The Women in MBE committee was created in 2004 to investigate and make recommendations to the Administrative Council regarding issues and steps necessary to:

– Increase the visibility and participation of women within IFMBE
– Address ways to improve the climate for women in IFMBE and the workplace
– Gather and disseminate information regarding the status of women in MBE

The Chair for the first two terms (2004-2009) was Maria Siebes (Netherlands). The Vice-Chair was Laura Poole-Warren (Australia); Alicia El-Haj (UK) was a member as well as Herbert Voigt (USA and IFMBE President).

The new Chair is Monique Frize, with Vice Chair Laura Poole-Warren. Maria and Alicia have kindly agreed to remain a member of the committee. New members added between 2009-2012 were:  Eleni Kaldoudi (Greece), Susana Llanusa Ruiz (Cuba) and Jennifer Ayers.

In 2012, the membership is: Monique Frize (Chair) and Laura Poole-Warren (Vice-Chair); members are: Consuelo CORONA (Cuba), Alicia EL-HAJ (UK), Eleni KALDOUDI (Greece), Andre LINNENBANK (The Netherlands) Ratko MAGJAREVIC (Croatia) Penny MARTENS (Australia), Shauna MULLALLY (Canada), Susana Llanusa RUIZ (Cuba), Lena Kajsa SIDEN (Sweden), Maria SIEBES (The Netherlands), Peck Ha TAN (Singapore), Herbert VOIGT (USA), May D. WANG (USA)

(1) The AC members and officers, the Academy, committees, especially the Nominations Committee, the Committee of National Secretaries, the Publication and Publicity Committee (PPC) need to be involved in activities of the WiMBE.

(2) Regarding the Academy, the program for young people should be geared appropriately towards the needs of each gender.

(3) The Nominations Committee should recommend qualified women for positions on the AC, its various committees, the Academy, and for awards and prizes that they would merit. The WiMNBE will make suggestions

(4) The WiMBE will work closely with the PPC to increase the committee’s profile and update information on the web site as well as profiling women in the Newsletter, hold workshops on topics concerning women in engineering, and publish papers in MBEC on this topic.

For the term 2012-2015, the committee’s plans and actions are:
(1) Work closely with the Organising committee of WC2015 to ensure greater inclusiveness of women in the various roles such as keynote and plenary speakers, Chairs of sessions, women receiving awards and as judges for the young presenters awards.

(2) Develop a database of women in biomedical engineering and sciences and identify women for high profile roles.

(3) Organise workshops on gender issues at major IFMBE events.

(4) Develop a network of contact persons from the Affiliated Societies and ensure communications occur in both directions. This is also intended to help collect best practices and share these over the web site and Newsletter.

(5) Develop an internet-based mentor project.

(6) Disseminate the results of the workshop in Beijing to encourage the implementation of the workshop’s recommendations.