‘Equal­i­ty Month’, held from March 9 to 26, 2026 fea­tured a rich pro­gramme ded­i­cat­ed to pro­mot­ing equal­i­ty between women and men and com­bat­ing discrimination.

At the ini­tia­tive of Pro­fes­sor Marie-Hélène Abel, work­ing at the Heudi­asyc lab­o­ra­to­ry and UTC’s Equal­i­ty Offi­cer, ‘Equal­i­ty Month’ kicked off on March 9 with a round­table dis­cus­sion bring­ing togeth­er female researchers from the CNRS and UTC. Work­shops and lec­tures were also offered, focus­ing on the con­cept of equal­i­ty in the broad­est sense to raise aware­ness of every­day dis­crim­i­na­tion. The round­table dis­cus­sion titled “Women in Sci­ence” high­light­ed sev­er­al inspir­ing sci­en­tists, includ­ing Isabelle Claude, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at the UTC-BMBI lab­o­ra­to­ry. “The work of a sci­en­tist is extreme­ly var­ied; the sub­ject mat­ter can appeal to any young woman inter­est­ed in this field. And you’re nev­er bored, because we’re research­ing, prov­ing things and explor­ing new avenues—innovation makes every day dif­fer­ent and excit­ing.” For Louise Le Bar­ben­chon, a research fel­low at the CNRS, her par­tic­i­pa­tion in the round­table was also a giv­en: “I enjoyed sci­ence in mid­dle school. In high school, that inter­est solid­i­fied. When it came time to choose a path, I opt­ed for advanced math and spe­cial­ized sci­ence cours­es. At engi­neer­ing school, I dis­cov­ered the field of mate­ri­als mechan­ics. I think we all have what it takes to do what I do today. You just have to keep your options open.”

Raising the Profile of Women in Science

Stéphanie Bar­bez, head of the com­mu­ni­ca­tions and sci­ence out­reach depart­ment at the CNRS’s Hauts-de-France del­e­ga­tion and recip­i­ent of the 2025 CNRS Crys­tal Medal, also shared her sto­ry and pre­sent­ed the exhi­bi­tion she ini­ti­at­ed. “The exhi­bi­tion, *La Sci­ence taille XX Elles*, has been run­ning for sev­er­al years at the CNRS and through the *Femmes et Sci­ences* asso­ci­a­tion. The idea is to high­light women from all sci­en­tif­ic fields and at all levels—from lab­o­ra­to­ry tech­ni­cians to research direc­tors, includ­ing engi­neers.” Miraine Dávi­la Felipe, an asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at UTC’s Com­piègne Lab­o­ra­to­ry of Applied Math­e­mat­ics since 2019, is one of the women in sci­ence fea­tured in this exhi­bi­tion. After earn­ing a Bachelor’s degree in math­e­mat­ics in Cuba, she arrived in France in 2010 on a Master’s degree schol­ar­ship to École Poly­tech­nique. She then com­plet­ed a doc­tor­al dis­ser­ta­tion at Sor­bonne Uni­ver­si­ty and a post- at the Insti­tut Pas­teur before join­ing UTC. “We women often tend toward self-cen­sor­ship. So I wouldn’t have spon­ta­neous­ly thought that my jour­ney was inspir­ing. But when I take a step back, I’ve accom­plished a num­ber of things that might seem dif­fi­cult for younger peo­ple to achieve. In that sense, my jour­ney can make these young people’s dreams more real­is­tic and more attain­able. It won’t always be easy, but you have to per­se­vere and give your­self the means to suc­ceed.”

A Challenge Worth Taking On

Claire Dupont is a CNRS engi­neer spe­cial­iz­ing in sci­en­tif­ic com­put­ing at UTC’s Bio­me­chan­ics and Bio­engi­neer­ing Lab­o­ra­to­ry. She, too, agreed to be fea­tured in this exhi­bi­tion, which will be pre­sent­ed in March 2027 dur­ing Equal­i­ty Month. She hopes to break down stereo­types, inspire young girls to pur­sue careers in sci­ence, and show that women have a place in sci­en­tif­ic fields and that they can find hap­pi­ness and build ful­fill­ing careers there. “It was a chal­lenge because I’m usu­al­ly behind the cam­era rather than in front of it. The pho­to ses­sion will remain a won­der­ful mem­o­ry. This exhi­bi­tion allowed me to meet the ambas­sadors, Stéphanie Bar­bez and the DR18 com­mu­ni­ca­tions team, Vin­cent Mon­corgé, the pho­tog­ra­ph­er, Sophie Bar­reau from the Femmes et Sci­ences asso­ci­a­tion, Sophie Blit­man, the jour­nal­ist who wrote our pro­files, and — I’m sure — to reach out to young girls in mid­dle and high schools.”

KD