participants ). In his opening remarks, the Director of the Office for Gender Equality conveyed the University of Tokyo's overall commitment to diversity, including the introduction of projects for female junior and senior high school students in the Faculty of Engineering, in addition to initiatives in the Faculty of Science. Following Associate Professor Asuka Ikui's introduction of the Faculty of Science, Ms. Ayari Takamura of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) gave a lecture titled "From 'I Love' to Work - Looking for Ways to Get Involved in Science. After completing a master's degree in Department of Chemistry and finding a job, she entered a doctoral course as a working adult to further deepen analytical methods by spectroscopy, and talked about her experience of studying abroad, her work connecting science and society at JST, and the relationship with life events from various angles. Next, Assistant Professor Yasuko Fuji, Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Biological Sciences, gave an easy-to-understand explanation of her research on the subject of "Determining the Fate of Genes - What is Epigenetics? Both lectures elicited many questions ranging from specialized topics to career choices.
Dr. Fuji's lecture
The second half was a TA project by students from 10 Departments of the Faculty of Science. After introducing themselves in turn, they introduced their own research. All of the students were good speakers, and their lively talks seemed to have resonated with the female students, their families, and teachers who participated in the event, "The University of Tokyo Faculty of Science," which was held to promote higher education for junior high and high school students, their families, and teachers. Afterwards, the participants were divided into five individual rooms for two rounds of discussions. This year's event was reported to have been very successful, even more so than in previous years.
We hope that as many students as possible will deepen their interest in the University of Tokyo's Faculty of Science through this event and make use of it in their future career choices. I would like to express my deepest gratitude to Mr. Takamura, Dr. Fuji, and the students who gave lectures, to the Gender Equality Committee members who carefully prepared and executed an event of this scale, and to the members of the General Affairs and Public Relations teams and other related parties for their efforts.
Faculty of Science News, September 2022