The NYU Shanghai Community is celebrating International Women’s Day with a series of conversations and community initiatives aimed at examining both progress and persistent gender inequities around the world.
With events and activities organized by Human Resources, and student-led clubs Women at Work, Student Government, and Shanghai Run Club, the week’s programming blends dialogue with community-based events.
Tiri Nhawu ’28, a neuroscience major and president of Women at Work, said it was important to highlight gender equality. “We still have areas in the world where education for women is limited, where women are not given enough maternity leave, or where they are clearly disadvantaged in terms of income and job security,” she said.
The celebration kicked off with a panel discussion last Thursday organized by Women at Work on empowering women, which brought three faculty members together to discuss gender equity across media, technology, and politics. Director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Culture and Associate Professor of Contemporary Global Media Anna Greenspan, Assistant Professor of Interactive Media Business Emilie Yuki Takayama, and Professor of Practice in Political Science Almaz Zelleke discussed the cultural implications of emerging technologies for women, workplace equity and their own personal experiences.
For Nhawu, holding the annual panel discussion is important to continue to raise these issues today. “In order for us to kind of be on the same level where women are economically free, whether socially free, where they have freedom of speech, I think we still need to address certain issues that clearly hinder them from getting to that position,” she said.
In an event organized this afternoon by Human Resources, Assistant Professor of Computer Science Shen Hua, HR Executive Director Guo Wei, Assistant Professor of Interactive Media and Business Helena Rong Hang, and guest speakers Xiang Qing from Covestro and Dr. Deng Siyun from Mindfront Clinic will discuss how AI can reduce our workload, allowing us space for empathy and connection and giving us back our most precious resource: time.
Next Wednesday, the ACM-W chapter will welcome Professor Yao Wang from NYU Tandon for another talk in its Distinguished Women in Computing Speaker Series. She will talk on AI for video streaming and health, highlighting recent research on deep learning for video streaming and health in the NYU Tandon Video Lab. Then she will showcase AI-driven innovations in health applications including work on decoding speech from intracranial neural signals, with the long-term goal of developing neuroprosthetics for individuals with speech impairments.
A number of other activities are running throughout campus to provide spaces for women to take care of themselves. A restorative yoga session led by Health Center staff member Jordan Loo yesterday invited students, staff, and faculty to take a pause amid academic pressures.
A recently launched menstrual pad initiative on campus provides free pads in restrooms on North 2nd and 5th Floor and South 3rd Floor. The initiative, spearheaded by Women at Work, encourages community members to replenish the boxes when they can, creating a shared resource for those in need. Nhawu said the initiative has been popular, highlighting demand and the importance of sustainability. To raise awareness, Women at Work is teaming up with Shanghai Run Club for a charity run on March 12 benefiting Shanghai Better Period, a local organization focused on menstrual education.
Finally, Women at Work and Student Government are making sure that the inspirational women of NYU Shanghai will finally get their flowers…quite literally. If someone has ordered flowers for you, you’ll receive an email on Monday morning letting you know where to pick them up.
The events are a great way to keep gender equity on the forefront of people’s minds even beyond Women’s Day, said Nhawu. “Outwardly, it feels like we’ve gone far,” but she added, “we still have a lot of work to get there to truly become equal.”