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Women for Science: Actions for Science Academies

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Scientist Emeritus, National Institute of Science and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8320 ... One of the very few science academies that has a female president ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Women for Science: Actions for Science Academies


1
Women 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
2
Academia 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
3
OUTLINE
  • 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

4
Slow 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

5
Womens PhD degrees, USA
6
Women 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

7
Women 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

8
IAC, 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

9
IAC 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

11
Ch.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

12
Ch.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

13
Towards 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

14
Ch.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

15
IAC Ch.4 Women civil engineering students, U.
Maryland, work with tribal women in Thailand on a
sustainable wastewater system for the Samli
Clinic
16
A 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

17
IAC 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

18
IANAS 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

19
RT 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

20
RT 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.

21
RT 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

22
RT 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 !!!

23
RTIII 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)

24
Visibility LOréal 10 years
Arriving at Charles de Gaulle Airport Paris March
2008
25
Visibility - LOréal 10 years
UNESCO displays pictures of fifty women
scientists on its perimeter March 2008
Mariana Weissman Argentina
26
Biographies 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

27
Visibility 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

28
Visibility 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

29
RT 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

30
A 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!
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