BCBusiness

38 BCBusiness march 2018 adam BlasBerg and did postdoctoral research at the Uni- versity of California, Berkeley; the Uni- versity of Edinburgh; and UBC, Sally Otto originally enrolled in genetic engineering because she mistakenly thought it would involve mathematics. Fortunately, men- tors pointed her in the right direction so she could combine her interests in math and biolo—y. "The biolo—y is where the questions are," Otto says. "I'm driven by the questions from biolo—y. The math is the tool I use to solve the problems." Otto develops and analyzes mathe- matical models to study how species and organisms change over time to determine when and which evolutionary transitions are possible. She's also director of the Liber Ero Fellowship Program, which supports early-career scientists to conduct and communicate research on conserva- tion and management issues relevant to Canada. In 2006 she co-founded the Cana- dian Society for Ecolo—y and Evolution. Otto was named a 2011 MacArthur Fellow, and in 2015 she received the Sewall Wright Award for fundamental contributions to the uniŽcation of biolo—y from the Ameri- can Society of Naturalists. Now that she is well established, her reputation is strong enough to overcome gender-related biases. But earlier in her career, the biggest challenges Otto faced were underexpectations: assumptions about her math abilities, or crediting of her ideas and papers to a supervisor. To establish her credentials, she will talk about how she has done a PhD, has writ- ten a number of papers and loves tech- nical work. "By starting conversations that way, you can project how you want people to react to you." —F.S. hOW CAn We GeT mORe WOmen inTO sTem? the impression that being a scientist will mean no time for a life or a family discourages some women, in otto's experience. "as a role model, i want to make it clear that that's not true," she states. "i'm on a soccer team. i belong to a book club. i have a child. i have a garden, and yet i am a devoted sci- entist." she also thinks that as a society, we need to make it easier for women who have children to continue in or return to stem fields. meDiA shAhRzAD RAFATi Founder and CEO, BroadbandTV When Shahrzad Rafati was seeking investors for digital entertainment company BroadbandTV Corp. (BBTV) more than a decade ago, being a woman didn't help. "A lot of the discussions that we had in the earlier days highlighted the need for me to show that I have the exper- tise and I really understand the space," Rafati says. "I'm not sure if I would have faced the same level of scrutiny if I was male." Rafati grew up in Iran, where she says parents want their children to be a law- yer, a doctor or an engineer. She chose the latter path, completing a BSc in com- puter science at UBC in 2005. That same year, seeing the opportunity presented by a new video-sharing website called YouTube, Rafati started BBTV. People told her it was an impossible task, she says. "That got me to think, 'Hey, I'm going to SKIN IN THE GAME Maryam Sadeghi's company, MetaOptima Technology, detects skin conditions like cancer

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