Faculty

The Science of Mentorship

In this series from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, you’ll hear personal stories about mentorship experiences from STEMM leaders, in their own words, to help you learn how evidence-based mentorship practices can help you develop the skills to engage in the most effective mentoring relationships possible.

The gender gap in science: How long until women are equally represented?

Women comprise a minority of the Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine (STEMM) workforce. Quantifying the gender gap may identify fields that will not reach parity without intervention, reveal underappreciated biases, and inform benchmarks for gender balance among conference speakers, editors, and hiring committees. Using the PubMed and arXiv databases, we estimated the gender of 36 million authors from >100 countries publishing in >6000 journals, covering most STEMM disciplines over the last 15 years, and made a web app allowing easy access to the data (https://lukeholman.github.io/genderGap/). Despite recent progress, the gender gap appears likely to persist for generations, particularly in surgery, computer science, physics, and maths. The gap is especially large in authorship positions associated with seniority, and prestigious journals have fewer women authors. Additionally, we estimate that men are invited by journals to submit papers at approximately double the rate of women. Wealthy countries, notably Japan, Germany, and Switzerland, had fewer women authors than poorer ones. We conclude that the STEMM gender gap will not close without further reforms in education, mentoring, and academic publishing.

Diversity in Graduate Mathematical Sciences

Theodore Hodapp, Director of the NSF INCLUDES: IGEN Project presents the hard facts which show the disparities of equity in graduate programs across STEM disciplines. Hodapp hares how IGEN and its disciplinary society parters and bridge program institutions are tackling this issue and making a difference in increasing equity in graduate STEM education through a bridge program model offered at partner institutions.

 

Better Letters: Equitable Practices

When graduate admissions committees meet to review applicant files, letters of recommendation are one component of the holistic review process that provides information about the applicant’s previous work, personality, and potential for success as a doctoral student. In order to ensure that letters of recommendation are effective tools for enhancing equity, we must critically assess how we write, read, and solicit letters of recommendation.

Subscribe to Faculty