What is the Woman of Achievement Award?
Each year on March 8th, our club celebrates Zonta Rose Day and International Women's Day, by recognizing a woman in our community who through her work and commitment to her community is helping to Build a Better World for Women and Girls. Our club’s membership elects women who exemplify our club mission.
Dr. Paty Romero-Lankao Foothills Club’s 2023 Woman of Achievement
Dr. Paty Romero-Lankao is a distinguished research scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Paty examines key interactions among people, cities, and climate, with a particular emphasis on equitable and sustainable energy transition as well as people’s capacity to pursue their life goals and address sustainability challenges.
Throughout her career, Paty has developed a considerable body of highly regarded interdisciplinary research, resulting in several research grants, and 145 peer-reviewed publications. She has extensive experience as a sociologist working across disciplines, and at the science-policy interface in the US and many other cities internationally. Paty was co-leading author to Working Group II of the Nobel prize-winning IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4). Currently, she is leading the social and policy approaches to LA100 Equity Strategies. This high social impact project, which involves a community-informed analysis of equity strategies for Los Angeles, can shed light on how to ensure cities and states around the world transition to 100% clean energy while also centering on justice and the needs of underrepresented populations.
Paty went to public schools in Mexico all her life. She went to high-school and college at UNAM, the Mexican Autonomous University of Mexico. She loves the outdoors and tries to keep some open time during the day to practice yoga, run, or bike. She also loves to play the piano, as it allows her to express emotions and transports her mind to different places. Piano also helps Paty to explore feelings and ideas, and she likes to share her piano pieces with family and friends twice a year, at the summer and winter recitals convened by her piano teacher Kate Smailer.
Paty is passionate about women being successful in STEM field. “Many STEM women, communities of color and other underrepresented groups are well prepared to enter the professional workforce but choose not to, or are excluded, due to persistent barriers to entry or advancement within organizations. Such barriers include implicit biases that are not broken by a focus on the individual behavior of underrepresented groups alone. Therefore, I suggest investing financial and human resources in programs fostering inclusion of women, minority, and underrepresented groups in high-level positions as well as in hiring and evaluation committees, and capacity building programs.”
She explains “My main recommendation to any young scholar is to do what they are passionate about. Only in this way, will they be able to overcome obstacles, deal with frustrations, and take advantage of research, personal development, and networking opportunities.”