Supporting diversity in science

175 minutes for chemistry

GlamSci is a charity founded to support diversity in the sciences, formed by Amy King in 2013 after facing discrimination throughout her education. She tells us her story.

When I was at school I was told that pure science wasn’t for girls. All my teachers actually discouraged me from going in to a career in science. They told me that smart girls became doctors, not so clever girls became nurses and not so clever girls like me ended up on the dole!

Suffering with the chronic condition known as Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, I missed many years of schooling, whilst undergoing intensive and painful surgeries. I spent many years outside of conventional education and was home-schooled by my local borough.

When returning to school, I was rarely supported. It all culminated in one of my teachers saying to me that I was wasting their time, I was wasting my time, I’m not going to pass any of my exams and that I should leave. So in the end I did. I walked out the same day and haven’t looked back since.

Whilst continuing to undergo treatment for my health condition I undertook independent part-time study. After achieving an A-level in mathematics, I was going to carry on to do an A-level in chemistry. At that time I was about 20 so a lot of the colleges in my area wouldn’t accept me because I was classed as an adult learner. Ultimately I had to leave my local borough and go to the next borough over which luckily had a college there that would accept me. I spoke to a college professor there and said to him “please take me, no one else is going to take me and I don’t really know what else to do.” He said “I’ll give you a chance. You’ve got six months, prove yourself.”

Under his tutelage I became really adept at chemistry. The head of the department was actually a lecturer at UCL university that had left and come to teach this school in Bromley which used to be called Bromley College, now it’s called London south east colleges (LESC). But he took me on and he really worked hard with me and I went from someone that couldn’t even light a Bunsen burner to be able to do all kinds of chemistry demos and be confident in any lab I step into.

Making a difference

Last year, in collaboration with ScienceGrrl, we attended Kensington and Chelsea Town Hall for the borough for Kensington and Chelsea’s annual science festival, Celebration of Science, and I spoke on a panel about Crowd-funding Science and Science Businesses, whilst GlamSci’s Julia Attias spoke on a Sport and Science board about changes in Sport Science. The entire team spoke at a final panel about Women in Science, and is this the best time yet to be a woman in science.

We also recently ran a session for over 300 students for students from a number of schools in Kent, at Wellesley House, as the school contacted Tim Peake on the ISS. The session got the students hands-on, extracting DNA from fruits, making elephant’s toothpaste, synthesizing nylon, and making gummy bears scream! With focus on it’s not rocket science, GlamSci explained the science behind the ISS through these hands-on demos.