Title: Women for Science: Actions for Science Academies
1Women for ScienceActions for Science Academies
- Johanna Levelt Sengers, USA
- Scientist Emeritus, National Institute of Science
and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8320 - Member, NAS, NAE
- Co-author, InterAcademy Council Advisory
Report Women for Science 2006 - www.interacademycouncil.net
IANAS Symposium, Mexico, April 19, 2009
2Academia Mexicana
- One of the very few science academies that has
a female president - Can be a very effective voice on behalf of women
scientists and engineers - in Mexico
- in IANAS
- in IAP
Thank you, Professor Rosaura Ruiz, for inviting
me to participate and give the introductory talk
3OUTLINE
- Slow progress of women scientists
- and engineers
- IAC, IAP - IANAS
- The IAC report
- The IANAS Round Tables
- A great opportunity! Action items for Academies,
IANAS, IAP
4Slow progress of women scientists
- Influx of women into the sciences has greatly
increased - Women scientists are slow to advance
- Few women at the top of the hierarchy
5Womens PhD degrees, USA
6Women scientists are slow to advance
- Leaking pipeline - more women than men drop out
after the PhD - Few women become tenured professors on science,
engineering and medical faculties - Science academies 5 women members
- Implicit message women not welcome as science,
engineering and industry leaders
7Women in academies, US
- IOM Institute of Medicine 21.3
- NAS National Academy of Sciences 10.0
- Physics 3.1
- Chemistry 4.0
- Astronomy 12.4
- Genetics 22.5
- Psychology 21.9
- NAE National Academy of Engineering 4.9
- US Academies keep statistics. Many others dont
8IAC, IAP - IANAS
- IAC InterAcademy Council
- Presidents of 15 science academies
- Performs studies and writes reports on global
issues - SET capacity building, African agriculture, WfS,
energy - IAP InterAcademy Panel
- Presidents of all 95 science academies
- Furthers coordination and collaboration of
academies on issues related to global development
and sustainability - IANAS subset of IAP
- InterAmerican Network of Science Academies
9IAC report first of its kind to target academies
- Academies represent the top of scientific
achievement in their countries - Academies act as expert advisers to
governments - Their example can initiate global change from the
top of the science and engineering establishment
10 The IAC Report - Action for Academies
- Three core subjects
- Ch.3 Enabling womens access, participation, and
careers - inclusive culture best practice - Ch.4 Empowering women at the grass roots
- essential to sustainable development
- Ch.5,6 Actions for academies - Set an example of
inclusiveness advocacy
11Ch.3 Inclusive culture best practice
- All members of an organization, men and women,
perform to the best of their ability - Leadership commits to diversity
- Committee sets goals, benchmarks keeps track of
progress works with leadership - Transparency in hiring, salary, promotions
- Women included at all leadership levels
- Mentoring, leadership training offered to all
- Healthy work-family balance for all
12Ch.3 Best practice vs. gender equity
- Gender Equity
- But men are physically stronger
- But women get pregnant and nurse infants
- Best Practice
- Benefits all employees and the organization
- Does not imply that women need extra help
- Allows for variation in capabilities and
abilities - Considers work-family balance essential to
optimum performance of all employees
13Towards Inclusive Culture(some hard truths
snide slide 1)
- Women talking to women necessary, but not
sufficient - 90 of tenured faculty at research universities
are men - 95 of academy members are men
- Men will have to be on board if the climate for
women is to be improved - Academies have to learn to listen to gender
experts
14Ch.4 Women essential to development
- A billion women in rural areas and in the
slums of megacities the developing world - are responsible for health care, water, food,
shelter, education, marketing.. - for development, it is essential that they
receive education, have access to information,
and get training in modern technology - women engineers and scientists are needed to
transfer technology to their sisters at the
grass roots - sustainable development is possible only if women
at the grass roots are included
15IAC Ch.4 Women civil engineering students, U.
Maryland, work with tribal women in Thailand on a
sustainable wastewater system for the Samli
Clinic
16A Mexican example of including grass-roots
women in IT
-
- I have been told that many grass roots Mexican
women have learned to operate sophisticated
machinery in factories in N. Mexico that
manufacture and assemble electronic computer
products
17IAC report - actions for academies
- Commit to including women fully
- Increase female membership
- collect data on women membership - RTIV
- keep track of progress and report yearly to
membership, IAP - prepare lists of eligible women scientists
- - Increase visibility of women scientists -
RTIII - Remove barriers establish best practice - RTII
- Advocate with government for inclusiveness RTI
- IAP (and IANAS!) to enable exchange between
academies re best practice, successful actions
18IANAS Round Tables
- RT I. Gender and Public Policy in Education,
Science and Technology - RT II. Removing obstacles to careers in SET
- RT III Increasing visibility of women scientists
in Latin America - RT IV Sex-disaggregated statistics for policy
making
19RT I. Gender and Public Policy in Education,
Science and Technology
- IAC report Ch.2
- Numerous examples of government action
- UN, UNESCO, US, Canada, UK, India, China, Japan
- US accent on accommodating a diverse workforce.
- NSF addresses diversity, mentoring,
institutional climate - US Academies - (talk by Lilian Wu, RT II)
- reports and workshops flyers and samples
- education and textbooks flyers and samples
- biographies of women scientists for teens -
sample - women NAS members evaluate, on request,
- institutional climate of science departments
- measures to increase nominations of women
20RT I Encouraging women researchers
- Science Academies to invite proposals form female
researchers, and work with Government Funding
Agencies to give special consideration to
proposals from women principal investigators.
21RT II Removing obstacles to careers in SET
- IAC Ch. 3
- Mentoring, networking, leadership training
- happen naturally among male scientists - women
scientists need access to the same support system
- academy members to make themselves available for
mentoring women scientists - Evaluate institutional climate for women
- on request, women academy members evaluate and
advise scientific institutes
22RT III Increase visibility of women
- What academies can do
- Invite women speakers at symposia
- Academy Council, Boards, Committees to include
women members - Academy books, pamphlets, websites show women
scientists at work - Nominate women for prizes
- Elect more women !!!
23RTIII Visibility Latin American LOréal
Laureates
- 2002 Ana-Maria Lopez-Colomé, retina disease,
UNAM, Mexico City - 2003 Mariana Weissmann, statistical physicist,
Argentina - 2004 Lucia Medonça Previato, parasitic disease,
Brazil - 2005 Belitta Koiler, solid-state physicist,
Brazil - 2006 Esther Orozo, pathologist, National
Polytech. Inst., Mexico City - 2007 Ligia Gargallo, polymer scientist, Chile
- 2008 Ana Belén Elgoyen (Argentina), hearing
specialist - 2009 Beatriz Barbuy, astronomer, Brazil
- (Barbosa talk, RT II)
24Visibility LOréal 10 years
Arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport Paris March
2008
25Visibility - LOréal 10 years
UNESCO displays pictures of fifty women
scientists on its perimeter March 2008
Mariana Weissman Argentina
26Biographies of Latina scientists?
- Example of an IANAS project?
- Collaborate with LOréal to collect the material
on their Latin-American Laureates - Include Latina scientists working in US and
Canada - Collaborate with NAS CWSEM to fashion this
material into readable biographies (English and
Spanish!) geared towards teenagers
27Visibility The Internet
- Academy websites must have a page on
- Womens science education, science careers and
academy membership - Links to resources, international efforts on
behalf of women scientists - IANAS, IAP websites must have a page on
- Womens science education, science careers
- Female membership of all science academies
- Examples of successful efforts to empower women
scientists - Links to resources, international efforts to
support women scientists
28Visibility The Internet(snide slide 2)
- The IAP web site presents no evidence that Women
for Science was selected as IAP 3-year top
priority in 2006. WfS is not among the topics
that proposals are called for (No link to any IAC
report!) - The very lean IANAS web site does present an
announcement of the Symposium
29RT IV - Statistics
- Action items for academies
- Keep record of female membership
- by discipline also for Council, Boards,
Committees - present female membership data at annual meeting
- make data available by a link on their website
- Action items for IANAS, IAP
- Request academies for sex-disaggregated
membership data for the annual report - Make data available on the website
30A Great Opportunity!Engage Science Academies
- Round Tables to formulate action items
- for participants science academies
- for IANAS
- for the InterAcademy Panel
- Plenary Session to include these action items
- under strategies for the future
- for participants to take home
- to submit them to academies, IANAS, IAP
Thank you for your attention!