New Twitter Account

You may have noticed that our Twitter account (@ResearchonWH) hasn’t been working this past week. Due to some technical difficulties we were unfortunately locked out of our account. We’ve worked very hard to resolve these issues, but learned that the process could take months. Because of this we made the difficult decision of starting a new Twitter account for the WHRC. 

Please follow our new account @WHRCluster and help us get back to the >1000 followers we originally had by sharing the following post with your networks:

Due to technical difficulties, the Women’s Health Research Cluster (previously @ResearchonWH) has had to create a new twitter account (@WHRCluster). Go follow them to learn about #womenshealth and #sexandgender research!

WHRC Facebook Page

In light of the abovementioned fiasco, the importance of diversifying our communication channels has become particularly salient. As a result, we’re aiming to grow our previously lightly used Facebook page. 

If Facebook is where you like to connect, share and learn, consider following our page @WHRCluster and sharing it with friends.  

Women's Brain Health Conference—Virtual Series

We've been following the news closely for many months and feel confident that we won't be able to host international speakers or have large groups indoors anytime soon. Because of this, we've made the difficult decision to transform this conference into a virtual series. Our conference program has been broken up into 10 sessions that will be held once a month. Furthermore, events will include bi-monthly networking and trainee mentor sessions to enhance connection between participants.

Our conference is open to anyone interested in learning about women’s brain health and connecting with like-minded peers. You can register for the full series, or pick and choose which event you want to go to. Check out our conference program here and register now!

Women's Brain Health Conference
Rethinking Estrogen, Yet Again: The Science and Politics of Hormone Therapy in Menopause

Our first conference event will be a fire-side chat with keynote speaker Dr. Carol Tavris and Cluster Lead Dr. Liisa Galea. This session will include a 40-minute discussion between Galea and Tavris followed by a 15-minute Q&A with participants. The event will be held on September 21st from 4-5pm PDT on Zoom. Everyone is welcome to register! Tickets are $15 or $10 for students.
 

Date: Sept 21, 2020

Time: 4-5 pm PST

Register here

Women's Health Seminar Series

Tri-Cluster Research Day: The Future of Health

We're Hiring!

Tri-Cluster Research Day: Abstracts Open

Tri-Cluster Research Day: Seeking Abstract Judges

The WHRC will be hosting our second Tri-Cluster Research Day in collaboration with the Biomedical Imaging & Artificial Intelligence and Dynamic Brain Circuits in Health & Disease clusters on Nov 4th. We are seeking 3 judges to review 20 WHRC abstracts each, between October 14-21. If you are interested in reviewing abstracts for this event, please send us an email at womenshealth.res@ubc.ca

November Blog: Recruiting Writers

Do you have research that you’d like to convey to a public audience? Have an issue that you’d like to discuss? Need a project to keep your science communication skills sharp? Consider writing a blog for us! We are seeking writers to contribute to the November issue of our Women’s Health Blog. Blogs should be between 1000-2000 words and can be on any topic related to women’s health (e.g. laws that negatively impact women’s health, connection between recession and women’s health, sex and gender bias in medicine). If you’re interested, send us an email at womenshealth.res@ubc.ca with your blog topic to get started!

Graduate and Fellowship Research Award in Women's Health
Applications are open for the Women’s Health Research Institute’s (WHRI) Graduate and Fellowship Research Award in Women's Health. This award is intended to provide salary support ($12,500) to WHRI-affiliated graduate students and postdoctoral fellows who are engaged in women’s and/or newborn health research and who do not currently hold major competitive salary awards. Click here to learn how to become a WHRI member. Apply before Monday September 21st at 11:00 pm PDT.

New Blog Post—Sex/Gender Research: Resources for the Early Integrator to the Advanced Champion

Our very own trainee member, Jennifer Williams (@jennyswilliams), wrote a practical guide that helps readers who are both new to sex and gender research or seasoned academics discover new ways to learn and practice. This piece includes links to training modules, resources for grant applications and research articles that can help you become the sex and gender champion that you’ve always wanted to be. Check it out here and share with your networks.

Trainee Research Presentation 

On Aug 10th we held another Trainee Research Presentation that showcased the work of 5 students who are working to improve the health outcomes of women. Each presenter gave a 5 minute talk that was followed by a Q&A session. These presenters covered a wide variety of topics including racial disparities in perinatal health, differing impacts of COVID-19 on sleep, mood and empathy between the sexes, the effects of ovarian hormones on learning, biomarkers for individual SSRI responsivity in women and gender-based differences in exercise self-efficacy in individuals with stroke. The event was open to the public and had 53 registrants from around the world (Germany, Nigeria, USA, & Canada) as well as across Canada (ON, BC, AB). Participants included students who were completing their undergraduate degrees all the way to postdoctoral fellows. We also had a diverse range of professionals attend including registered nurses, an engineer, research administrators and faculty members who came to support their students. Finally, we were thrilled to see a handful of people from the general public attend as well! Thank you to everyone that participated!  

Click here to watch the event online.

Welcome

We’d like to formally welcome the following new members to our cluster. We’re happy to have you working alongside us to support women’s health!

• Karen Mason, Co-founder of Supporting Survivors of Abuse and Brain Injury Through Research (i.e. the SOAR Project). 

• Dr. Samantha Dawson, Assistant Professor in Psychology at UBC

• Elise Wiley, Masters student at McMaster University

If you want to join the cluster, send us an email womenshealth.res@ubc.ca so we can get acquainted.  

New Study—MOS2

UBC Medical Professor and cluster member, Dr. Jerilynn Prior, is working with Health Canada, is assessing relationships among menstrual cycles, ovulation and environmental exposures. Interested women (ages 19-35) who are not on The Pill may contact cycles.cemcor@ubc.ca to learn more. Participants will learn about their own cycles, receive gift cards and a signed copy of Dr. Prior’s perimenopause book.

New Study—PCOS Treatment Survey

UBC’s Centre for Menstrual Cycle and Ovulation Research, founded by cluster member Dr. Jerilynn Prior, now studies PCOS treatment. CeMCOR needs to know the preferences of women living with PCOS. CeMCOR launched an ethics-approved survey to learn how women living with PCOS view The Pill, what bothers them most, and attitudes toward a new PCOS Cyclic Progesterone therapy. Learn more  and access the survey here.

First Person Science: Making Neuroscience Accessible
Cluster member Paul Sheppard, who is a PDF at Western University, is a part of the team who created First-Person Science: Making Neuroscience Accessible. This initiative, which brings together scientists and the general public through their First-Person Science Podcast, recently received a prestigious award for outreach & advocacy from the Canadian Association for Neuroscience! Bravo Paul and colleagues. We love your NeuroBeer talks, especially the one that discusses sex and gender in research.

Want to be Featured in our Shout Outs! Next Month?

If you’ve published a new paper, are presenting at an event, won an award or have done something else that you are proud of—we want to know. A part of the WHRC mission is to “...promote impactful research on women’s health”. By sharing your work, we are able to raise awareness about women's health and cultivate an environment where new ideas and collaborations can arise. Get in touch with us by emailing womenshealth.res@ubc.ca.

Fundraising Campaign: Podcast Equipment

The WHRC is launching a Women’s Health Podcast and we need your help to make it happen! Our podcast will explore multidisciplinary research on women’s health and provide science communication training to 2 students that will host the show. We’re raising funds to purchase podcasting equipment so our students can record high quality content safely from their homes. If you feel passionately about knowledge translation and student science communication training, we invite you to donate to our campaign and spread the word to help us meet our fundraising goal. 
 

Here is a breakdown of what your donation will help us purchase depending on the contribution level:

• $10: Two pop filters

• $20: Two desktop mounted boom arms

• $35: Preamplifier

• $50: Two Marantz MPM-2000U microphones

• $100: Zencastr audio editing software

Testimonials

The WHRC is looking to collect testimonials about our work. If you’ve attended any of our public events, participated in trainee presentations, received a seminar series certificate or read our blogs—we’d love to hear your thoughts. What do you like about the work we do? How have our initiatives benefited you? Why do you think our organization is valuable? Testimonials can be as short or long as you would like. Click here to submit one now!

Donate
If you feel passionate about the work we are doing and are in a position to give, consider making a one-time or monthly donation. 100% of proceeds will be used to promote women’s health research across public, government and academic domains.