Name: Queen's Gender Initiative: International Women’s Day Mini-Symposium
Start: 2026-03-12T14:00:00+00:00
End: 2026-03-12T16:30:00+00:00
Location: Queen's University Belfast

$Queen's Gender Initiative: International Women\u2019s Day Mini-Symposium$

Beyond Acceptance: The Strengths and Limitations of Gender Equality Programmes
About this Event

Register to secure your place and join us as we bring together academics from Queen's University Belfast and George Washington University. The panel discussion will be followed by refreshments and networking.

Date: Thursday 12th March
Time: 2:00pm - 4:30pm
Location: Canada Room/Council Chamber, Queen's University Belfast

Gender Equality Programmes and Charter Marks have been increasing the visibility of women in Higher Education Institutions for the past two decades with many more women progressing to senior leadership positions. In this mini-symposium, academics from George Washington University (with a national context of discipline-based initiatives but no broadly accessible sector-wide schemes) and Queen’s University Belfast (an Athena Swan Gold Institutional Award holder) will reflect on the progress made and ask, how is inclusion impacted by intersectionality and have we moved beyond acceptance of women to real structural change?

Host: Olwen Purdue, Queen's University Belfast

Speakers/Panelists:

Evangeline J. Downie is a Professor of Physics and Associate Dean of Research and Strategic Initiatives in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences of the George Washington University. She is Vice Chair of the American Physical Society’s (APS) Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP) and has previously served in the national chair line of the APS Conference for Undergraduate Women and Gender Minorities in Physics (CU*IP) and the APS Climate Site Visit Program.

Rachel Riedner is Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences at George Washington University, where she is Professor of Writing and of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Her forthcoming book, Beyond Affirmation, explores the contexts within which social actors speak and act as well as how rhetorical agency and action can be circulated for political purposes

Ioana Latu is Professor of Experimental Social Psychology, at Queen's University Belfast. Her research focuses on understanding and reducing intergroup biases, with a specific focus on gender biases in organisational and academic contexts. Her current research seeks to understand and improve attitudes towards equality initiatives, including gender and LGBTQ+ inclusion initiatives in academic STEM field. Ioana is an Athena Swan Champion in the School of Psychology and the chair of the Swan Champions Network at Queen’s University Belfast.

Susan Clarke is Director of Queen’s Gender Initiative and Academic Lead for Gender Equality at Queen's University Belfast. Susan has been involved in delivering Athena Swan programmes at School and Institutional level for more than ten years. She was part of the team who delivered an Institutional Athena Swan Gold Award for Queen's University Belfast, one of only three institutions in the UK with this level of award.