Our Top Picks for October 26, 2018

This week article selection includes an in depth interview of 2018 Physics Nobel Prize Laureate Dr. Strickland, where she discusses her scientific career in laser physics, the impact of being a Nobel Prize awardee and her opinion on women in sciences. 

This article reviews the reasons why the #MeTooSTEM movement can benefit Academia, who reports the second-highest rates of work-related sexual harassment after the military. The author includes conversations with female researchers and their personal experiences being harassed by fellow colleagues. 

Check out this article focusing on the discouragement young girls face when pursuing science careers and how this can be one of the reasons women are underrepresented in STEM. The author reviews possible solutions to change this dynamic. 

The gender pay gap is a problem women face all over the word. However, in this article the author analyzes the variations of the gap between the different states, and comes up with one (and only one) field where the gender pay gap favors women: wholesale!

Recently, the NIH has made an effort to include sex as an important biological variable, and requires both sexes to be included in clinical and preclinical studies in order to be considered for funding. Yet, one of the most common excuses to avoid including female subjects in preclinical research is the variability they supposedly introduce due to hormonal changes during their cycle. This article published in Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences shows  however that including female subjects does not significantly increase variability in the results and that in most cases, tracking of the female estrous cyclicity is not even necessary.

Finally, we have gathered three interesting resources for researchers in the early stages of their career. Researchers in the UK can apply to the SUSTAIN program, which enables female researchers to thrive in their independent research careers (deadline December 3, 2018).  A similar workshop, open to men and women (US citizenship or permanent residency required) is organized by the University of Michigan, where they encourage candidates from diverse backgrounds to apply (deadline February 3, 2019). For preparing both of these applications, use this gender-bias calculator that will give you a (probably surprising) feedback on how biased your letter of recommendation might be!

Our Top Picks for October 20, 2018

If you've been paying attention to the Nobel Prizes in science, you might be wondering why historically 97% of science Nobel Laureates have been men. This year the prize announcements generated buzz because women won prizes in two of the science categories: Frances Arnold won in Chemistry for her work on directed evolution, and Donna Strickland won in Physics for her work on lasers. Sadly, two women Nobel Laureates in one year (out of up to nine scientists who can be awarded Nobel Prizes -- three for each category) is still considered a lot of women for one year. So why don't more women win Nobel Prizes? In this article, Mary K. Feeney, Associate Director of the Center for Science, Technology and Environmental Policy Studies at Arizona State University, argues that it's a combination of structural barriers in academic STEM careers and implicit bias about who does science that make it harder for women to rise to the top in academic STEM fields. In this article, Rowan Thomson, Associate Professor of Physics at Carleton University, suggests how we can act to change these gender disparities that lead to women's under-representation among Nobel Laureates.

A recent analysis published in Nature aims to explain why women are underrepresented in independent fellow positions. Women make up about a quarter of independent fellows in programs including the NIH Early Independence Award, Carnegie Institute Staff Associate program, the Whitehead Fellows program, and the University of California San Francisco Sandler Fellows program. The analysis suggests that this is due both to women being underrepresented in the applicant pool and to bias against women applicants.

If you're like me, asking questions at seminars can feel a bit intimidating! It turns out that this is common among women in science, according to a new study in PLoS One. They find that women ask fewer questions in seminars than men do, and also that women are more likely than men to let internal factors (e.g., not having the nerve) prevent them from asking questions.

The journal Neuropsychopharmacology (NPP) has done some research into gender disparities among its editors, reviewers, and authors. As a result of this work, NPP is taking steps to increase the number of female reviewers and editorial board members.

#MeTooSTEM has launched a GoFundMe to help fight sexual and gender-based harassment and assault in STEM. In their words: "There are no 'baby steps' in ending sexual harassment. We need brave, giant steps. And we need your help to make them. We are asking for your contribution so we can file for 501c non-profit status, hire legal consultants to help protect students and raise awareness. Non profit status will make us eligible for grants, more donations and, most of all, more action."