women scientists

Another letter from my inbox: Dear Sciencewoman, I am a mom of 3 just starting my own lab. I have been thinking hard about how to recruit good postdoc talent despite the fact that I have no track record as an independent investigator. And then I remembered an article about an organization to help mentors and mentees who would like to return to science after a break (for taking care of children, family, whatever) to find each other. I was psyched about using such an organization because juggling three kids during my training taught me pretty quickly that productivity is often more about…
It's Women's History Month, and the Diversity in Science Carnival has asked us to profile women scientists. I spend a lot of time thing about the things that affect the lives of today's young women scientists, but I also know that we are preceded by some incredibly strong and brave women who faced much tougher working conditions than we. And some of those trail-blazing women in science were young not that long ago. So I'm taking this post to talk with one of those amazing women and see what has changed and what hasn't. Over the course of two hours, I had a wonderful conversation with this…
The Smithsonian Institution has made available on Flickr an amazing set of photographs of early women scientists and engineers.The pictures include women who worked at the Smithsonian and images from the Science Service Archives now housed at the Smithsonian. Some of these women scientists are well-known, even Nobel laureates, while others worked in obscurity. Some used their scientific training and passion to do research, some to save lives as doctors and nurses, some to write about science, some to break the sound barrier, and some to advance the cause of women. To me, all of them were…
A semi-coherent point-by-point reply to the nearly incoherent, yet overwhelmingly disturbing, musings of Greg Laden on the subject of women scientists in the field. SIWOTI alert. If you don't understand why many of us get so riled up by Greg Laden here's a snippet that should help explain things: "That is, indeed, what every scholar needs: A wife (or two) who knows how to type, edit, wield a caliper, and still have time to do the grocery shopping, have lunch ready at noon, and give birth to and raise the kids." The point-by-point takedown of the rest of Laden's post is below the fold. The…
Hear ye, hear ye. The first-ever and best-ever edition of the Diversity in Science Carnival has been posted.Read all about it at DNLee's Urban Science Adventures! There's some really fabulous stuff there and I can't wait to read those that I missed when they were first posted. While you're being inspired by all of the great DiS posts, channel some of that inspiration towards this month's Scientiae call for posts. Liberal Arts Lady has asked us: "Who inspires you or motivates you? Who would you call your role models, at any stage of your career?" Posts should be submitted to scientiaecarnival…
tags: Elizabeth Blackburn, Joan Steitz, Albany Medical Center Prize I learned this afternoon that America's highest prize in medicine, the Albany Medical Prize in Medicine and Biomedical Research, was awarded to two women for the first time in its history. The recipients, Elizabeth Blackburn of the University of California, San Francisco, and Joan Steitz of Yale University will share the $500,000 prize, which is second only to the $1.4 million Nobel Prize. The two medical scientists, who work independently of each other, study proteins associated with DNA and RNA, and their work will likely…
tags: gender issues, gender disparity, blogosphere, science blogs, life science blogs PZ asked his students these questions on an exam that he was recently writing; 14. Hey! Have you noticed the lack of women scientists so far? Briefly speculate about why they're missing. 15 (2 pts extra credit). Name a female scientist of any era. So .. in addition to those questions, I pose these questions for you regarding female scientists; Can you name any? Who? Who is the first woman scientist who comes to mind? Do you have a "favorite" woman scientist? My answers to these additional questions are…