Namkeen Peshawri is a human rights advocate and programme specialist from Pakistan with over 10 years of experience advancing gender equality, social inclusion, and community resilience. This talk explores how transgender and gender-diverse individuals navigate STEM-related spaces and the importance of inclusive ecosystems that value lived experience alongside innovation. It highlights global perspectives from community-led advocacy and the role of visibility in shaping equitable futures.

Dom is a specialist in research culture, engaged research, and equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI), with a particular interest in how systems and people interact - and how even small interventions can lead to meaningful change. Often in academic settings we need to hide aspects of ourselves, this is compounded in STEM where sometimes the focus is on the research rather than the researcher. As LGBTQ+ folks in STEM, bringing elements of ourselves have the added layer around feeling safe. With this talk I’ll explore how you slowly bring ALL elements of you into STEM settings using Engagement and Outreach as a stepping stone. We’ll explore contexts, levels of comforts, and help you define where and how you can bring more of you into your STEM contexts.

Michael is a former research and development engineer with BBC R&D who worked on TV accessibility, sound and video quality along with narrative structures and interactivity. While most TV subtitles in the UK are satisfactory, there are many times when the subtitles are more than 10 seconds late and worse, along with times where over 20% of the words are missing. While there have been considerable improvements in availability and quality over the past 4 decades, in recent years subtitle quality seemed to be slipping. This talk will outline my back-bedroom project to measure television subtitle quality using open-source and a free speech to text engine. It will work through some of the challenges encountered, the solutions found and some sample results. It will then show some of the problems detected, from subtitles drifting out to over 3 minutes late to sections of programmes where half the words were missing and give an overview of where these sorts of problems occur. It will conclude with some news of recent improvements in subtitle quality.

Katherine is a maths and science communicator, trainer, founder of the STEM-Improv Network and an LGBTQIA+ rights activist. Katherine is hosting an introductory improv workshop where you will play games inspired by you and your STEM passions! Together, you will build confidence and science communication skills while having fun in a supportive, safe space. No experience required! This session covers the basics of improv and safety tools to get you started.

Eve is an experienced educator who enjoys engaging with young people in out-of-the-classroom learning opportunities with a focus on allowing them to grow and learn by finding connections with and empathy for the natural world. Eve will be sharing her work creating and running Queer Nature workshops for LGBTQ+ support groups in high schools. Join them to hear about how they encourage young people to see parallels in plants to their own lived experiences as well as providing ways for us all to find comfort in and express ourselves through the natural world. This session will encourage you to take part in hands-on activities and reflect on the intersections of nature and LGBTQ+ identities

Dr Robin Hayward is a science communicator, designer, and ecologist, specialising in the realms of trees and forests. This talk will explore the role of identity in the way that we conduct and communicate science, drawing from Robin's personal experiences in the field and from their work to create an LGBTQ+ inclusive toolkit for safe and equitable fieldwork.