On Sunday 11 February, the International Day of Women and Girls in Science was celebrated, which seeks to highlight the role of women in a field in which women's contributions are sometimes less relevant. On the occasion of this day, Next in Beauty, wanted to join the cause and meet a woman who has dedicated her professional career to this captivating field.
Patricia Gisbert is currently the Innovation Manager of the Beauty Cluster. She holds a PhD in Nanotechnology since 2018 from the Universitat de Rovira i Virgili de Tarragona, within the PhD programme in Nanoscience, Materials and Chemical Engineering. He completed the International Master in Photonics in 2015, within the Erasmus Mundus framework (Surface, Electro, Radiation and Photochemistry) at the University of Paris-Sud in France and the Adam Mickiewicx University of Poznán in Poland. In 2013 he graduated in Chemistry at the University of Valencia, with a final research work at the Leibniz University of Hannover in Germany.
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What is your earliest memory of science?
The first memory I have of science is about space. When I was very young, I remember a theme week in kindergarten, where we were introduced to the planets and stars. They told us about space travel and it fascinated me so much that I still have it as one of my earliest memories.
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Why did you opt for this field and for cosmetics?
I chose science because of my parents. My father is one of the most intelligent people I know and he has always been very good at mathematics. In the afternoons, he always gave my brother and me lessons after school or high school. My mother has also been very supportive in the decisions we have made and I still remember how she helped us with the multiplication tables at school. Thanks to them, my twin brother and I are now scientists.
I came to cosmetics by chance, when I finished my PhD, and a whole world of applied science opened up to me that I didn't know about. It is a very cross-cutting and fast-innovating sector that incorporates new technologies and science from different sectors.
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What is it about cosmetics that captivated you in this case?
My high school chemistry teacher, Marta, was one of my references for studying chemistry. She showed me that everything is chemistry and that it had many industrial applications that I could see in my daily life.
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What is what captivate you in this case of the cosmetic?
It captivated me see how the cosmetic sector used from does years technologies that I same had used in the doctorate. In few years have been able to check how the cosmetic industry transforms and uses investigation and leading technology for the development of cosmetics and perfumes.
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What are your future prospects for the cosmetics industry in terms of innovation and where the sector is heading?
The future of cosmetics depends on the application of new technologies and the incorporation of advances in other sectors such as biotechnology and medicine. All these advances will bring us closer to personalisation and precision cosmetics.
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Do you think it would be necessary to promote gender inclusion and diversity in the sciences and specialised areas?
Yes, definitely, both in terms of employment and education. Luckily we can freely choose the career we want to study and it is a great achievement that many women choose health sciences. But I also believe that the sciences have traditionally been male-dominated and that there is still a lot of work to be done to awaken women's vocations in fields such as physics or other engineering.
Gender bias exists in the workplace, in leadership positions, and equality must be promoted at all organisational levels. Moreover, for many women scientists (and non-scientists) work-life balance is still a big gap, whether they choose a path in academia or in industry. As women, we have a long way to go and 8 March is a good time to remember this.
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Do you think it is necessary to increase girls' interest in the field of science? Show them other paths and outlets, such as dermo-cosmetics and cosmetics, which many of them did not know about until they finished their university studies.
I think it would help a lot if universities and educational centres showed the wide variety of opportunities available in the sciences. And of course, there is a whole sector with many possibilities such as dermocosmetics and cosmetics.
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Do you think it is important to strengthen the empowerment of women in science?
I think it is important to work on the basis of gender equality and, of course, to empower and give resources to all those women who are interested and curious about science.
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What message would you like to give to young women interested in becoming scientists?
Don't be afraid of science. There are more and more women whose curiosity and tenacity have led them to become scientific leaders and it is worth defying stereotypes and specialising in the area that most inspires them. If they look around them, there will always be a woman (or a mother) to look up to.