RWTH Aachen Brigitte Gilles Prize Awarded
RWTH Aachen has awarded two projects with the Brigitte Gilles Prize. School students from the Junior Ingenieur Akademie at Inda-Gymnasium in Aachen-Kornelimünster and the organizers of an equal opportunities project in the RWTH-AStA received their prizes during an award ceremony.
The prize is named after Brigitte Gilles, a professor of psychology at RWTH Aachen from 1980 to 1994. Already at the start of her career, Brigitte Gilles invested in gender equality at the university. and was chosen as the first RWTH Aachen Representative for Women in 1991.
The goal of awarding the prize is to promote women in technical and natural science courses of study and the number of female scientists, as well as the general improvement of learning and working conditions for women at the University.
The Brigitte Gilles Prize is awarded in two categories. Both a school project from the Aachen region and an internal University project are awarded. The selection criteria include innovativeness, sustainability, and relation to RWTH Aachen. Each prize is endowed with 2,500 Euros.
The goal of the Junior Ingenieur Akademie at Inda-Gymnasium in Aachen-Kornelimünster is school students' early contact with work done by engineers. Diverse projects get participants interested in topics like mechanical engineering, robotics, computer science, and metrology. The school administration fills half of the available spots with girls. The first female graduates of the Junior Ingenieur Akademie have already proven its success: all of the girl chose to study a STEM subject. Teacher Klaus Buschhüter, and the principal, Arthur Bierganz, also celebrated along with the girls as they accepted the award.
A poster campaign against sexism, homophobia, and discrimination was organized by Frederik Hake, Katrin Prost, and Julia Ebertshäuser. The AStA project illustrated the problems that students, above all female students, experience at RWTH. The initiators wanted to not only raise awareness for gender equality but also aspects of diversity.
Source: Press and Public Relations