Women for Science: Actions for Science Academies

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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
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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
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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

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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

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Womens PhD degrees, USA
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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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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

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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 !!!

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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)

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

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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

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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

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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

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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!