AudioLab members Dr Jude Brereton and Kat Young were panellists at the launch of the Audio Engineering Society alignment with the #HeForShe United Nations campaign on 22nd February. The other speakers were Dr Liz Dobson (Senior Lecturer in Media Technology, University of Huddersfield), Emmanuel Vaas (Senior Lecturer in Professional Studies and Music Business; International Pianist) and Barkley McKay (touring and session musician, tutor), and was chaired by Dr Mariana Lopez (Vice-chair of AES UK; Lecturer in Sound Production and Post Production, University of York).
The panel discussed gender representation in audio, some likely causes and some possible ways forward, as well as inviting suggestions and commitments from the audience. The event was a great success, with many audience members pledging to make a change in their lives to help combat the gender imbalance.
The full panel can be watched here:
Mariana also made a very heartful opening speech which can be seen here:
Alongside this, Kat Young, Michael Lovedee-Turner, Dr Jude Brereton and Dr Helena Daffern have had their paper ‘The Impact of Gender on Conference Authorship in Audio Engineering: Analysis Using a New Data Collection Method’ accepted into a special edition of the IEEE Transactions on Education. In a prime example of a side-project turning full-time, they looked at gender diversity within Audio Engineering Society conferences and how a number of variables impacted the representation. Unsurprisingly, the results are not great…
