International Women’s Day (IWD) 2024 is centred around inspiring inclusion. This year’s IWD theme calls for diverse representation to challenge stereotypes and foster environments where all women are valued and heard.

As the adage goes ‘You can’t be what you can’t see’ and though progress has been made in recent years, the disparity in female representation in STEM cannot be ignored. In 2023, STEM women found that only 31% of core STEM students in higher education in the UK are women or non-binary, and this falls to 23% when looking at computer science specifically.

We are privileged in the COSMIC team to work with a diverse range of women, and wanted to take this opportunity to recognise their unique contributions and experiences. We caught up with Head of IT, Nidhi Bindal Dhir as she celebrated her 15 year anniversary as part of the COSMIC team. To mark this momentous occasion, Nidhi reflects on her career journey and offers some inspiring words for women considering taking a leap into STEM.

Can you tell us a little about your role?

I am COSMIC’s Head of IT, my current role involves managing, strategising and planning the IT infrastructure to enable COSMIC to deliver the gold standard data we are known for. Our strategy for COSMIC IT’s future is to make it even more stable, secure, accessible, user friendly, and a modern resource for the scientific user community to ultimately help human health.

How has your role changed over the course of your career?

I joined COSMIC in 2009 as a Junior Computational Biologist with a bioinformatics background in COSMIC (Cancer Genome Project). After a lot of hands-on learning about the database, I was moved to a Senior Computational Biologist. I gained a full spectrum knowledge of looking at COSMIC in many domains such as databases, websites, handling user queries, conducting user trainings, workshops, project coordination and management. After gaining all of this experience, I changed paths slightly to a Project coordinator in the year 2018 looking after the new developments for the curation system. The next step for me was to act as a Product Owner for the IT team, I was responsible for managing and prioritising work for the development team. My progression from here felt natural as I became a Programme Manager in 2022 to manage, oversee and organise the projects and products for COSMIC. Finally, from 2023 I acted as an interim Head of IT for COSMIC and in 2024 I officially became Head of IT.

What are the biggest challenges faced by IT over your career?

The biggest challenge that COSMIC IT had to deal with and adapt to very quickly was the sheer volume of data, the speed at which it was being produced and the changing technical landscape. The influx of data due to the increased accessibility of Whole Genome Screening, increased the pressures on the databases and the websites. We had to act fast to adapt all of our resources in a very short time. Adapting and innovating is always a challenge with a scientific IT skills gap, making them integral skills in such a fast paced industry!

What is one piece of advice you’d like to give young women and girls considering a STEM career?

Believe in yourself - trust your knowledge and skills, we have it in us and the belief and confidence will leverage to navigate the challenges.

This interview is the first in a new series of blog posts where we will be highlighting the unique experiences and expertise within the COSMIC team. From Bioinformatics, to Clinical Curation and beyond, keep an eye out for more posts coming soon!