>>>>Keren Witkin, Ph.D., Editor
>Office of Research on Women's Health
>Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health
>United States Department of Health and Human Services
>>Volume 5, Issue 4
>>NIH Updates on Women in Science is brought to you by the
><http://womeninscience.nih.gov/>NIH Working Group on Women in
>Biomedical Careers. We encourage you to share this e-newsletter with
>colleagues.
>>>>Contents of this Issue
>><>Faculty Diversity in Medical Schools Compared to other Academic Environments
><>What Role Does Demographic Inertia Play in Current Gender
>Differences among Scientists?
><>An Educational Intervention to Promote Institutional Change
><>New Program Increases Flexibility for NIH Intramural Postdoctoral Fellows
><>Remembering Dr. Sally Ride, Ph.D.
><>Women Scientists in Action- Dr. Clarisa Garcia, M.D., M.S.C.E.
>>Faculty Diversity in Medical Schools Compared to other Academic Environments
>A recent article made available ahead of publication in the journal
>DNA and Cell Biology examined the number of tenured and tenure-track
>female and Black faculty members in basic science departments of
>research-intensive institutions. The authors found that women made
>up 32.1% of assistant professors in biomedical science departments,
>compared with 38.4% in biology departments, 27.2% in chemistry
>departments, and 25% in physics departments. Women were
>significantly less likely to be assistant professors in basic
>science departments of medical schools compared to other academic
>environments. A similar trend was observed for Black investigators:
>Fewer Blacks held associate and assistant professor positions in
>medical schools compared to other research institutions, although
>this difference was not statistically significant. Interestingly,
>Black scientists in three of the four disciplines studied were more
>likely to be tenured rather than tenure-track. The discrepancy was
>particularly striking for chemistry departments. The authors
>surmised that this might reflect the preference for elite
>institutions to hire Black scientists who had already proven
>themselves elsewhere. Black women, vulnerable to both race and
>gender bias, made up less than 25% of the Black faculty members in
>the life sciences departments studied, despite earning more than 50%
>of the doctoral degrees received by Black scientists in biological
>fields. The authors advocate for institutional changes focused on
>issues of workplace climate and inclusion, as well as changes in NIH
>grants policies that support diversity in the biomedical workforce.
><http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/abs/10.1089/dna.2012.1756>Limitations
>on Diversity in Basic Science Departments
>>What Role Does Demographic Inertia Play in Current Gender
>Differences among Scientists?
>Despite an abundance of support for increased diversity in the
>scientific and biomedical workforce, women and minorities remain
>underrepresented in scientific disciplines. A recent article in
>Proceedings of the Royal Society Biological Sciences examined the
>role of demographic inertia for women in academic careers in the
>natural and social sciences. "Demographic inertia" refers to the
>time-lag between changing attitudes and improved recruitment
>practices leading to a visible difference in workforce statistics.
>To perform this analysis, the authors used public data from the
>National Science Foundation on scientists working in the United
>States from 1979 to 2006. They constructed a model of the academic
>career pipeline from college graduation through tenured
>professorship, in order to investigate the relative contribution of
>demographic inertia. While their model supports a role for
>demographic inertia in hampering participation of women in later
>stages of the pipeline, they found that it cannot explain all
>apparent gender differences. Other factors, such as cultural issues
>and unequal recruitment practices, also affect the likelihood of
>women pursuing academic careers. The study identified key transition
>points, such as the decision to pursue certain scientific fields at
>the undergraduate level and the choice to continue in academia after
>receiving a graduate degree. The authors suggest that societal and
>cultural factors weigh heavily into career decisions, and thus
>affect the number of women pursuing academic science careers at all
>stages throughout the pipeline.
><http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/279/1743/3736.full.pdf+html>Leaks
>in the Pipeline: Separating Demographic Inertia from Ongoing Gender
>Differences in Academia
>>An Educational Intervention to Promote Institutional Change
>Increasing the number of women in academic science departments can
>require institutional transformation to make environments more
>welcoming to female recruits, and to confront the faculty behaviors
>that reinforce a male-dominated structure. Dr. Molly Carnes and
>colleagues from the University of Wisconsin-Madison considered
>gender bias as a modifiable behavior that could be altered through
>education. They developed a bias literacy workshop, which they
>implemented for 167 faculty members and 53 administrative staff
>members from 17 departments at the University of Wisconsin- Madison.
>The workshop content was evidence-based, interdisciplinary, and
>hands-on, and each workshop ended with participants individually
>formulating a written "commitment to change." Feedback was
>overwhelmingly positive, with 74% of the participants evaluating the
>program as "very useful," and the other 26% calling it "somewhat
>useful." Interviews of 26 participants several months after the
>workshop revealed that 75% of those interviewed had either changed
>or planned to change their behaviors based on workshop content. The
>authors were thrilled with the preliminary results of their
>intervention, saying, "Taken together, our success in developing and
>launching this workshop and the response of [science technology
>engineering, mathematics, and medicine] faculty leave us optimistic
>that such an educational intervention may be effective in promoting
>institutional change towards gender equity." They plan to further
>evaluate the intervention by examining recruitment and retention
>data over a two-year period following the workshop.
><http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3399596/?tool=pubmed>Promoting
>Institutional Change through Bias Literacy
>>New Program Increases Flexibility for NIH Intramural Postdoctoral Fellows
>The Committee on the NIH Intramural Research Program of the NIH
>Working Group on Women in Biomedical Careers has launched a new
>pilot program to increase flexibility for NIH intramural fellows who
>need alternative career development schedules. The "Keep the
>Thread" program is an accommodation and reentry program open to all
>NIH Intramural Research Training Award (IRTA) postdoctoral fellows,
>with the approval of their principle investigators (PIs) and
>scientific directors. Emphasizing flexibility, the program offers an
>array of options ranging from alternative work schedules to
>temporary part time work options. The goal of the Keep the Thread
>program is to encourage trainees to stay connected to the NIH
>community during times of intense personal and/or care-giving needs,
>in order to facilitate eventual reentry into full-time research. The
>program aims to recognize common roadblocks to balancing work and
>personal life, in order to proactively address these issues. For
>instance, one key feature of the Keep the Thread program is that it
>allows fellows working at least 40-percent of full-time to maintain
>full health insurance coverage, as long as they assume
>responsibility for a portion of the costs. Another key feature is
>the focus on eventual reentry into full-time research. The program
>encourages fellows and their PIs to work together to design a
>reentry plan that meets the needs of both the fellow and the
>laboratory. According to Dr. Michael Gottesman, NIH Deputy Director
>for Intramural Research and Co-Chair of the Committee on the NIH
>Intramural Research Program of the NIH Working Group on Women in
>Biomedical Careers, "Some of our fellows have pointed out the
>difficulty of juggling their family and personal needs with a full
>schedule in our laboratories and clinics. The Keep the Thread
>program is a menu of options that allows them to work with their
>supervisors to develop a personalized plan to continue their career
>development at work, while attending to important responsibilities
>at home."
><http://sourcebook.od.nih.gov/prof-desig/Keep_the_Thread_2012.docx>Keep
>the Thread Program, NIH Sourcebook
>>Remembering Dr. Sally Ride, Ph.D.
>Trailblazing astronaut and role model Dr. Sally Ride passed away
>recently from pancreatic cancer. Sally Kristen Ride was born in 1951
>in Encino, California. She excelled in school easily, and was an
>avid athlete and tennis player. She attended Swarthmore College for
>three semesters, before returning to California. She considered
>becoming a professional tennis player, but decided to continue her
>studies at Stanford University. She remained at Stanford to receive
>a bachelor's degree in physics and English, a master's degree in
>physics, and a doctorate in astrophysics. After graduation, she
>responded to a newspaper ad calling for astronauts, and was selected
>out of pool of over 1000 applicants to join the space program. In
>1983, Dr. Ride took her first trip on the shuttle Challenger,
>becoming the first American woman and the youngest American to fly
>in space. She returned to space in 1984 in a second mission on
>Challenger. Dr. Ride retired from the space program in 1987, but
>continued to serve the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
>(NASA). She served on panels investigating the 1986 Challenger
>disaster and the 2003 Columbia crash, and worked on strategic
>planning for NASA. After leaving the space program, Dr. Ride
>returned to Stanford as a fellow in the Center for International
>Security and Arms Control. In 1989, she moved to the University of
>California San Diego as a physics professor and director of the
>California Space Institute. Passionate about science education, and
>eager to recruit more girls into scientific fields, she wrote
>science books for children and directed middle school science
>outreach programs. She started a company, called Sally Ride Science,
>to design educational programs and inspire girls to study science,
>math, and technology. Dr. Ride has received numerous awards for her
>work as a scientists, astronaut, and educator. In a statement after
>her death, President Obama called her "a national hero and powerful
>role model."
><http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/science/space/sally-ride-trailblazing-astronaut-dies-at-61.html?_r=2>American
>Woman Who Shattered Space Ceiling
>>Women Scientists in Action - Clarisa Gracia, M.D., M.S.C.E.
>Dr. Clarisa Gracia enjoys many aspects of her job: the teaching, the
>mentoring, the research, and especially the clinical work.
>Dr. Gracia grew up outside of Buffalo, New York, and attended
>Amherst College, where she received a Bachelor's degree in Spanish.
>Immediately after graduation, she enrolled at the State University
>of New York at Buffalo School of Medicine, where she received her
>medical degree. According to Dr. Gracia, she found herself drawn to
>obstetrics and gynecology for a variety of reasons: The ability to
>combine surgery and medicine, the opportunity to assist with
>pregnancy and delivery, and to take care of the many health needs of
>women. She matched for residency in obstetrics and gynecology at
>the University of Pennsylvania, and has been there ever since.
>Following her residency, she pursued a fellowship in reproductive
>endocrinology and infertility. To gain further research training,
>she completed a master of science degree in clinical epidemiology
>and biostatistics at Penn. Dr. Gracia has been on the faculty at
>the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, University of
>Pennsylvania School of Medicine since 1997, where she is now an
>associate professor. She is also the director of the Fertility
>Preservation Program at Penn Fertility Care.
>Dr. Gracia balances clinical work with research in reproductive
>aging, the menopausal transition, and oncofertility. She is
>particularly interested in fertility preservation for cancer
>patients and maximizing fertility potential for cancer survivors. In
>addition to studying the effect of cancer treatments on future
>fertility, her research team optimizes experimental protocols for
>oocyte and ovarian tissue cryopreservation that can allow pediatric
>and young adult cancer patients to maintain options for future
>fertility as they approach cancer treatment.
>Dr. Gracia has authored over sixty peer-reviewed publications, and
>has received numerous awards and honors and several grants from the
>National Institutes of Health (NIH). Early in her career, she
>received a Women's Reproductive Health Research (WRHR) K-12 mentored
>career development award, funded by the NIH Eunice Kennedy Shriver
>National institute of Child Health and Human Development and the
>Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH). She credits this
>program with giving her protected time for research, which
>kick-started her career in clinical research.
>Recently, Dr. Gracia presented "Emerging Technologies in
>Oncofertility" as part of the ORWH Women's Health Seminar on
>Innovations in Reproductive Technologies.
>According to Dr. Gracia, the strong mentorship she received along
>her professional journey has been critical to her success. She says,
>"My mentors have shown me that research can be exciting and
>rewarding. They have also allowed me to see that it is possible to
>combine clinical practice and clinical research, and they have been
>a huge part of my success in publishing and getting funding." Dr.
>Gracia has two daughters, ages 7 and 9. She credits her supportive
>husband and a strong network of friends with helping her balance a
>demanding career with family life.
>************
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>Witkin, Ph.D., Office of Research on Women's Health, Office of the
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>(<mailto:womeninscience at nih.gov>womeninscience at nih.gov). The views
>expressed in this e-newsletter do not necessarily reflect those of
>the U.S. Government.
>
--
NEW ADDRESS AS OF JUNE 27 2012:
Deborah L. Galson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine
University of Pittsburgh Cancer Institute
Department of Medicine
Division of Hematology-Oncology
Mailing address:
Hillman Cancer Center
Research Pavilion, Room 1.19b
5117 Centre Avenue
Pittsburgh PA 15213
Office phone: 412-623-1112
Fax: 412-623-1415
Cell: 724-612-1830
Email: galson at pitt.edu; dlgalson at gmail.com
Lab: Research Pavilion, Room 1.20
Administrative Assistant: Dianna Pappert-Fennell
Phone: 412-623-1114
Email: pappertfenneld at upmc.edu
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