 Good afternoon. Good afternoon. And thank you for joining us to celebrate the NRC's Women's History Month event sponsored by the NRC Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee, a few pack, and our Office of International Programs. I am Stephanie Archie, Chair of few pack. And on behalf of our committee, I would like to extend a warm welcome to Chairman Hansen, Commissioner Wright, and Deputy Executive Director Daryl Roberts, all of who are in attendance today. I would also like to welcome our esteemed panel, who you will be hearing from shortly. This year's event is a result of the dedicated efforts of an amazing group of people who have worked hard to put it together. I want to give a sincere thanks to our few pack members and volunteers. My fellow few pack board members, Vice Chair Mollie Keith Forsyth and Secretary Justin Baskas. And finally to our executive sponsors, MJ Ross Lee and Brooke Clark. I also want to thank the members of the NRC's Office of International Programs and our Region 2 office, who have worked so hard to organize all aspects of this event. Joanne Savoy, Jennifer Holtzman and Andrea Jones. I am so excited about today's program. Today we'll have the opportunity to hear some inspiring remarks from an impressive panel of women. And you will also have an opportunity to participate in our annual Equal Employment Opportunity Award Presentation Ceremony, during which we will present our EEO Award to a very deserving individual. To start the program, I am proud to introduce Nader Mamesh, the Director of NRC's Office of International Programs, who will provide introductory remarks and moderate our panel. Nader? Thank you very much and good afternoon, everyone. I am delighted to be here with you to chair this panel on making a global impact woman in international nuclear policymaking. We have an outstanding panel, and I am looking forward to hearing from each of them. My opening remarks are brief to devote as much time as possible for our discussion. It's been demonstrated that, including diverse people and perspectives in policymaking process results in stronger, much more effective policy. Diversity enables policymakers to better anticipate and address the needs of those wherein their policies can be impacted. The NRC is immensely fortunate to have talented women at all levels, both within our own staff and among the US government colleagues, women who enrich the agency's domestic and international work, and assist in broader foreign policy decision initiatives. Today, our panelists will share experiences that led to change, broaden international nuclear policymaking, and forged interesting and dynamic career paths for themselves and for others. Throughout the past few years, the NRC has embarked on efforts to apply transformative thinking to all aspects of our work, to think outside the box and work smarter and more creatively. I'm very pleased to note that this panel exemplifies those transformational efforts. This year, we have combined a traditional RIC panel with the annual event run by our Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee in honor of the Women's History Month and International Women's Day. NRC advisory committees play an important role in helping the NRC meet its diversity and inclusion goals and enhancing opportunities for agency employees. It is an honor for me to be part of this event where I get to share that good work with our RIC stakeholders. Before I introduce our panelists, I want to remind you that if you would like to ask a question, you can do so using the chat function. We will address audience questions later in our program. It is now my pleasure to introduce Margie Dome. I'm sure most of you remember Margie from her time at the NRC, where she most recently served as executive director for operations before leaving the agency last year to assume the role of deputy director general for management at the International Atomic Energy Agency. Margie, we'd love to, we'd love it if you would kick things off and kick our discussion with some introductory remarks. Margie. OK. Thank you, Nader. Thank you, OIP. And thank you, Fuelpack and all my friends at NRC and others who are here today. So I'm really, really excited about this. I love the topic and I can't wait to hear from the panelists and also the questions that you have today. So let me just start out with a few introductory remarks myself. First of all, it is important that we are here to talk about this important topic. For today's discussion, I'm going to draw from my experience, as Nader said, from both the NRC and as the current deputy director, deputy director general and head of Department of Management at the International Atomic Energy Agency. OK, I'm going to say a few words about policymaking, but if you take anything away from what I contribute today, it would be my recommendation for you to join the international nuclear policy debate. What is this debate and why would the NRC, as a technical agency, be involved in nuclear policy? Nuclear policy comes in many forms. At the NRC, policies involving civilian use of nuclear materials are of significant importance, and I have spent a great deal of my career cooperating with other nations to promote nuclear safety. Importantly, the NRC is one of many US government agencies involved in the development of US policy positions, and you're going to hear from prominent women in this field that will highlight other agency work. It was essential throughout the time that I was working at the NRC that collaboration among the US agencies goes smoothly so that when we entered cooperation with other nations, the US position was clear and consistently advocated. NRC, as a technical agency, has a unique role to play in developing US nuclear policy because policy positions are often framed by the underlying nuclear safety questions. For example, in nuclear energy, the US is advocated for a measured approach for international standard setting that is commiserate or consistent with the level of safety. Other countries' governments have the policy position that you can never be safe enough, and safety standards should always strive to keep up with the latest thinking on how to make the technology safer. I enjoyed also my time that I spent cooperating and negotiating nuclear safety principles and standards with international regulatory counterparts aimed at reaching consensus on these and other issues. Those were really wonderful times. Another interesting aspect of NRC's policy position is that as an independent agency, the NRC does not set US foreign policy, that's for the president and other US agencies, but NRC is involved in the development of the policy to ensure that political views do not inadvertently alter NRC's technical and scientific conclusions. For example, when setting policies for exports, the NRC is often called on to give its views on its licensing activities, the risks of the technology, its uses, et cetera. NRC collaborates with the US states and licensees to ensure that it is well aware of the technical issues before giving its final views. If you are one of the international participants in the audience today, you've probably seen these or similar programs in your country informing nuclear policy positions. The second point I wanna make is about the importance of having more women voices in the nuclear policy debate. Why? Because women are half the population and any policy making process that does not adequately include them is likely to have blind spots. This approach does not only elevate the women's role but also benefits everybody. This is what an increasing body of research is showing. McKinsey has been writing a series of reports investigating the business case for diversity and it contains some interesting facts. For example, it showed that greater representation, the higher the likelihood of outperformance. Companies with more than 30% women executives were more likely to outperform companies where this percentage range from 10 to 20, 10 to 30 and in turn, these companies were more likely to outperform those with even fewer women executives or not at all. A substantial differential likelihood of outperformance, 48% separates the most from the least gender diverse companies. The research also showed that diversity winners are adopting systematic business led approaches to inclusion in diversity. It also highlighted areas where companies should take far bolder action to create a long lasting inclusive culture and promote inclusive behavior. We are talking about inclusion, which is much more than a percentage of representation. You would have heard the saying diversity is being invited to the party while inclusion is being invited to the dance. Well, full inclusion looks more like being in a position to weigh in on decisions regarding the music, the date, the theme of the party, really coming to the dance. This is something that IEA takes very seriously. In 2020, the director general committed to the goal of achieving gender parity in the professional and higher categories by 2025. Following this announcement, he adopted special measures for gender parity. These measures are aimed at encouraging women to apply for vacancies in the professional and higher categories, creating conditions for more balanced representation. And we're on our way to meeting that goal. We're there for DDGs and for professionals, we're at 37%. To help increase the number of women in nuclear, we also have started a scholarship for young women pursuing master's programs in nuclear related studies at accredited universities. Upon graduation, selected women are provided with an opportunity to pursue an internship facilitated by the IAEA for up to 12 months. The name of this is the Maria Sklodowska Curie Scholarship Program. And I invite all of you to Google it and especially young women on this in the audience. Since then, 210 students of 93 countries have been selected to participate in this program. This concludes my introductory comments and I look forward to hearing from my fellow panelists and to take questions. Back to you, Nader. Thanks so much, Margie. Now I'd like to turn to Laura Dudes. I think many of you know Laura as the administrator of our Region 2 office which has had substantial international engagement as the office overseen the construction of the AP-1000 units at the Vogel Plant. Laura has been personally involved in a broad variety of international cooperation activities throughout her NRC career. Laura, the floor is yours. Thank you, Nader. And thank you for setting up this panel. This is probably gonna be the best part of my day. And I thank all the fellow panelists. Listening to Margie, Margie, you're always such an inspiration and you're always hard to follow too. So I'm gonna kind of shift a little bit on my messaging. I have had quite a bit of domestic experience here at the NRC and held several jobs. But I've also had several international interactions. Nader mentioned some of our bilateral work with the UK, with China. I've had the opportunity to share a working group for the regulation of new reactors at NEA. And I have to say that was a really enriching experience for me. I think the diversity of that group, that was actually a working group that I was the chair of and the co-chair was a colleague from Switzerland and we're both women and it was just really an amazing thing to see in a working group of that many people. But it was a really rich working group and we produced a tremendous amount of guidance for the whole world to use when you're embarking on a new nuclear program. And we developed a lot of relationships and we learned from one another in those interactions and it was a really important activity at the time of the nuclear renaissance. And thankfully those documents live on today as people embark on new programs. But I do wanna leave a message or talk a little bit about how did I get into this and maybe encourage everyone who's listening. I had great mentors that kind of brought me into the international arena, whether it was my first early interaction as a branch chief to go over on a bilateral and kind of learn all the different policy aspects and the bilateral. And then I had mentors who would invite me to their meetings at the nuclear energy agency. And as a young woman I would look around and I would, you know, think, well, you know, there's not a lot of young women here. And I was so grateful to my mentors who thought it was a great opportunity for me to really learn all of the different aspects of that. So if there's a takeaway for folks who are listening be a mentor and if you have these opportunities to bring young women into the international arena and early in their career, so they get comfortable, they learn the policy aspects of it and then they're gonna be fantastic contributors for the remainder of their career. I think that is one key to success. So with that, I think I'll stop. I really look forward to all of the questions that folks have and I thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for those perspectives, Laura. I would like to introduce Kamishan Martin. Kamishan is a human factors engineer at the NRC. Last year she returned from a five year assignment at the OECD nuclear energy agency in Paris where she focused on safety culture, human and organizational factors, public communication and stakeholder involvement regarding waste management and decommissioning activities. Kamishan? Thank you. When you read out everything like that it certainly makes me feel like I did a lot more than I felt I was doing at the time. But I would like to open up with saying the environment that we're in and the environment of the times is very important when you think about not just gender equality as far as what women can contribute but also what kind of rich experiences we can have as women. And that includes the type of relationships that we build and the type of inputs and insights that we may gain. And that starts, at least for me, it started in my academic career starting at a very large institution for my undergraduate degree and then going to Florida A&M for my graduate degree and that is definitely a comparison of different environments and going from a traditional American university to an HBCU, the type of support and the type of diversity in that type of environment definitely enriched my experience. And I was one of those who was recruited directly from a university to come to the NRC which had an even different environment for me to experience. As stated for about 14 years, I did work as a technical person in the area of human factors and safety culture which is important when you think about that being something that is a softer science. I do have an engineering background but because of that, I was lucky to work with a lot of just amazing women which is very different than most of the rule makings and technical work that we do at the agency. I had the opportunity early on in my specialty to have mentors that weren't just frankly, the status quo of men within the agency but people who had a social science background and other women and other colleagues. So I was very lucky to have that experience. Going into the international realm, it seemed that this only continued my trajectory of being surrounded by women in that there was a new division being developed at the NEA where I was, as you described for five years and that division was headed by a woman and all most of my colleagues were then women and then we went to working groups and the chairs were women and I just felt very blessed to have that experience and it was comfortable to be a woman among women among other women, excuse me and also to be able to give my insights as someone who's moved through the world as a black woman in these spaces that don't often have different levels of diversity being a minority group within any country having that experience being able to say during meetings well we should also look at other countries and how they do it there and not be so into what the majority does. And I think that balance of not just gender equity but diversity and gender equity together definitely gave different perspectives in the work that I did at the NEA and all those different areas you named as well as giving me the experience of being heard and having other people understand the differences. So I would say everyone should be open to not just experiencing different environments but open to how the environment can enrich you and women should be encouraged to do that in STEM and in social sciences as well because they're both important and working in the human aspects of nuclear safety that's the human side and that we all have the knowledge that operators they run the facilities and that's also quite important. So I would leave my last word with encouraging everyone to know that they can have an input and an influence on policy development even when it's down in the weeds and you don't think about it because you're not a leader but on the totem pole at the bottom that's what holds everyone else up so every level counts and everybody can have an input. Thank you. Thank you, Kamishan. Now let me turn to Andrea Furkel. Dre currently serves as the director of the Office of Nonproliferation Policy in the Office of Nonproliferation and Arms Control at the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Before joining NNSA, Dre was a valued member of my staff in OIP and I hated to lose Dre but it was a win for the United States government. So with that Dre take it away. Thank you, Director Mamish. And yeah, it's a heartfelt warm welcome to come back and obviously be a part of this panel. I can't thank you enough for inviting me here to participate especially amongst these remarkable women that are with me on this panel to talk about this topic. So thank you so much for the opportunity. At least for me as mentioned my career kind of started at the NRC. I've had a long history coming from a science background working through STEM and trying to find that support through other communities trying to help develop myself and push myself and experience as much as I can. And so when you're entering into a technical agency sometimes those links are hard to find but I have to commend NRC that I always felt that there was a community there. There was always leadership pushing through and being those kind of role models that like Laura mentioned that if we can empower that type of actions and those activities and trying to instill these type of diverse conversations and make that a norm within various different organizations to me that is like the roots in the ground that will continue to promote and push individuals into these types of opportunities and positions. So for myself, I mean I have grown up in the NRC and it's been a cherished part of my life and when I got introduced moving from technical work into international policy work I had those questions of where does the regulator fit at this table? How do we participate in the policy development? And to me it gets right to the key of that diverse thing that diverse discussion that you want to introduce and invite you want to create that open-minded look at policymaking because there are the implementers on the backside that are fulfilling and making those policies operable. So I think that that is like a critical part of some of the diverse think and why pure demonstration an example of how that contributes to the whole process especially in an international platform I feel very fortunate to have had opportunities to negotiate bilaterally work on multilateral organizations throughout my career not only with the NRC but when I went on to the National Security Council and we were working on these policies and working directly with other countries you can definitely tell that there's a much more openness there and I really really want to push our U.S. government especially as civil servants and the leader in one of the most powerful countries on the planet you want to have that leadership and so I'm thrilled and excited to continue to talk about that of how diversity how we can use our platforms and encourage and empower those that are coming up to carry on this legacy and make diversity and all of its different dimensions an essential part of policy in a globalizing world I think the world is getting smaller and I think this is a great opportunity to talk about those challenges of how do we integrate everything and so I just I've been thankful obviously for the opportunity to have leaders and role models that have helped promote and just encourage me to take those chances and break through the norms and come from an NRC regulatory background and take a NRC job position at the table to develop policy and that eventually they'll project me into where I am now and again working with cabinet level departments and agencies I think it's just an opportune time for us to continue making this conversation a normal one and to not fear that and just to push ourselves out of our comfort zone so thank you guys for having me speak today and I look forward to hearing what are my co-panelists have to say as well thank you thank you Dre finally it's my pleasure to introduce Joyce Connery Joyce is the chair of the Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety Board she has been a very close colleague of the NRC and a huge supporter of the agency for many years in her previous positions at the National Security Council and the Department of Energy Joyce thank you Nader I think I'm the only one here who hasn't done a stint at the NRC it seems like a hole in my resume that I'm going to have to fill someday but until that time thank you for inviting me to speak today and thanks for letting me be in what I call the anchor position of our relay team I'm excited to be here with my fellow panelists to discuss the long and winding road of women in international nuclear policy making but I but I don't want to repeat some of the remarks that are already made here tonight so I'm going to ask you to indulge me a little bit because I'm going to go a little bit off topic as usual and talk more about the women aspect versus the international policy making aspect but you can ask me anything during the Q&A about the NRC my role at the DNF is B and just a shout out to those of you who organized this today virtual conferences are really tough to do we did a hearing this summer and it was a nightmare so I can't even imagine what you guys went through on this and it's the second year so God bless you for all the work that you're doing with that and just like anything else NRC does it with excellence as they do with all things so since NRC is hosting I'm going to take a prerogative to give a shout out to all of the NRC amazing NRC women with whom I've had the privilege to work over the years and it's not going to be a full exhaustive list but I just want to give a flavor so no particular order just this is a shout out to Janice Dunley Margie Doan Jennifer Holtzman Laura Mayrose Christine Svanicki Annie Caputo Lea Smith Nancy Fraggiamas Alison MacFarlane Patty Metz Karen Henderson Brooke Smith Heather Aswood and all of you who are on the panel today I'm sure I've missed some and the reason why I rattled off that list a couple of reasons one women seldom get recognized for the work they do and in the spirit of the fact that yesterday was International Women's Day I'm going to name check as many amazing women in this field as often as I can and I'm not going to stop doing it just in the month of March what's missing from my list? women of color why? because we don't have enough representation in the industry so I'm going to name check another phenomenal woman and that would be Bonnie Jenkins and commend her for her outstanding work in founding women of color advancing peace, security, and conflict transformation weak caps well not specific to our industry women like Bonnie who now holds its rank of undersecretary for arms control and international security affairs at state are blazing trails and lifting up others who follow in their footsteps the second reason why I named checked was to point out a characteristic that women bring to the table not making sweeping generalizations about what women do better than men just pointing out something at which we excel we excel at building and sustaining relationships why is that important? because those relationships make working in the international field better establishing and maintaining relationships leads to meaningful connections information sharing trust building and better outcomes some of the women I named checked I haven't seen in person since 2015 but we still keep in touch follow up provide advice to each other and maintain the connection that might be why I'm on the panel today just saying so as I noted on social media yesterday Jen and I'll paraphrase behind every successful woman is a technical term crap ton load of other strong women folding her up propelling her forward name checking her and that's been true of my career as well so I'm going to give you homework I want you to name sex name checks from amazing women this week retweet them if you're on Twitter promote them if you're on LinkedIn and remind the world of their contributions because they're not touting themselves well enough and they should be I think the team wanted us to talk a little bit about our bios and our experiences in international policy realm as a woman and I profess to being an accidental nuke I did not attend a career in nuclear policy and my first two international experience was two and a half years in Turkmenistan living abroad is a great way to test your assumptions about being an American about yourself as a person and as a woman they actually had a running joke about there being three sexes men women and American women because our experiences and approaches to the world were so different and this goes to some of the stuff that Kamishan was saying about when you work in the international arena as a foreigner as a woman living in another country you're living in a fishbowl they have expectations about who you are and how you should act based on their cultural experiences of women and their impressions of American women so a little funny note when I was in Turkmenistan which was in the 90s because I'm old early 90s they only had two TV shows from America Twin Peaks and Santa Barbara so do you think that their expectations of American women were a little bit skewed? probably my first nuclear assignment was a couple years later overseas in Kazakhstan there's a theme here and I was working nuclear non-proliferation issues for NNSA the Department of Energy I met countless people from our industry coming into the country because what I would do is just jump on the logistics bus to go to the airport and meet any U.S. delegation that was coming into town and offer my services not because it was my job because I was a single woman in Kazakhstan and what else was there to do at one o'clock in the morning when the planes come in and I was curious to learn everything that I could know and what was interesting was that you know for every 10 of us there was one Kazakh one Kazakhstani working in the arena didn't matter if it was NRC, DOE, Commerce, Tate, DOD they were all meeting the same like six Kazakhstani's and the Kazakhstani's were very confused about this and didn't understand why they we just didn't send one delegation to talk to them about all the things um this insight was actually really helpful later on because it inspired Team USA later in my career when we got government and industry together to do trade missions on nuclear energy where the whole interagency was branded as one including the NRC but since this panel is about women a few observations about women women in the field so to speak one is it has its benefits it's very difficult for high ranking officials to ignore you because they're polite at least in the Central Asian context the Russian context I had no trouble walking up to ministers chairman a couple of prime ministers because they didn't perceive me as a threat and because they were too polite to show me away they were probably taken aback a little bit by my approaching them but it worked the disadvantage with some of the real conversations took place at least in that part of the world in the Banya which was the bath house which is where I didn't go and so I missed out on some of those connections the other challenge to get real was physical security women tend to be more vulnerable in these settings and I know I was this is not unique to be being posted abroad folks it happens here too and I just want you to stop and think about all those amazing women that I named checked plus all the ones that you could name check and think of all the times they were walking back to their cars taking a taxi at an event leaving alone and trying to recall the conversations that go right that cable while in the back of their mind what are they doing they're thinking about are their keys in their hand facing the right way with one sticking out do they have safe patches to their car are they in a well lit place is there anyone suspicious in the vicinity and is that cab drivers intent to take you to your destination while you keep one hand on the door people joke about the ability of women to multitask every woman in your life does it and sometimes it's a matter of survival when I talk to women in international nuclear policy or my own staff regarding the challenges they would face I would note the following it should go without saying that our leaders our workforce our employees are 360 degree people what does that mean they don't just exist within the context of a 40 hour work week they have other demands on their time and talent as leaders in the field it's incumbent upon us to remember this and remind our senior managers they have families they have children or parents that need taken care of they need paid family leave they need sufficient paternity leave to bond with their children it's necessary but not sufficient we need to get it's not sufficient we need to get rid of the stigma that still exists around working mothers in particular parents need to have the flexibility to take care of the kids take their kids to the doctor without panel being penalized relatedly we need to stop the suffering Olympics this is why some women do not go into certain jobs or shy away from that job at the NFC because it's a badge of honor to see you can stay in the office later and they talk about it this is the atmosphere at the NFC at times and it's an atmosphere that I've seen across the U.S. government agencies yes in a crisis you stay if you need to but if you have good cross-train teams you shouldn't need to have that as a regular occurrence but we reward our structures reward just that we consider hours worked above the required time as significantly exceeds expectations I'm not sure that's the right metric consider how many on your team have used or lose at the end of the year and think about whether your culture is conducive to the workforce you want we subtly live women out of many conversations at Russia it was the Banya but have you noticed the favorite activity at many of our conferences is a golf event opposite that golf event is a spouses program which is basically a rebranded wives program I'm not just saying that women aren't golfers I golf occasionally but I do it to be included in the conversation and it hasn't really improved my golf game I don't know about you but when I was 18 I didn't do 18 when I was young I didn't do 18 rounds with daddy at the golf club when I was in high school and if you're happy hours or at a cigar bar chances are your female staff is feeling excluded who is at the table matters how loudly they speak matters the table should reflect our country in which we live because we're doing the work on behalf of our nation when we're making nuclear policy not the work of whatever ivory covered school you happen to come from differing perspective shape and form and sharpen our policy making but it isn't enough to have people in the room when it happens that room has to be welcoming place for those people to not only get into the room but to keep it there it's human nature not to stay where we're not welcome so appreciate the chance to be a little provocative so thank you and I look forward to questions thank you Joyce and thank you everyone for getting us started with such thought-provoking introductions and ideas and there's a lot to talk about already now let me pose a question to each of you each of our panelists to get us started and I'm sure we'll get a number of other questions from the audience my first question is why is it important and some of you already kind of addressed it and others may not have why is it important to have diverse voices when discussing or negotiating international policy relatedly how has international engagement broadened or changed your definition of diversity or raised new issues in that regard and I'm going to start with Margie and go in that order okay thanks Nader so yeah so I did try to talk about diversity but first of all I'm going to say Joyce Connery that's my name check so that was awesome so enthusiastic I loved it but so we're talking about just why diversity is so important right was that did I get the whole question because it was long do they get does that goes to it okay so so right so I think what you heard about what you what you heard from a number of the speakers is just the how the conversation changes when you get a new perspective you know I'm in a multinational organization now Kamishan was talking about this as well because she came from the NEA and it's incredible because when we talk about diversity it's diversity and diversity and diversity it's it's so many different cultures and then within certain regions different cultures and and so it's rich in perspectives and where women what I have found is in my and I don't want to exclude men because there are men that are very good at this as well but women are very good at relationship building like Joyce was saying what that means is they're very good at bringing people to the table they often are noticing who isn't talking or how to get things started and showing sort of a more intuitive side to to a debate from the perspective of seeing you know who can contribute and hasn't contributed or whose voice isn't loud enough and helping it be louder the problem is like Joyce said sometimes women are at the table but they're not the loudest so I think the more I think women get in positions to be influential but also that you put yourself at the table to be influential I think that the debate will be enriched so you know I think a lot has been said here native but I'm going to leave it at that so we can give everybody else a chance to say say a few words Thanks Margie I'm going to go to Laura Nader and you know I got to say you're going to just get name checked by everyone Joyce because that was really inspirational and you know and you just wove a tapestry story with you know and it really I think all of us are just resonating with all of the subtleties that that you just shared because they that is they are things that we deal with every day so I I just really thank you for that for creating and putting that out front so Mark really answered the importance of diversity so I'm going to just take it in a I think the second part of your question Nader was impacts you know on on on us right and I mean I think my I've gotten I've learned so much more I think my decision making is richer from being in an international setting I think I always just look now to people from you know work with folks for many different countries and you know I will say and you know why when I first went into the international arena I had the American woman Pat on Joyce and it was you know and I had a certain perspective about how things should be done in nuclear safety and I quickly learned from my colleagues around the world right all their their views there's more than one way to get at safety I mean if you look at regulators around the world their programs sometimes look very different than ours and yet they have a the same reasonable assurance of adequate protection of safety and and so you know having that dialogue with an international group really enriched me as a person it made me a better regulator it made me a better leader and I will just say you know having that that voice at the table is a great thing but then also we should all be advocates right when whenever you're in a meeting right it's it's not enough to to come to the the women's panel but make that effort speak up if you if you have the opportunity make sure you're going around the table you're asking people what what they think because that will make the conversation and the work so much richer thank you thanks Laura let's go to commission commission I'm sure when you went to NEA you were one person and you came back to the nrc as a as a hopefully a different person in terms of you know the your views on on diversity and you touched a little bit on that in your introduction can you give us a little bit more about how that experience changed your definition of diversity well it I I hate to repeat but it is it is it is paramount that when you have these international experiences that you do wear the hat of an American even when you don't feel so so American so when you move throughout the world that is the first thing that people notice about you is that you're American especially if you're in a a place where people don't speak English so but having the background of being a part of a minority population here in the States it gave me the insights to speak up for other minority populations particularly in my work in stakeholder engagement because it was a goal to seek out a lot of the immigrant populations in the various countries when they're talking about rad waste management so I had the perspective of saying you know this may be what everyone is saying in this room among these people who have this level of education in this particular area or just experience but it gave me the perspective of what it's like to be I wasn't an immigrant I was an expat but it gave me a window into what it's like to be an immigrant in some of these countries where it's very important to engage that community when discussing what what what decisions will be made and how they should be engaged and how they should be considered so that's a perspective that I didn't have so so so much of before living overseas and working in that type of environment but also gave me the perspective on all the different cultures that exist and how they should all be respected and considered when having these conversations be it throughout the entire life cycle for nuclear so I focused a little bit more on waste management but even in the beginning in the development stages some things have to be considered and who you who you choose to populate from academia on into operation you know all of that has to be considered so I think I had the background of understanding diversity on a personal level before going there but that definitely broadened my perspectives in seeing what kind of national cultures and pocket cultures that I was exposed to in these discussions so I hope that answered the question but that was just my experience with with what diversity can do and how it contributes and enriches all the conversations when you have different people and different experience and different levels involves in the conversations thank you um I'm going to go to Dray thank you Nader and you know as as my co-panelist space eloquently explained and and to your point choice I am I'm take on the challenge name tag challenge accepted so I'm going to continue it on you're starting something new so it'll be across all social media hopefully within the next couple hours so but fantastic no good to answer this question Nader I mean to me um some of the things that I tried to focus on or what I've learned through this process is how do you embrace diversity like how do you become open to that so we're presented in and in our positions as a federal employee either represented in the United States or you're in these multilateral you know board meetings or meeting bilaterally working with regulators or other you know national governments how what does that mean like how do you actually do that and so for me I try to hone in on that and identify some things that I thought could be characteristics to to portray and act in such as just being open-minded to understand what is diversity right like what is different about us so there's that saying that says you know if you walk a mile on someone else's shoes you'll have an understanding and so I really try to listen more than you know try to absorb and take on and learn from others and their experiences because even though it seems like those human human parts of interaction interacting with another person wouldn't come to play in these types of dynamic situations where you're negotiating different agreements or working with other international counterparts I think it's that's a critical element that's needed you have to seek to embrace that difference and to understand how to embrace it those characteristics to me is is critical and trying to kind of find a find a ground because to me that's the only way that you're going to strengthen the international policy that your objective is right and so to understand those differences to me is key number one so I I think it's a challenge to everybody as Joyce mentioned challenging people but I think that that's a part of it is how what do you guess we should be diverse what does that actually mean like how do you do that so and embracing that to me is asking those questions being inquisitive being open listening understanding so that to me is something that I personally think is is actionable characteristic that could help promote this across in a longer term thanks thanks Joy over to you Joyce I love the answers that everybody's given and I think when you think about your international delegation when you come over to the US delegation think about the people that you're with and when somebody says where are you from when you're overseas you say you're from the United States when you're in DC you say I'm from Boston or off from Atlanta right so so even your understanding your own identity is is one way to kind of look at the identity of others and I love what Kamishan said about coming as a minority and then recognizing the minority who's representing the other countries what minorities aren't at their table that that we're missing in the conversation and and embracing that it comes down to what what Dray was talking about the you know Atticus Finch test walk walks a mile in his shoes it comes down to empathy and understanding it but I think you know for a long time and I'm a social scientist and a long time we talked about cultural competence and I think we're moving away from that because you can't be culture culturally competent right so we have to come at it with cultural humility is how I would look at it and and that's how we we need to look at diversity to say like I don't know the cultural ins and outs of the countries that I'm working with so all I can do is look at the perspective and why you need it it's it is because it makes you know it sharpens your pencils it makes you you know gives you perspectives you wouldn't have it avoids group think which you know everybody wants to avoid but I think it's also that if you are in a diverse delegation for instance you might not pick up on the subtleties that's happening in another in another culture I'll give you a couple of quick examples like so one in in in Russia there's an expression that said in Russia there's an expression that says you know that the man may be the head of the household but the woman is the neck that turns the head so which I think it's a fantastic statement it doesn't have to be about men and women but there's always it doesn't have to be the person at the table who's leading the delegation it's the guy behind or the woman behind that's giving them them all the information and so once you realize that you can make breakthroughs by having that side conversations coffee bar because you notice that right so you have to be as Margie said you have to be observant and and you have to study you know humans and the second one that I'll give is when I was in Kazakhstan and we were working on the decommissioning the BN350 reactor I was kind of I was working there with the Kazakhs the Russians and the folks from Idaho National Lab because they had a fast reader reactor right so they were all working together and what I discovered was the language they had in common was technical right they they could speak to each other they just couldn't speak to each other like in in the same the same word language but they got all you know as soon as you brought on a blueprint they were all they were all speaking the same language and that was their cultural similarity so you have to find the common ground and then start to work from there so so so I did what I interpreted was not English to Russian and I interpreted technical speak to policy speak so that they could get the money to do what it is that they needed to do that they agreed on from a technical standpoint thank you Joyce looks like we have a number of terrific questions here the first one is for Kamishan and Laura what are your suggestions on how to switch from a technical slash engineering career into a policymaking career Kamishan you want to start us off sure Laura had unmuted herself so I'll let America well I would say that you have the choice to switch from a technical engineering degree or career to policymaking or you can take a technical track I think that if you go into a more more of a leadership role and making the decisions on exactly what the policy would be then maybe that path would involve some different professional development but for me I was always a technical specialist and so for my contribution to policy development is giving the technical aspects and the technical expertise and the technical perspectives so to piggyback off of the saying of the the neck that moves the head you have these policymakers who may not be steeped in the technical and engineering day-to-day experiences but they will always need someone with a technical expertise who understands all the political aspects and the nuances that go into policy development as well as having the technical background so I would say you you may if you want to take the path of being strictly in policy development you may need to take a path of leadership and looking at different type of developments but there's also the opportunity as a technical specialist to who have that that common language of technical or nuclear science and development all the working groups that I've observed and helped to facilitate while I was at the NEA all of the people from all the various countries that were at the table that was their common language these were technical experts and they were giving and gaining insights from other technical experts from different countries so I think that you have an option to switch or to be more of a technical advisor and be on the cutting edge of new developments thank you Kamishan so now Laura you know I think that was a great answer and I want to get to some other questions I'm going to kind of just add a little spin to it and I one of the things I agree is you always have a choice right you you can you know find your career path and you know hopefully it's a zigzag because it's a lot more exciting if you're you're moving around a little bit but I would say that you know you are I think the if it's a not it was a natural transition for me that I spent the early part of my career honing my my technical capability my understanding of um nuclear power plants and all of the issues and and learning and so it was very natural then I think you're a better policy maker if you actually can bring that understanding of the technology forward and I think that's true domestically and I think in the international arena and I I know a lot of my colleagues that I've worked with on various working groups are incredibly technical and then they evolved into being policymakers and leaders and I just think it's a richer conversation and a richer decision when you when you have kind of knowledge of the topic you're making policy on thank you thanks Laura the next question we have is for Margie Margie you were an inspiration to women across the the NRC how has your transition to the IAEA impacted your ability to influence your ability to promote women across the international community well okay thanks for that question and for the nice compliment thank you thank you everybody I think I have to thank so many women in my life so many of whom Joyce Joyce and many of the other women that she talked about for helping me and so you know I had such incredible role models I think many of you know I kind of said to everybody when we were talking about what we would talk about here today I said I'm not going to talk about myself too much because everybody has heard my career journey I've been at so many of these I didn't want to bore you guys but I will say that I switched offices a lot at the NRC I went from opinion writing as a lawyer for many years then I went up to a commission office then I went down to international programs I didn't have any international background I had taken courses in college but I didn't have an international background at the NRC I got that through working in the commissioner's office and then I I sort of learned on the job thank you to everyone in OIP that taught me and then from there to the general counsel's office and then I jumped over again to to the EDO's office and what I'm trying to illustrate for you is that you touch so many people's lives by taking on those opportunities that your mentors push you into and I'll say push because there are a lot of those jobs and a lot of those switches I wasn't ready for but I really I embrace them and and I was so enriched by doing it and everywhere along the way getting to how to really the ability to promote women and then in the international community is you know all along the way building good relationships so when you go up to that next job you can pull those people up with you or you can bring them into projects and things like that so building really good relationships all the way and really having a commitment to bring women to the table and in the international community and I remember saying this a lot at OIP I'm sorry at NRC when I was there that when you had when you struggle when there when times are very difficult at your agency we were going through change if you remember it's well understood that minority and disadvantaged communities who already aren't at the table or have a difficult time so so women or any and sometimes it can be a personal perspective that it's hard to be at the table but when you go through then a more difficult time you actually have more of an impact on those communities so I was so fortunate to be at the NRC when we were going through this big change because I really that was where I really struggled is to make sure that we included everyone and this has helped me so much in my job I'm using this all the time now we have a lot of work to do DG Grossi maybe you've seen has really branched out into a number of different areas he's now into solving issues with plastic raise of hope for cancer I can't tell you a lot of different things that that that the agency is doing and so we're changing how we are managing all this because I'm on the management side and again this is a struggle because it's a lot of work to take on these new issues I'm making sure that we are promoting women that we are promoting diverse groups that anyone that's in a group that that is disadvantaged that we're reaching everybody we're making sure that we're hearing all voices because as we always say at the NRC you never know who's who's got the right answer and so I think for my part you know I tried to mentor and I promise you I think I get as much out of these mentoring relationships as my mentees get so that was that was long I should stop now but those are just a few things a few few things that we I've been working on so back to you Nader Thanks Margie I think your your comment about mentoring is certainly I'm sure resonates with a lot of us who mentor others it's always a win-win for both the mentor and the mentee so thanks thanks for that the next question I have is for Dre so Dre in your position at DOE how do you help create an environment of inclusiveness and empowerment how how are you extending your support to junior staff including staff that work for you Sure I I think it does kind of go well and it builds off of what Margie was mentioning especially on the mentor side and the second part of the question of how do you do that I mean a lot of times I think we get too stuck in our ways and think that into our schedule and into those meetings and providing stuff for our leadership and our managers but finding that time to either seek mentorships or be a mentor to others is so critical I think it's just again building on those relationships and learning something different about different parts of the organizations or if you seek mentorship outside of your organization learning ways that other practices are operated and how things are kind of done I mean I I think that's a big part of it of trying to encourage folks to prioritize that to make time for that most people I think at least for myself coming up during when I was younger I would almost be nervous to ask oh that senior leader is too busy to take time or meet with me but that's not the case many many senior leaders want to share their experiences so I encourage you to reach out and find those opportunities and ask them if they have time 10-minute coffee I think you just get so much and on both sides I think the truth is is there that it's not just the the mentor that learns a lot I think the mentor also can gain quite a bit just just from having that discussion and dialogue of what they're experiencing so I think mentorships are extremely valuable for me that has probably been the number one thing I haven't gone through the ranks sort of where I am now was not a selected path I definitely was the ping-pong version of bouncing back and forth through different experiences and I wouldn't have taken some of those opportunities but didn't have mentors that were pushing me out of my comfort zone so you need that you know you need that in your career as much as you do in your general life so I think that's a big component of trying to get out of our normal practices and just make that a priority find that time to push yourself into seeking some sort of discussion with others I mean as far as the inclusivity and empowerment I mean I I think those are extremely vital to a successful organization and the current position I have now I think it gets down to the basic human being nature we want to respect and value I think humans in general want to be respected and valued for their individual uniqueness and they want to be known that they add value that they matter and I think this kind of gets weaved in through your career and your work paths and so I believe that if you create these relationships with co-workers you can do that through trusting each other and it's not it's both the need to trust and to be trusted I think those are critical aspects of it and when those needs are met I believe that you can develop a culture of empowered people across the board I I I try to think about this often to be honest because I do think that at least in my current organization there's a lot of siloed discussions going on and so to create and again an environment where you're bringing different viewpoints to the table allowing people to share their uniqueness I think that's critical to meet the mission of the organization wherever you're working and so in order to how do you do that to me is gets back to those elements that we've kind of heard throughout throughout the panels whether it's empathy or respect for others the nurturing relationships with co-workers you have to build that trust with a group and those that you work with that to me is creating that environment and it it allows and enables kind of bringing to the table again those varied abilities and experiences and through that I think it organically generates new ideas and approaches approaches for the work that you're doing through the team dynamics and so to me it's really that human element talk to your the people that you work with I mean get to know them I think that's such a critical part of what we do plus we spend a lot of time with each other in our lives I think in a and nowadays I do feel that we work that we spend more time at work than we do with our loved ones at home so spend time with them and develop those relationships and to me that's how you'll instill empowerment in these areas finding new leadership connections to help move forward whether it's goals and objectives in the organization or your own personal career development so that's one of the ways I've been trained to approach that thanks Dray Joyce you you covered a lot of ground in your opening remarks but credit to the audience who have a very good question for you so what is your perspective on how to help women get noticed while working remotely we are in a unique environment and so when they don't have daily in-person access to the leadership how do they get how do they get noticed how do they you know outshine others in their in their office okay so I'm just gonna to just I'm not picking on you but that was that was framed in a very nail-centered way how do you outshine others we don't think that way we shouldn't be thinking that way right you should how do I get noticed for my work because it's not a it's not a pie where if I get noticed somebody else doesn't get noticed so I'm just going to start with the premise of let's change how we frame the question framing is important secondly I would say look the this environment is very very difficult for a number of reasons I struggle with this because I see the folks that are naturally don't want to engage disengage when they're in a virtual environment I see it being a struggle for folks not just about whether or not they get noticed but whether or not they get heard because you can actually self-select by not teaming with somebody right or if you're picking your own teams or you know those who aren't necessarily inclined and so this is a really a management and leadership challenge to be able to reach out to each one of those individuals and make sure that they're developing the way they want to develop in their their particular career field and I believe that as we move from you know completely virtual to hybrid to you know having more flexibility I think we have to change expectations too and we we as managers and leaders have to recognize that it's not whoever puts all the hours in in the office that is necessarily doing the work let the work stand for for itself and not about who has who has the face time and to the extent that that you're a good manager a good leader you're paying attention to what the dynamics are on the screen the what same way you should be paying attention to how they are in the in the room and so you know the the cameras on cameras off things also very touching too because people's home environments are different and and you know you don't necessarily have the right to be in their home even if they're in a telework status to be able to see what's going on right so that so there are a lot of challenges with that that I would say but let's reframe the question because it's not about a competition about who gets more notice than others it's about how to use an individual move along the work path and the career path that you want and to Drace point have people challenge you to say I think you're too stuck on your comfort zone and and you need to to move on to to the next level you know it's not about you know did I get all five it should be about am I making the contribution that I want to make to the organization and just does the organization value it because as soon as we stop valuing what it is that they're doing they're going to stop contributing thanks Joyce the next question is for all of you so how do you combat the perception that women have more opportunities because they are a diversity higher rather than being valued as a skilled person let me start with you Joyce okay I feel like I set up for that so I actually I actually checked it done because I didn't want this to fall off and I want to hear everybody's answers to this because I think this is this is a challenge people who say oh you're in that position because it's your diversity higher it says more about them than it says about you right that is their insecurity coming to the forefront but the more of us there are the less often they get to say that I've heard it a lot in my career where people oh well they put her in that position because they wanted a woman right there's plenty of well well educated smart women with qualities who could fill any of these jobs and I understand that any woman could take my job I don't think any man could but there are a lot of women who could take my job so I just think we we have to we have to think about it in in those terms when they come at us with that and I think we have to debunk that miss the difference is that a man is automatically assumed qualified without having to prove his qualifications and a woman isn't necessarily and and I've experienced that you know even in my own organization if I'm standing there with a man the man will get talked to versus me and they they have to nudge them and say oh no she's the chairman and you have to talk to her because there's there is a a mental assumption that the man is automatically qualified and and the woman has to prove the qualifications and that that is a difficult myth that we have to debunk but I want to hear what everybody else has to say okay I am going to go to Laura I could not have said that better I mean and I think I've been experiencing that that that assumption since I was in college you know I didn't even get grades because I studied I got them because I was a female which I never understood why that was but I used a similar phrase that Joyce did and I'm probably a little bit more blunt about it you said about qualified I I felt like and in particular as I started to get into leadership position she's exactly right and you can walk into a room nobody says anything there's actually social experiments where you take a man and a woman into a large crowd and they describe their backgrounds and the crowd picks who has what job and it's like you know hide statistic that says you know most of the audience says that he's the senior person he's the supervisor what up so and I was used to say to my folks and wanted that I was mentoring that men are assume brilliant right and and you have and women are women are assumed stupid until proven smart whereas men are assumed smart until proven stupid and maybe those aren't the best words I like qualify better so I'm gonna up my language but I think you're you're dead on it I think we have to you know I and the last thing I would say is I really agree and people have asked me this question recently right some of the the women I've mentored and how how do we deal with that and I keep telling them well you know it is their problem right anybody in this day and age who's gonna say that you know it's probably an issue that they have and you know but I think there's more to it we have to be advocates you know if you see something say something and and we need we need everyone to be advocates right all all across the board men and women to be advocates to understand but that's just not the case and that's just no longer an acceptable thing to say for a behavior to exhibit thanks Laura I'm gonna go to Kavishan next there's not a whole lot to add with the adage that it is truly their problem and I have encountered people who may have had the notion that I was a diversity hire because I am a black woman and you know they may feel like well you check two boxes so they're you know you've taken this opportunity from someone else who's qualified without ever considering that I am qualified otherwise I would not be here so I don't know that I would say I combat that perception I just do my job I live up to my qualifications and I respect everyone and when I do encounter other men who do not hold this particular antiquated notion I employ them to speak out because what I've learned is what happens when you try to overcompensate or combat you know I'm gonna show you you know that doesn't always go over so well and it's not really good for you so when you find an ally you say hey you know you you be the mouthpiece I'm doing my part by doing my job and being qualified and providing you know excellence so you have to be an ally and you speak to your fellow gender mates and that's that's my personal approach because it is their problem and we can't solve other people's problems in that manner in the workplace I said commission let's go to Dray sure absolutely I am you know obviously the panelists have brought up really great points on this I mean I I think that you're gonna have critics regardless like they're going to have those narratives and pick us apart in general us as in people in general every position it's I it's rare I can't imagine anyone that walks this earth does not have that type of judgment or you know filter put on you so when we're talking about you know women in career position it's it's something that I think the panels my panel of co-panelists also highlighted on but you just to me keep your head down and keep pushing like you you have to have that confidence and knowing yourself that you've got that job because you deserved it for whatever like you have the education you you are a hard worker you you demonstrate your discipline your persistent whatever it is that got you to that point you hold on to that and that is your rock internally and then when when people have those comments you just keep going doing doing what you're doing and it will speak for itself and I truly believe that I really do believe that I just yeah I think it's you always have people that will have comments and it does it take a culture shift yes are we there yet no we definitely as others have alluded to more eloquently than I can right now but yeah there's absolutely people out there that's still approach individuals differently and you know until that day and age where this isn't a problem anymore you know it's it's we have to keep our head down and keep pushing forward and and be that example you know be that person that you want to be that you've seen and kind of aspire to be fill those shoes and do it in your own way be that unique voice and just have confidence in it you know and find that rock within yourself thanks Dray and last but not least Margie oh thanks Nader so this is that is it's a question that it gets my blood boiling so I don't think you can progress through an organization and not and not have people think that and it and so I am competitive by nature so I would encourage anyone to who is feels like they're in this position to use it to motivate you because you have the skills you have the knowledge or you can acquire it use mentors but the more you promote yourself and the better you do in that job you that will self it will be very self-fulfilling for you you can't it is just noise on the outside so you just have to for yourself like be be the person that deserve that job that you know you are and that you can be so that's the first thing that's how you combat it and then the other thing is you make sure that when people are saying that about other women that you speak up like be an advocate never allow that to go like unchecked because I will tell you I was in international programs back in the day in the 2005 to 2010 at this time and I had a very good friend who was in as SBCR not your current head of SBCR but she was in small business in civil rights and she came to me and she said hey you did a diversity review on the office for you and everything went well really good marks but there's one issue and now is everybody ready you have too many women in your management level and I said okay I'm sorry about this for everybody who's were involved in this but at the top and the EDO's office there were no women and there had not been women for years there had been one woman who had come in and then come out and so they were all men and so I said did you have the same conversation with the exact now here on this like little lowly new SES did you have this exact same conversation with the executive director for operations because his office is all men and so she started laughing and we were talking about it and I said these women earned this job they were qualified so and and and this upset statistics so be an ally for other women and you you give everything you have into that job you're going to shine because you did deserve it tell yourself you deserved it Thanks Margie so I think what I heard from the panel here on this particular question which was an excellent question is ignore the noise let your work do the do the talking and let these perceptions be your motivation and that that is really the formula to to get to the right place I think we we have about 10 minutes left so I've got one last question for all of you but I want to thank everyone for your incredibly interesting discussion I wish we had a whole day to continue talking there was a lot of nuggets that I heard today and and I'm sure our audience heard but unfortunately we need to wrap this up in the next few minutes so before we do that I would like to ask each of our panelists if there is one parting or one final message you want your audience to take away from today's discussion what would that be I'm going to go in opposite order this time starting with Joyce and so I'd like to ask each of you to give us a minute or two maximum on on that question so with that Joyce you know I can't clear my throat in a minute right first of all message to take home I gave you one homework assignment the second homework assignment be an ally call it out when you see it applaud the women around you make sure that that you're you're making some noise the second thing I will say is I love speaking on these panels I love speaking about women sometimes though we would actually just like to speak about the stuff that we do because we're all competent competent professionals so if you want to have an entire panel of women talking about human factors of about nuclear safety we're all available and we can talk about that as much as we can talk about being women it's not about our double X chromosomes it's about qualifications we bring to the table thanks for having me thank you thank you Joyce Dre that's a hard one to follow but I'll do my best for me it's advocacy just be your own advocate I think that is something to take you know with you is just just advocate for yourself advocate for others that you see are obviously stepping into forward in the red light and in a pattern that you would also want to represent for yourself by advocating I mean get out there talk to people talk to your senior leaders if you're interested in something ask them talk to them so I think that's the biggest thing that I could try to leave everybody with thanks thanks Dre commission I would say whatever your interests are let them be known and as much as you are an advocate for other women be an advocate for yourself let people know if you're interested in and doing international policy work if you're doing if you're interested in doing any international work if you just want to change offices and do something different let that be known build those relationships so that people know you and your voice is heard so that that way when that opportunity comes around people will think of you and people will contact you because that's what happened to me if I didn't make it known if I didn't participate in international meetings and say hey this is something that I'm interested in people would not have known that oh she's willing to live overseas in a country where she doesn't speak that language for five years so whether that was wise or not I would say be an advocate for yourself and don't let being the only woman in the room even if that's you know happens frequently don't let that stop you from speaking out on behalf of yourself and let your interests be known thank you Kim Yichang Laura and that's really great because I'm agreeing with all this and that's what we're going through I saw it I'll actually go back to two things for you my challenge in my opening remarks to all the men who are listening become a mentor become an advocate mentor bring people with you right we and and I guess it's for the entire audience let's bring all people into our international activities and get them the exposure and it's and and include everyone in that so mentor your folks and give them an opportunity and then I think the other thing that I would just leave for some folks in the audience you know we sometimes you know and you hear it in some of these questions and I see it I've seen it in my career we we self-select out we have these things that were you know well maybe I'm not going to go for that or try it for that take your seat at the table right you deserve it you earn it I would encourage you to just pull out your own chair and have a seat thanks. Thank you Laura and Margie. Okay so first of all I'm going to say don't just sink don't just seek out women's mentors seek out men as well and Nader you are a great example in this regard and thank you so much for being so respectful on this panel and taking all this flag that we've given you you are awesome and I'm so appreciative back to my first words join the debate the world needs women in order to make important changes and and you were at a very pivotal time and in the world as you know and we really need everyone who can contribute to contribute there's I know there are amazing women on this call and I can only imagine if all of you just sort of like join the debate and really help push these issues forward what difference that would make so be motivated seek out ways to do it and get mentors for sure and thank you so much I miss all of you tremendously thanks Margie and thank you all again for your terrific thoughts and wisdom I know that you've given us and you've given the audience a lot to think about and reflect on at this point I'm going to turn things to Molly Keith Forsythe from the Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee Molly thank you Nader so good afternoon everyone my name is Molly Keith Forsythe and I currently serve as the Vice Chair for the Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee I'd like to thank everyone in attendance for attending our panel session today and especially thank you to the outstanding women on the panel for sharing their experiences and wisdom with us I'd also like to add my own little quote that inspired me this week during International Women's Day I posted on my Facebook feed yesterday it says feminism isn't about making women stronger women are already strong it's about changing the way the world perceives that strength so that really resonated with me this week all right let me get back to where my notes were all right so it is my honor to announce this year's recipient for the Equal Employment Opportunity Award this year the Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee has selected our Secretary actually Justin Vazquez Justin hit the ground running when he joined FleaPak as a Region 1 representative in 2018 shortly after joining he agreed to co-lead FleaPak's Professional Development Subcommittee and he was eventually selected for his current role as the FleaPak Secretary where he has continued to serve as a strong and effective leader within the committee Justin has spearheaded and led the coordination of several important FleaPak events over the past few years including a series of professional development workshops in 2019 an agency-wide flash mentoring session in 2020 and numerous panel discussions on diversity and inclusion and professional development topics on top of all of this he's also fulfilled his duties as Secretary diligently and he is an overall active contributor to the FleaPak discussions and activities and is definitely an advocate for women at the NRC it is clear that Justin Justin has a passion about FleaPak's mission to empower women to establish and achieve their career goals and we are thrilled to recognize his contributions with this award so on behalf of the NRC Federal Women's Program Advisory Committee to my friend and colleague Justin Vasquez congratulations thank you Molly and thank you to FleaPak I have really been quite privileged to work as an ally with such a strong and dedicated group of women at the NRC and it's truly an honor to receive this award thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to serve our cause over the past two years and in response to Laura's call during the panel I'll say that I am proud to be an ally and an advocate and I'm looking forward to continuing our work together in the years to come all right thanks again everyone for attending today take care be safe thank you