Becoming a PI in Academia, Authorship, and More!

Another study on Authorship and Publishing

Another study on gender differences on authorship and publishing came out in Ecology and Evolution this month. This one looked at manuscript outcomes following peer review based on the gender of the authors, finding that "papers with female first authors obtained, on average, slightly worse peer‐review scores and were more likely to be rejected after peer review."

Becoming a PI in Academia

Publishing is probably on your mind if you're goal is to run your own research lab. And for good reason: a new study that looked at recent hires at research institutions finds that "whether or not a scientist becomes a PI is largely predictable by their publication record." And furthermore, that men are more likely to become PIs than women even when other factors, like publication record, are the same. (As a side note: don't let their PI Predictor tell you whether or not you can be a PI -- I for one don't want the makeup of future PIs to be determined by an algorithm based on current biased trends!).

Another study published as a preprint in bioRxiv surveyed new PIs about their transition to running a lab. They found that men had more funding and higher salaries than women in similar positions. They also find that "too many new investigators express frustration and poor optimism for the future," possibly because they don't have the right support to transition to being a PI. On the plus side, their data also led them to develop a great list of recommendations for host institutions, funders, and those applying for PI positions to help fix these problems!

Finally, a study in JAMA showed that men get larger first-time NIH grants than women (women's grants are 24% smaller on average!). Interestingly, an article in Science disputes the relevance of this finding, arguing that for he grants that matter most (e.g., R01s), women and men get equal funding. 

Other Links of Interest

Check out this conference for Women in Statistics and Data Science!: https://ww2.amstat.org/meetings/wsds/2019/index.cfm

Women in science are facing misogynist new laws in Brazil: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-00762-1

Have good sense of humor? That might hurt you if you're a woman looking for a promotion: https://psmag.com/social-justice/workplace-humor-beneficial-for-men-detrimental-for-women

Women entrepreneurs are changing the world! https://www.forbes.com/sites/maggiemcgrath/2019/03/08/international-womens-day-2019-how-female-entrepreneurs-are-changing-the-world/#6906475a5f21