The WIGSAT network was built and sustained by researchers, development professionals, and institutional advocates who spent decades advancing gender equity in science, technology, and development. This page profiles several of the most influential contributors to that work.
Nancy Hafkin is an American researcher and development practitioner specializing in gender, information and communication technologies, and international development. Her career spans more than four decades working at the intersection of technology access, women's empowerment, and global development policy.
Hafkin served for many years at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA), where she directed the Pan African Development Information System and shaped ICT policy strategy across the continent. She later became one of the leading voices on gender and ICTs, producing and editing foundational research reports on women's technology access in developing regions.
Her contributions to the Gender, Science and Technology (GST) framework helped establish the research vocabulary and policy tools that influenced national science strategies across Africa, Asia, and Latin America. She served as a central figure in the WIGSAT network and contributed substantially to Gender Advisory Board publications.
Hafkin has been recognized by the Internet Society, the Association for Progressive Communications, and other organizations for her work on internet access and gender equity in technology. She co-edited several influential volumes and contributed to UNIFEM and UN Women research programs over multiple decades.
The Gender Advisory Board was convened to provide institutional guidance on gender integration within science and technology policy, particularly in international development contexts. The GAB produced a series of foundational documents — including a three-volume series on Gender and Science and Technology — that established a practical benchmarking framework used by governments, development banks, and academic institutions.
GAB publications emphasized empirical measurement, regional variation, and actionable policy recommendations. The full GAB publication archive was maintained at gab.wigsat.org and is preserved at the Internet Archive.
The Gender and Science and Technology Association (GASAT) organized biennial international conferences from the 1980s through the 2000s, producing one of the earliest sustained bodies of peer-reviewed research on gender in science education and scientific careers. GASAT proceedings are referenced throughout the gender and STEM research literature and represent a significant part of the field's foundational scholarship.
WIGSAT served as a digital home for a portion of the GASAT archive. Conference paper records are preserved in the GASAT section of this site and in the Internet Archive collection.