When it comes to women in science these days, their success shows just how much they have accomplished. Nonetheless, more work remains to put men and women on equal ground in science and engineering. “There’s good news and bad news, “ says Shirley M. Malcom, head of the American Association for the Advancement of Science’s directorate for education and human resource programs. “Women have flocked to the biological sciences, and we nearly have parity with men at the doctoral level,” she says. Clearly, that is good news. On the other hand, says Malcom, “There is not the advancement expected, given the participation by women in science.”
In September, the U.S. National Academies released a new report called “Beyond Bias and Barriers: Fulfilling the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering” (available at http://www.nap.edu/catalog/11741.html ). This report indicates that women earn more than half of all bachelor’s degrees in science and engineering, and almost 40 percent of the doctoral degrees in the same areas. Nonetheless, fewer women than men make the transition to faculty careers, and those women who do “typically receive fewer resources and less support than their male colleagues,” according to this report. In part, this shows that attrition impacts women much more than men along the path from science student to science professional. “There’s leakage of women in every step of the system,” says Donna E. Shalala, president of the University of Miami and chair of the panel that wrote the report. Still, she says, “This is an enormously positive report.” That upbeat perspective reflects a crucial success: Today’s leaders know how the system must be refined to bring in and retain more women in this area in the future.
A Review of Role Models
For young women to aspire to careers in science and engineering, they need high-powered leaders to emulate. In academics and private organizations, there are several examples: including Susan Hockfield, president at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; Judith Rodin, president of the Rockefeller Foundation; and Shirley Tilghman, president of Princeton University. Women also hold high-level positions in science organizations run by the government. For example, Donna J. Dean, president of the Association for Women in Science and senior science adviser at Lewis-Burke Associates, LLC, points out that at the U.S. National Institutes of Health four of 27 institute directors are women: Patricia Grady, director of the National Institute of Nursing Research; Story C. Landis, director of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke; Nora D. Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse; and Elizabeth G. Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. In scientific and engineering industries, women can also be found in leadership roles: including Stephanie Burns, chairman and chief executive officer of Dow Corning; Susan Desmond-Hellmann, president of product development at Genentech; and Una Ryan, chief executive officer at AVANT Immunotherapeutics.
Nonetheless, even successful women in science see the field as male dominated. “I’m not aware of any area in academics, government, or industry in which many women hold top positions,” says Cris Lewis, head of biochemical pharmacology in small-molecule drug discovery at Genentech. “Women are still clearly in the minority.” Still, opportunities do exist for women. “While not all women aspire to management and upper level positions,” says Janice Kameir, vice president of human resources at Diversa, “the opportunities are there if women take responsibility for their own career success.” She adds, “Throughout industry, there are women in management roles in scientific research and business, but we need to actively find ways to support and encourage women who want to move ahead in our industry.”
In part, having role models can encourage young women to enter and stick with science. Lesley Murray, associate director of translation