Hi, my name is Grace Duffy and I am a third year student undergoing a placement within the School of Psychology. The SWAN project caught my interest as the issues raised play such an important role within the school and throughout society.

As a student when I look around the room, I often wonder why Psychology is so gender unbalanced with nearly a 80-20% ratio of females to males.  By joining this group I hope to understand why this is and how the SWAN group and I can help to ensure equality when it comes to high-ranking posts and applications for doctorates.

As part of the student recruitment group, we often query why Psychology is seen as a female discipline and how we can break down this stigma so more males would be interested in applying for a Psychology degree. I am excited to work alongside both the SWAN group and student recruitment to try and figure out the reasons behind this stigma, why some males have picked Psychology and how we can encourage more to join in the future.

I hope that I can help encourage students to speak up if they have gender issues or queries and that they everyone will feel comfortable to express themselves within the School of Psychology. By having a student representative on the committee, the link between students and staff is stronger than ever and I feel like this link will go a long way in improving our school to make it a safe space for all.

I am delighted to be a part of the SWAN committee and I can’t wait to dive in headfirst!

To learn more about our SWAN work visit: https://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/psy/about/AthenaSwanAwards/

And you can contact Grace directly at: grace.duffy@qub.ac.uk