The following excerpt is from the article “Carleton and its Partners Celebrate Success of Gendered Design in STEAM Program“.
Following three years of international collaboration, Carleton University and its partners marked the successful conclusion of the Gendered Design in STEAM (GDS) Program on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022 with a virtual summative closing event.
Launched in 2019, the GDS Program focused on investigating and advancing gendered design with scholars at institutions across the global souths through 20 grant-awarded projects. The program aimed to contribute to more inclusive technological designs in science, technology, engineering, the arts and math by building capacity in gendered design and innovations.
The GDS Program was led by principal investigators Prof. Bjarki Hallgrimsson of the School of Industrial Design and Prof. Dominique Marshall of the Department of History. Prof. Chiara Del Gaudio of the School of Industrial Design was the program’s investigator, with Kerry Grace serving as the program’s coordinator.
The awarded scholars worked in a variety of STEAM fields with a common goal to identify and overcome gender bias and tackle issues especially affecting women in Lower-and-Middle-Income countries (LMIC). The scholars were encouraged to use participatory design in their research to bring diverse and critical perspectives to address gender issues by including the affected population (often women) directly in their project, reshaping how design challenges and solutions are addressed.
“It has been an awarding and humbling experience to work with the 20 projects spread out over the world,” says Hallgrimsson. “The enthusiasm shown by our colleagues in Africa, Latin America and Asia is clearly indicative of how important community-oriented STEAM work with a focus on Gender is.