2024
WICTO x GCI Highschool Outreach with Central Technical School
On Thursday, May 23, we hosted students from Central Technical School for a fun afternoon filled with lab tours, experiments and a panel! Students were introduced to the chemistry labs in our Chemistry department, and were able to ask questions to undergraduate and graduate students through our panel. They were also able to perform 3 different lab experiments such as popping boba, flame colour test and an experiment testing chlorinated vs non-chlorinated products.
Many thanks to Jill, our events coordinator who facilitated this outreach event. As well as Alicia for her support through GCI, and the many volunteers who helped with the demos and tours. Thank you to the Abbatt, Aspuru-Guzik, and Tran lab for allowing us to share their lab space with the students!
Science Rendezvous
On May 11, 2024, WICTO was a part of the Science Rendezvous festivities bring Science to the Toronto community! We hosted a booth where folks got to make their own "fake snow" through the baby diaper experiment! It was a hit! Thanks to our volunteers Camelia, Lucia, Jill, Anna and Nathan for their help, and Science Rendezvous for allowing us to share Science with the community!
WICTO Workshop: Writing a Diversity Statement (led by Emil Marmol of UTM, Study of University Pedagogy)
WICTO Journal Clubs at UTSC and UTSG
April was filled with lots of interactive discussions occuring at the Scarborough and St. George campus. Facilitated by our UTSC rep, Jenny Oh, this journal club highlighted this JChem Ed paper on "Teaching Sustainability and Environmental Justice in Undergraduate Chemistry Courses" (read here). Over at the St. George campus, Anna Watson led an engaging journal club on this paper titled, "Mismatch in Perceptions of Success: Investigating Academic Valuesamong Faculty and Doctoral Students" (read here). Many thanks to those for coming by and participating!
WICTO's 2nd Annual Symposium: Connecting through Chemistry
On January 27th, 2024, WICTO hosted our second annual WICTO Symposium: Connecting Through Chemistry in the Earth Sciences Building at the University of Toronto campus. More than 150 undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdocs from chemistry and STEM departments from across Toronto participated in this event!
WICTO would like to thank all of our fantastic partners and sponsors for supporting and funding this event. We are grateful to The University of Toronto Department of Chemistry, Medicine by Design, CIC Toronto, The University of Toronto ChemClub, The Student Initiative Fund, Working Towards Inclusivity in Chemistry at York University (WICYU), The University of Toronto Career Exploration & Education, and The Toronto Initiative for Diversity & Excellence (TIDE). We'd like to extend our graditude to the CIC for awarding us the Chemical Education Fund that further supported this symposium.
Read more about the symposium from an article written by UofT's Student Newspaper, the Varsity here. Additionally, read this great reflection piece written by TMU participants Osemudiamen Ibazebo and Aaliya Pathan here
2023
WICTO Sticker Campaign
Huge thank you to everyone who supported our WICTO Sticker Campaign this year. We had great designs from our chemistry community, and we're excited to share that we raised $2500 in ticket and magnet sales. A quarter of the proceeds went to 2 great organizations: AISES and EWOC.
WICTO Journal Club Workshop: Chemical Visuality in Research Design
On November 14th, Sajdeep Soomal (PhD Candidate, Department of History) joined us for a special edition of our monthly journal clubs to discuss how the politics of chemical visualization and aesthetics shaped experimental design and research findings.
Sunshine Therapy Dogs
On November 7, we invited our fur-friends, Gnocchi and Abbie, from Sunshine Therapy Dogs to come help us de-stress. Thank you to everyone who came out, we hope you had a paws-itively good time!
AGM and Pub Night!
We welcomed the new academic year with everyone through our AGM and pub night on September 21st.
2022-2023
2023 Spring Social
WICTO hosted a Spring Social at Myhal's 8th floor terrace on Friday May 26th from 7-10PM! All graduate students and post-docs from the Department of Chemistry and their guests were welcome. This event was free and the ticket included dinner, 2 drink tickets (alcoholic), non-alcoholic drinks, snacks, and a painting activity!
2023 International Women's Day
The theme for IWD for 2023 was #EmbraceEquity. WICTO created posters for social media reflecting on what embracing equity meant to members of the team.
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2023 IUPAC Global Women's Breakfast
WICTO hosted an IUPAC global women's breakfast event at all three UofT tricampus locations. A full blog post to come soon!
2023 In-person Journal Club
February Coffee Hour Journal Club
Every month, WICTO will be hosting a journal club coffee hour where students, faculty, and staff are invited to come discuss topics of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion through an open conversational format. *February article: Is publishing in the chemical sciences gender biased? Link to the article for our February discussion: https://tinyurl.com/febjournalclub
2023 Colloquium
Dr. Mia Huang was our first colloquium speaker for 2023! She joined us in person on Friday, Feb 10th, 2023 in LM158.
A full reflection to come soon!
2022 Sticker and Magnet Campaign
We brought back our popular sticker campaign for the month of November and expanded to include magnet options, focusing on the theme of "belonging". We managed to raise over $600 for Visions of Science!
Examples of some of the stickers/magnet designs:
WICTO Symposium: Connecting Through Chemistry
On November 19th, 2022, WICTO hosted its inaugural professional development symposium titled “Connecting Through Chemistry” in Lash Miller Chemical Laboratories. More than 70 participants, including undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs from the Chemistry department across all three campuses (St. George, UTM, and UTSC) participated in the event.
First seminar series talk co-hosted with GCI - Ashlee Howarth
On November 17th, 2022, WICTO had the great pleasure of hosting Prof. Ashlee Howarth from Concordia University as part of WICTO’s Seminar Series. Her talk highlighted her group’s research on rare-earth metal-organic frameworks and their potential applications in pollution remediation, catalysis, and chemical sensing. We were delighted to see a great number of graduate students and faculty members attend our first in-person seminar after the long, challenging period of the pandemic.
2021-2022
Wine & Cheese 2022
Finally, our Wine & Cheese event came back in person! We provided snacks, drinks, and highlighted art from LGBTQ+ artists while department members socialized and had a great time.
Journal Club Pizza Party
We recently moved our journal club to an asynchronous format using Yammer. To encourage participation, everyone who engaged with our discussions was entered into a raffle to win a pizza party for their lab group.
International Women's Day - Submit a Woman Scientist!
A social media campaign which encouraged people to submit the name of a woman scientist who inspired them and tell us why. Participants were entered into a draw to win a gift card, and entries were featured on social media.
Workshop: Fostering Queer & Trans-Inclusive Spaces
A workshop hosted by The 519 which covered language, terminology, and the basics of gender and sexual diversity. The facilitator shared action items and strategies for affirming queer and trans peopoe in an academic environment.
IUPAC Global Women's Breakfast 2022: Empowering Diversity in Science
A virtual presentation and discussion on equity in STEM. First 30 participants received a $5 Tim Hortons gift card.
WICTO & CSU Presents: Graduate School Information Panel Dicussion
A virtual information session in partnership with the Chemistry Student Union (CSU) hosted an information featuring a panel of current UofT graduate students from various disciplines giving "pop talks".
LGBTQ+ Awareness & Allyship Sticker Campaign
A campaign to raise awareness for LBGTQ+ folks in STEM and to raise money for The 519
See below for stickers designed by Holly Barrett, Azalea Uva, and Amanda Kwan:
