Soapbox Science

Paula Seidler

Sanduni Pinnawala

Soapbox Science

Soapbox Science organises events across the UK and the world where women, non-binary and genderqueer scientists talk about their work at a public venue. These events celebrate women in STEMM and challenge the stereotypes about who STEMM researchers are.

Soapbox Science Brighton began back in 2017, and is organised by a team at the University of Sussex.

This year two young researchers from Sussex AI presented their work - Paula Seidler and Sanduni Pinnawala.

Paula Seidler presented their work: 'Can AI learn to see like us?'. She said: 'Speaking at Soapbox Science was so much fun - the hour flew by and I really enjoyed all the interesting conversations with so many different people about my research! It was especially great to see how much interest there is in AI beyond just LLMs, with really engaged discussions around bias, interpretability, and why explainability matters. Special shout-out to everyone who managed to beat AI and find the hidden cat-scientist in our (very over-ambitiously hard) find-the-difference puzzles!'

Sanduni Pinnawala presentation was: 'Tracking Rogue Proteins and Their Invasion of the Brain'. Her impression of the event was: 'Standing on the soapbox and sharing what I do was a fun and rewarding experience. I enjoyed breaking down my research into a casual conversation, answering all the interesting questions, and representing STEM alongside an amazing community.'

Congratulations to Paula, Sanduni, and everyone involved in the event! It is great initiative, and has always been warmly received by local community.

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