Last Updated: July 30, 2026

Women in Neurotech (“WiNT”) is committed to providing a respectful, inclusive, safe, and professional environment for everyone who participates in our community.

This Community Code of Conduct (“Code”) explains the behavior expected from WiNT members and participants, the conduct that is not permitted, and how concerns may be reported and addressed.

By participating in WiNT, you agree to follow this Code as well as the WiNT Terms of Use and Membership.

1. WHO THIS CODE APPLIES TO
This Code applies to everyone participating in or representing WiNT, including:

• Members
• Event attendees
• Speakers and panelists
• Volunteers and organizers
• Mentors and mentees
• Project participants and collaborators
• Sponsors, partners, recruiters, and vendors
• Ambassadors and chapter leaders
• Board members, officers, employees, and contractors

All participants are expected to follow this Code regardless of their position, experience, professional status, or relationship with WiNT.

2. WHERE THIS CODE APPLIES
This Code applies in all spaces and activities connected with WiNT, including:

• The WiNT website and membership platform
• Discord servers, channels, direct messages, and project spaces
• Virtual and in-person events
• Workshops, panels, meetings, and networking sessions
• Volunteer and leadership activities
• Mentorship and collaborative programs
• Hackathons, project groups, and educational activities
• Email, social media, and other communications connected with WiNT

The Code may also apply to conduct outside WiNT-controlled spaces when that conduct targets a WiNT participant, arises from a WiNT interaction, creates a credible safety concern, or materially affects the WiNT community.

3. EXPECTED BEHAVIOR
WiNT participants are expected to:

• Treat others with respect, professionalism, and consideration.
• Communicate constructively, even when disagreeing.
• Respect differences in background, identity, culture, experience, education, discipline, and viewpoint.
• Respect personal boundaries and stop an interaction when someone asks for space or indicates that contact is unwelcome.
• Give others a reasonable opportunity to speak and participate.
• Offer feedback in a constructive manner and remain open to receiving feedback.
• Respect the privacy, intellectual property, work, and contributions of others.
• Follow event, venue, platform, project, and safety instructions.
• Represent their identity, credentials, experience, affiliations, and authority honestly.
• Report serious safety concerns or suspected violations when they feel able to do so.

Professional disagreement, respectful debate, and good-faith criticism are permitted. Participants must express disagreement without personal attacks, harassment, intimidation, or disruptive conduct.

4. HARASSMENT AND DISCRIMINATION
WiNT does not tolerate harassment or discrimination based on characteristics including, but not limited to:

• Race, color, ethnicity, ancestry, or national origin
• Sex, gender, gender identity, or gender expression
• Sexual orientation
• Age
• Disability, medical condition, or neurodivergence
• Religion or belief
• Pregnancy, parental status, or marital status
• Veteran status
• Socioeconomic background
• Physical appearance or body size
• Education, professional discipline, career stage, or level of experience
• Any other characteristic protected by applicable law

Harassment may occur through words, images, physical behavior, electronic communications, repeated unwanted contact, or other conduct that creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, threatening, or unsafe environment.

5. PROHIBITED CONDUCT
Prohibited conduct includes, but is not limited to:

• Harassment, bullying, threats, intimidation, stalking, or abusive behavior.
• Discriminatory, demeaning, insulting, or hateful language or imagery.
• Personal attacks, name-calling, humiliation, or deliberate attempts to embarrass another person.
• Unwanted sexual attention, sexual comments, sexual imagery, romantic advances, requests for sexual favors, or inappropriate physical contact.
• Continuing to contact, message, follow, or pursue someone after being asked to stop.
• Threats of violence, encouragement of self-harm, or conduct that creates a credible safety concern.
• Deliberate disruption of events, meetings, presentations, discussions, or projects.
• Retaliation against anyone who raises a concern, sets a boundary, reports conduct, or participates in a review.
• Doxxing or sharing another person’s private, identifying, health, employment, or contact information without authorization.
• Recording, photographing, livestreaming, screenshotting, transcribing, or republishing private or members-only communications or events without authorization.
• Scraping, copying, exporting, or compiling member profiles, contact information, messages, directories, or attendance lists.
• Using member or community information for unrelated marketing, recruiting, fundraising, research, or commercial purposes without authorization.
• Spam, repeated unsolicited messages, mass direct messaging, chain messages, or disruptive self-promotion.
• Pressuring members to provide personal information, move a conversation to another platform, meet privately, invest money, purchase something, or participate in an opportunity.
• Fraud, impersonation, phishing, scams, misleading job offers, or false claims about credentials, affiliations, compensation, authority, sponsorship, or opportunities.
• Unauthorized promotion, solicitation, recruiting, fundraising, or advertising outside spaces designated or approved for those purposes.
• Sharing trade secrets, confidential employer information, patient information, protected health information, or other information the participant is not authorized to disclose.
• Malware, harmful code, credential theft, unauthorized security testing, or attempts to interfere with an account, platform, event, or system.
• Encouraging, assisting, or pressuring another person to violate this Code.

6. DIRECT MESSAGES, NETWORKING, AND RECRUITING
WiNT encourages respectful networking and professional connection. Participation in the same community, event, or channel does not automatically constitute permission for persistent private contact.

When contacting another participant:

• Introduce yourself and explain why you are reaching out.
• Keep the communication relevant and professional.
• Respect a lack of response.
• Stop contacting the person if they decline, ask you to stop, block you, or otherwise indicate that the communication is unwelcome.
• Do not add someone to an email list, group, project, platform, or marketing database without permission.
• Do not pressure someone to disclose personal information, provide free labor, accept an opportunity, purchase a service, or continue a conversation.

Job opportunities, recruiting messages, commercial services, research requests, fundraising, and promotional content may be restricted to designated channels or require prior approval from WiNT.

WiNT does not guarantee or independently verify every person, opportunity, employer, recruiter, mentor, or collaborator. Participants should use reasonable judgment and conduct their own due diligence.

7. PRIVACY AND COMMUNITY CONTENT
Participants should respect the privacy of community conversations and other members.

Unless appropriate permission has been obtained, participants may not:

• Share private messages or members-only discussions outside their intended audience.
• Publish another participant’s name, image, voice, contact information, statements, or project materials.
• Record or screenshot private conversations, meetings, or events.
• Use member information or community content to train, test, or develop an artificial-intelligence or machine-learning system.
• Apply facial recognition, biometric analysis, emotional inference, personality analysis, or similar technology to other participants.

Community spaces cannot be guaranteed to be completely private or secure. Participants should avoid sharing passwords, financial information, patient information, sensitive health information, trade secrets, unpublished proprietary research, or other highly sensitive material.

8. PROJECTS AND COLLABORATION
Participants working together through WiNT are expected to communicate honestly and respectfully about:

• Roles and responsibilities
• Time commitments and deadlines
• Ownership of work and intellectual property
• Authorship and attribution
• Confidentiality
• Data and material use
• Expenses, compensation, and commercialization
• Whether participation may be publicly discussed or included in portfolios

Participants must not intentionally take credit for another person’s work, conceal material conflicts of interest, misuse confidential information, or falsely represent a project as endorsed, funded, approved, or owned by WiNT.

Project disagreements should be addressed professionally. WiNT may attempt to facilitate communication but is not responsible for deciding intellectual-property, authorship, employment, compensation, or contractual disputes between participants.

9. REPORTING A CONCERN
Anyone who experiences, witnesses, or becomes aware of a possible violation may report it to WiNT.

Reports may be submitted to:
contact@womeninneurotech.org

A report should include as much relevant information as the reporting person feels comfortable providing, such as:

• What happened
• When and where it happened
• The people involved
• Whether the conduct is continuing
• Screenshots, messages, links, or other available documentation
• Any immediate safety or accessibility concerns

A person may report conduct even when they were not the person directly affected.

For an immediate threat or emergency, contact the appropriate local emergency services or platform safety team. WiNT is not an emergency-response service.

WiNT will make reasonable efforts to handle reports discreetly and share information only as needed to review the concern, protect participants, enforce this Code, or comply with legal obligations. Complete confidentiality or anonymity cannot be guaranteed.

10. RESPONSE AND ENFORCEMENT
WiNT will review reports based on the information reasonably available and may take temporary protective action while a concern is being considered.

Depending on the nature, severity, credibility, frequency, and context of the conduct, actions may include:

• A private reminder or warning
• Removal or restriction of content
• Limits on direct messaging, posting, or participation
• Removal from an event, meeting, channel, project, or program
• Suspension or termination of membershi
• Removal from a volunteer, leadership, speaker, mentor, or chapter role
• Revocation of access to WiNT platforms or future activities
• Notification to a platform provider, venue, partner organization, institution, employer, regulator, or law-enforcement authority when reasonably appropriate
• Any other action WiNT considers reasonably necessary to protect the community

WiNT may act without a formal complaint when it becomes aware of conduct that may violate this Code.

WiNT may provide an accused participant with an opportunity to respond when appropriate, but immediate action may be taken when necessary to protect participants, preserve information, prevent disruption, or address a credible risk.

WiNT is not required to disclose confidential information, the identity of a reporting person, internal deliberations, or every action taken. When appropriate, WiNT may inform the reporting person that the matter was reviewed or addressed.

11. RETALIATION AND FALSE REPORTS
Retaliation is prohibited.

No one may threaten, harass, exclude, intimidate, punish, or disadvantage another person for:

• Making a good-faith report
• Expressing a concern
• Setting a personal boundary
• Providing information during a review
• Supporting someone who reports misconduct

A good-faith report will not violate this Code merely because the available information does not establish that a violation occurred.

Knowingly making a materially false or malicious report, fabricating evidence, or deliberately misusing the reporting process may itself violate this Code.

12. RESPONSIBILITY FOR ENFORCEMENT
WiNT’s authorized leadership and designated moderators are responsible for interpreting and enforcing this Code.

WiNT will aim to respond fairly and consistently, but each situation may require a different response based on its circumstances.

Nothing in this Code creates an obligation for WiNT to monitor every communication, prevent every incident, conduct a formal legal investigation, or resolve personal or professional disputes that are unrelated to the community.

WiNT may revise this Code as the organization, its programs, and its community develop.

13. CONTACT
Questions, concerns, or reports regarding this Code may be directed to:

Women in Neurotech
contact@womeninneurotech.org