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Found 38 Role Models

Lito Kattou

Date of birth: 1990
Place of origin: Cyprus
Place of residence: Athens
Education:

She is a graduate of the Royal College of Art in London with an MA in Sculpture and the Athens School of Fine Arts.

Main achievements:

Kattou is the recipient of the New Positions Award for Art Cologne 2018 and she was the invited artist for the 89plus Google Residency curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Simon Castets at the Google Cultural Institute in Paris, 2017. She has presented her work in solo shows at the Benaki Museum, Athens; ROOM E1027, Berlin; Point Centre for Contemporary Art, Nicosia; Eleni Koroneou Gallery, Athens; Clearview.ltd, London; Pierre Poumet, Bordeaux; Radical Reading, Athens and in various group shows at art spaces, galleries and museums including Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham; Kraupa-Tuskany Zeidler, Berlin; Changing Room, London; Foothold, Bari; Komplot, Brussels; Midway Contemporary, Minneapolis; Benaki Museum and Deste Foundation, Athens. Her works are included in prominent international and private collections as the Dakis Joannou Collection, the collection of the National Bank of Greece, the collection of Deutsche Telekom.

Toula Onoufriou

Place of origin: Cyprus
Field of expertise:

Professor Toula Onoufriou is a Professor of Infrastructure Reliability and Management in the Department of Civil Engineering and Geomatics at the Cyprus University of Technology,

Main achievements:

Head of EMERGE CoE Research Group and Academic Visitor at Imperial College (UK). She is also the President of the Cyprus Hydrocarbons Company which is the Commercial and Technical Arm of the Republic of Cyprus on Exploration and Exploitation of Hydrocarbons. She has a unique combination of experience from academia and the offshore oil and gas industry internationally where she held several positions of high responsibility (Vice Rector, President, Head of Department, Director of Research, Head of Research Centre and Senior Consultant) and she recorded significant professional activity, contribution and recognition at national and international level.

Promotion of gender equality:

International professional distinctions and awards include the EGYPS 2020 “Women in Energy Leadership Award” for the Mediterranean and North Africa region in recognition of her contribution to the Energy industry, academia, public sector and her efforts on enhancing regional collaboration on Energy related matters; the Stanley Gray Award by the Institute of Marine Engineers UK for the best publication in marine technology; and the award of the prestigious SmartEN Marie Curie ITN Programme on “Smart Management for Sustainable Human Environment”. Also invited Expert Speaker at many high level international fora including United States Congress, European Commission and international conferences on oil and gas developments and smart proactive management of infrastructure systems.

Website:

Şule Suha

Date of birth: 1927
Place of origin: Cyprus
Education:

She graduated from The American Academy Nicosia and then received a scholarship to pursue Education studies in the UK. At the time CBS (Cyprus Broadcasting Service) was created and she thought that a broadcasting career suit her more. She applied and was immediately accepted, thus becoming the first female radio producer in Cyprus.

Promotion of gender equality:

She has inspired many Cypriot women as she was one of the first females to take action and defend the fact that a woman could contribute as well as any man in the economic and social life. Sule was an important figure in radio and television broadcasting in the 60s. She passed away a few days ago.

Isabel Coixet Castillo

Date of birth: 1960
Place of origin: Spain
Education:

Isabel Coixet graduated in History from the University of Barcelona and went on to specialise in advertising and music videos. As a result of these studies, she came into contact with a production company and began to work as an award-winning commercial writer and film critic. After 7 years dedicated to these activities, in 1984 his vocation as a filmmaker came to light with the short film 'Mira y verás'. Five years later, he made his feature film debut with 'Demasiado viejo para morir joven' (Too old to die young), a film that was not a great success in theatres, but which got the critics to take notice of it, obtaining a nomination for the Goya Awards for Best New Director.

Field of expertise:

Isabel Coixet was born in San Adriá del Besós, Barcelona (Spain) on 9 April 1960.
Isabel Coixet Castillo (Barcelona, 1960) is one of the most international and renowned Spanish film directors and screenwriters, winner of 8 Goya awards, characterised by denouncing issues she is not happy with in her work.

Rewards:

She has numerous awards and recognitions such as the Berlin Film Festival Award for her film My Life Without Me. With four statuettes, she is the woman with the most "Goya" awards in history.

Main achievements:

Her international success came in 2003 with the intimate drama My Life Without Me, a film based on a short story by Nancy Kincaid in which the Canadian actress Sarah Polley played Ann, a young mother who decides to hide her terminal cancer from her family. This Spanish-Canadian co-production was highly praised at the Berlin International Film Festival.
She has an extensive filmography to her credit with 25 film titles, 17 film scripts, producer of 9 of her works, multiple documentaries and 8 books.

Promotion of gender equality:

Isabel is a great promoter of gender equality from two different points of view.
Her daily actions and her words show her eagerness to overcome violence and discrimination against women's work. Phrases such as the following from the director show us her thoughts:
"Thanking an actor for agreeing to play second fiddle to a leading actress is like applauding a father for putting nappies on his child."
Women in film are in a "precarious situation, there are not many female directors", but the difficulties increase "eightfold" when they want to make their second project, she said.
"People who suffer violence have to have confidence in their environment, and the role of the police is fundamental", she said.
In her opinion, in order to tackle this phenomenon, "it is important that teenagers know what they have to do, how to behave, for which we have to do in-depth educational work with them".

Secondly, her films are a reference when it comes to portraying both the reality of women and their achievements in a world run by men. Examples include films such as: "Cosas que nunca te dije" (1996), "La vida secreta de las palabras" (2005), "Nadie quiere la noche" (2015), "La librería" (2017), "Elisa y Marcela" (2019) and documentaries about activists such as "Lydia Cacho" (2020) which is part of the documentary series "Peace Peace Peace Now Now" which aims to give voice to violence against women in Latin America.

Pilar Careaga Basabe

Date of birth: 1908
Date of death: 1993
Place of origin: Spain
Education:

Pilar Careaga Basabe studied quantity surveyor and later continued at the Higher School of Industrial Engineers in Madrid (1922-1923). He finished his career in six years, the term foreseen in the study plan. He earned outstanding grades in Mathematics, Chemistry, and Railways. He had also studied languages ​​in Switzerland (German, English and French). In the last year of her studies at the Faculty she followed the subject of Railways and did an internship as a train driver, becoming the first woman to drive a train in Spain. His final degree project dealt with "History of the ETSI of Industrial Engineers of Madrid from 1901 to 1972". She was 20 years old.

Main achievements:

First mayor of Bilbao, first woman industrial engineer in Spain.

Promotion of gender equality:

In 1929 she was the first Spanish woman to graduate in industrial engineering from the Madrid School of Industrial Engineering, as well as the first woman to drive a railway. For the first time, a woman operated a train machine. Pilar Careaga y Basabé carried out their industrial engineering practices on the railroad. And he did not hesitate to put on his work overalls (uniform) and drive a '4,700' of the Norte company (Renfe was founded in 1941, after the Civil War ended and unifying the different lines that served in Spain: North, MZA, West between the most important). From the North Station of Madrid to the station of the same name in Bilbao. Quite a feat for the time.
In addition, she developed a whole political career that led her, on 07/07/1969, to become mayor of Bilbao, being the first woman to hold a mayor's office during the Franco dictatorship. She resigned as mayor on 07/07/1975 and left active politics.

References:

Jimena Quirós Fernández

Date of birth: 1899
Education:

She graduated in Science with an extraordinary award in 1921 and, a few months later, became the first Spanish scientist to embark on an oceanographic campaign. The expedition, by the Spanish Oceanography (IEO), took place aboard the ship Giralda, lasted a month and traveled the Spanish coasts of the Mediterranean. Jimena worked as an assistant to French oceanographer and naturalist Julien Thoulet.
Jimena continued to form and her concern took her, firstly, to the University of Paris and then to Columbia, where she studied Physical Geography of the Atmosphere and Oceans with some of the best scientists of the time in the field. Although she dominated many fields of marine sciences, Jimena's specialty was physics and that was what most of his short career was devoted to: the study of the ocean's bodies of water, its temperature, salinity, currents...
She worked in several institutes as a teacher until the Civil War came and, in 1940, the Franco dictatorship ceased her positions and kicked her out of the IEO.

Main achievements:

In 1922 she traveled to the laboratories located in Malaga to investigate the biology of molluscs. From this study was born her first scientific article, first article in addition to signing a woman in Spain in this field.
Jimena continued to form and her concern took her, firstly, to the University of Paris and then to Columbia, where she studied Physical Geography of the Atmosphere and Oceans with some of the best scientists of the time in the field. Although she dominated many fields of marine sciences, Jimena's specialty was physics and that was what most of his short career was devoted to: the study of the ocean's bodies of water, its temperature, salinity, currents...
She worked in several institutes as a teacher until the Civil War came and, in 1940, the Franco dictatorship ceased her positions and kicked her out of the IEO.
She survived the Civil War, but her scientific career and struggle for equal rights was truncated. In 1966 Jimena obtained a pardon from the Franco government and obtained her re-entry into the IEO, but already as a retiree.

Promotion of gender equality:

She was a pioneer woman in marine sciences as she was the first Spanish scientist to board an oceanography campaign and then, at only 22 years old, she passed some exams and joined the IEO laboratory in the Balearic Islands, becoming the first scientist woman in the history of the institution.
In addition to science, Jimena devoted her life to politics and the fight for equal rights for women. She chaired the women's committee of the Partido Republicano Radical Socialista before women even had the right to vote. But Jimena began to struggle in her work and temporarily she started to work as a teacher.

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