The Baddest Girls in School, Eureka Style

One of my guilty pleasure TV shows is Eureka on SciFi. The premise is that there is a secret town in the Pacific Northwest where pretty much everyone is a genius and works as a scientist for Global Dynamics. The sheriff is a "normal" non-genius who arrived in town with his teen-aged daughter by accident. It's played for humor, and several of the main characters - the sheriff's deputy, the head of Global Dynamics, and the scheming town psychiatrist - are played by attractive, intelligent women. Disappointingly, almost all of the actual scientists are played by men. Even if that's true in "real life," there's no reason that a humorous fantasy-sci fi TV show can't make their head particle physicist a woman.

Anyway, there was an episode a couple of weeks ago that did change it up a bit. One of the plots featured the Tesla High School science fair, where the students create Nobel-prize caliber projects. Zoe, the sheriff's daughter, comes into conflict with the school's "Heathers." In Eureka the trend-setting bullying popular clique are three girls whose inventions win MacArthur "genius" awards. It's a high school where smart = cool.

Watch video clip starting at 6:40 time remaining.

The feud spills over into the science fair with experimental sabotage. Ultimately Zoe and head "Heather" Megan have to work together to save the town. Yes, it's corny, but I found it refreshing to see high school girls who are brilliant at science and engineering depicted as the rule, rather than the exception.

Other clips with Zoe and Megan:

• Clip 4 starting at 2:07
• Clip 5 from the beginning of the clip
• Clip 6 starting at 10:06
  

Tags: Eureka, science for girls, women in science

On vacation!

I'm on vacation through Saturday. Then I'll be back posting!

Women in Science News Roundup: Asia Edition 08-22-07

Here's the recent news (in English) about women in science and engineering in Asia. I rarely have come across articles about women scientists in East Asia, so it was interesting to find a couple from China and Korea.

The Times of India reports on a recent Bombay high court ruling that allows women's colleges are allowed to recruit only female staff.

Vice-principal of Nirmala Niketan College Farida Lambay said there are two sides to the argument. "Positive discrimination in favour of women helps them get jobs and empowers them,"" said Lambay. "But in a modern society, we have to debate if this kind of segregation is good.” WES runs two colleges in Nagpur, Lady Amritabai Daga College of Arts, Commerce and Science for Women and Smt Ratnidevi Purohit College of Home Science and Home Science Technology with 4,500 students. Initially the college would appoint male teachers, but over the last decade, it has not recruited a single male teacher.

According to authorities, the university nominees of the selection committee always preferred a male candidate saying they were better suited to the posts.

The attorney arguing against the all-women policy indicated that "state's rules provide for only 30% reservation in educational institutions." I am not familiar with Indian law (a massive understatement), but it sounds like normally 30% of jobs at "educational institutions" are set aside for women. I wonder if that is true at all levels of employment, or if women make up the
bulk of the clerical and support staff.

China Daily reports on a recent international seminar on women in science held in Beijing. Unfortunately, it's pretty brief. Here are the highlights:

• "one third of Chinese scientists are women"
• "the proportion of women technicians and engineers are significantly low in the engineering field," said Shi Liying, deputy secretary-general of the CAE [Chinese Academy of Engineering].
• the China Association for Women Scientists was officially established during the meeting.
  

There was no breakdown of the statistics by discipline or by position.

The Korea Times reports that Ewha Womans University is going to offer "women-friendly" science programs.

Ewha is now in the process of developing an eight-year doctorate course in science and engineering. "Most women are compelled to stop their studies due to the constraints of marriage and childcare,'' Lee said.

The course, which is shorter than the general 10-year doctorate course, will encourage female scientists and engineers to become more highly educated.

It's not clear whether the new course compresses the usual course and laboratory work into a shorter time, or whether the women's course will be different from what men take. I think the latter would be a mistake, since women might then be seen as having taken an easier, less rigorous path. It's also not clear whether women who would otherwise have been "compelled to stop their studies" because of family obligations would be able to pursue careers in their chosen fields instead. If you know more about the Korean education system, please leave a comment!

Finally, the Malaysia Star Online reports on the "Expanding Your Horizons" Conference at Universiti Sains Malaysia in Penang, which brought 250 girls from mainly rural areas to learn about science.

A group of secondary school students was thrilled as they learned about molecular genetics and what DNA was for the first time from a facilitator in a laboratory.

Another group paid rapt attention as a facilitator showed how to explore mathematics concepts and use mathematics to solve problems. A third group listened to another facilitator on how wastewater was treated and what students could do to keep water clean.

In the photos that accompany the article, the girls appear to be pretty serious. It's too bad none of them were interviewed about their experience.

The Expanding Your Horizons network also sponsors conferences to expose girls to math and science across the United States.

Tags: women in science, India, China, Korea, Malasia

Women in Science News Roundup: North America 08-20-07

Here is some of the news about women in science from around the US and Canada from the past week or so:

Profiles of Young Women in Science

At A Blog Around The Clock, Coturnix has a video of a talk by 17-year-old molecular biology prodigy Eva Vertes. From her TED profile:

Her discovery, at age 17, of a compound that stops fruit-fly brain cells from dying was regarded as a step toward curing Alzheimer's. Now she aims to find better ways to treat -- and avoid -- cancer.

Wow, when I was 17, I was still learning the basics .

The Intel ISEF blog has video of New Mexico contestant Kristina Dahm explaining her project about hot springs.

Closing the Gender Gap

Zuska writes about the disparity in bathroom facilities for men and women in old science buildings. It makes me feel like I need to pee just reading about it.

The Wall Street Journal asks "With Labor Crunch in IT on the Horizon, Why are Careers Failing to Lure Women?" Unfortunately it's behind a subscription/pay wall, so I don't know the answer they came up with.

Pat at Fairer Science points to the American Physical Society's Committee on the Status of Women in Physics (CSWP)'s project: Female Friendly Physics Graduate Programs survey. Department chairs were asked to answer the following questions:

1. How many tenure-track or tenured faculty -- male/female?
2. How many graduate students ? -- male/female?
3. Is there a family leave policy for graduate students? If so, describe.
4. Is there family health insurance available for graduate students? Is it included in the stipend?
5. In a paragraph, please describe why someone applying to graduate school who is interested in a female-friendly department should choose your institution.

Check out your department or the University you are interested in attending.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Harvard University has made little progress in increasing the proportion of women and minorities in tenure-track faculty positions.

Including the affiliates, women make up less than 25 percent of tenured professors in 10 of 13 faculty groups, according to the report, issued last month. Minorities hold fewer than 15 percent of tenured spots on 11 of 13 faculties.

You can read the full end of 2007 report yourself (pdf).

The Edmonton Journal reports that women are underrepresented in engineering and computer science at the University of Alberta. They have developed a summer program for high school students - WISEST - to "encourage women to enter non-traditional science fields."

"They have the interest, but often they don't see other women in science and engineering because it's seen as a non-traditional career for women," Powley said.

But there is hope for a change, Ennis said.

WISEST had the highest number of applications in its history, with more than 180 Grade 11 students applying from across Canada this year. The program also accepted more out-of-province students than ever, making up about half of the 60 students taking part in the initiative.

At a Spoonful of Medicine Apoorva Mandavilli reports on a new program at University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center to recruit and retain female faculty members.

I must say it all sounds promising. I particularly like Travis' comments that all past efforts focused on helping women navigate the system. Rather than "fixing the women," she says, "we need to focus on fixing the academic environment instead."

Geoscience Academics in the Northeast (GAIN) is a program co-founded by geoscientist Suzanne O'Connell, inspired, in part by a meeting she attended last year at which she was the only woman.

From July 29 to Aug. 3, 18 women from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New York, New Jersey and even Illinois, gathered for the first GAIN writing retreat near Boston, which offered camaraderie and a focused environment for writing. The women were offered professional writing guidance from Anne Greene, director of writing programs at Wesleyan. They also shared feedback and left with a paper or grant proposal ready for submission.

“Our goal is to help women from all academic levels take part in a community that stresses professional development in the geosciences,” O’Connell explains. “Through GAIN, we hope to increase the retention of women in geosciences programs here in New England, and eventually spread throughout the country.”

The Pasadena Star News editorializes about the record number of women set to enroll at Caltech.

While the new numbers show clear and welcome progress for women in the sciences, why has it been so hard to achieve parity? Because, perhaps, women's brains are wired differently and the delicate flowers can't quite figure out this particular algorithm?

Nonsense. That's the kind of muddy, unscientific thinking that quite properly got a Harvard president forced out from his post.

No, at a place like Caltech, part of the problem has been that "the ratio," as students have for years referred to the situation, actually feeds on itself.

A young woman with the grades, test scores and savvy to get into Caltech can also choose to attend Harvey Mudd in Claremont, MIT or any one of the handful of colleges with similar excellence in engineering and science.

When she pays a campus visit and sees that women have been so much in the minority that they can be a kind of oddity, some have simply chosen to go where it's more comfortable.

The MidWeek News reported that Northern Illinois University geography professor Leslie Rigg recently spoke about the factors that turn women away from science, including lack of childcare, lack of female role models and stereotypes about scientists.

Rigg said several female college students do not view themselves as becoming scientists. She said, during one of her classes, she asked the students to describe what they feel a scientist should look like. She said most of the students described a scientist as an older, white male. Rigg said 35 out of the 50 students in the class were women.

“Half of them are science majors, yet they still don't see themselves as scientists,” Rigg said. “When they hear scientist, they picture some guy with bubbly test tubes.”

Microsoft runs an annual DigiGirlz camp, a week-long technology camp for girls.

The Maui News writes about the Hawaiian Telecom Women in Technology internship mentor Sheri-Ann Tihada and her mentee (if that's a word) Audrey Chihara.

At Providence College in Rhode Island, Chihara said she did not encounter the kind of stereotyping Tihada experienced. Then she said she completed a physics class that turned into an eye-opening revelatory experience.

“It’s math in the world,” Chihara said. “It just really explains a lot for me. How a ball bounces. Why it bounces high.”

She said people shouldn’t think it’s so uncommon for girls to get into science and technology. In her college, engineering and technology studies are “more popular with guys,” but she also encourages more women to consider careers in science and engineering.

The Orange County Register reports on local girls who attended Tech Camp at the University of California, San Diego.

"(At Tech Camp) we lived in suite that I shared with six other girls and one dorm mom," Gillian said. "I chose physiology as my core subject. We studied organ systems and we learned our blood type. Mine is O positive. We did a lot of dissections, a sheep's heart and brain and a small shark, but we didn't have to study all the time. We had tons of fun."
[. . .]
Gillian said that professional women were invited to talk to the girls in the evenings. "Every woman said she loves her job and she wouldn't change it," she said. "A female family doctor was one of the speakers who visited us. In all the different science things I've done, that interested me. I might want to be a family doctor.

The Earth Times has an article about the 10-week summer program at Williams College to introduce undergraduate students to hands-on research.

The program adds another dimension as well; an opportunity to work with female instructors within an academic arena once dominated by male professors. As a University of Washington graduate student, Hutson didn't encounter women role models to emulate within the sciences.

"There were no female faculty members in my department," she said. "It really was an old boys network at that time."

The Williams biology department currently hosts a faculty that is about 50 percent women, said Hutson. Mutual respect among instructors and students is an important factor during the academic cultivation of future scientists, she said. Hands-on research coupled with dedicated instructor mentoring may be just the formula for an invigorated interest in scientific pursuits.

Tags: Eva Vertes, Kristina Dahm, women in science, women in IT, gender gap, science camp

Priscilla Reining, ~1923-2007

The Washington Post writes about the life and research of anthropologist Priscilla Reining who died on July 19 at the age of 84.

She was a distinguished scientist who held three degrees in anthropology from the University of Chicago, but she was also, according to those who knew her, a courageous and groundbreaking example to other women.

In 1953, she moved to Tanzania with her infant son, the first of her three children, and lived near a Haya village for two years. At the same time, her husband, Conrad C. Reining, was conducting research in Sudan.

They fled a Sudanese uprising in 1955.

"We were lucky to escape," Robert Reining said. "My father knew a back road out of Sudan into Congo. He led a whole convoy of people, and they escaped."

In the 1970s, Reining spearheaded an African satellite mapping project.

Robert Reining took a year off from college in the mid-1970s to help his mother on an early satellite mapping project. Whole regions of Africa suddenly came into view. Scientists could measure the advance of the Sahara Desert, and governments and lending agencies could plan drought and famine relief.

"These were the first images available to anyone outside the intelligence community," said her son. "For the first time, we could count the villages. You had what was effectively the first reliable population estimate of this area."

Reining is best known for her analysis of patterns of HIV infection in different African populations which found that uncircumcised African men were 86% more likely to get infected with the AIDS virus. Not surprisingly, her results were met with skepticism, but subsequent studies have confirmed the correlation.

But finally, at an international AIDS conference in Sydney last week, Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, declared, "We've had one important breakthrough this year, with understanding the role of circumcision in prevention."

Tags: Priscilla Reining, anthropology, AIDS

Successful Women in IT: Balancing Work and Family

Computer World has an interesting article that profiles four women who have had success in information technology (IT). The representation of women in the IT industry has actually been declining over the past 20 years. The article points to the geeky stereotypes, the long hours and the often sexist atmosphere. So what "made IT work" for the profiled women?

While working at a big consulting firm, and later at a software company, Monique McKeon - a married mother of two - found little support for her desire for a balance between work and home. She found what she was looking for at The Chubb Corp, where she is an application manager. Her advice:

You can balance an IT career with your home life, but it means making choices that are true to your priorities and understanding the trade-offs. “Having it all” is a fantasy.

Katy Dickinson has worked at Sun Microsystems since 1984, and is now Director of business process architecture, CTO organization and Sun Labs. She is currently married with two teenagers, but spent several years there as a single mother.

It’s not unusual to be the only woman at a meeting, she says, and because of that, there’s often a tendency to remain silent unless you think you have something really remarkable to say. “As one member of a small group, you feel you have no right to be mediocre,” Dickinson says. “You’re not just representing yourself; you’re representing [females] with a capital F.”

But Sun’s culture is friendly to women, particularly in its flexibility about working from home, she says. And sometimes she is so well accepted that male co-workers seem to forget her gender. “I’ve been in meetings with executives, who, when I say I have to pick up the kids, have almost responded, ‘Can’t you have your wife do it?’” she recalls. The flip side of that acceptance is peer pressure not to take advantage of the workplace flexibility that’s available. And that doesn’t always come from men, she says. “I’ve seen women try to out-boy the boys and be much less supportive” of the need to balance work and family, she says.

Her advice is to find a mentor who understands how to achieve life-work balance, and to network with other women IT professionals. (For more about Dickinson's work and family, check out her blog.)

Donna Lamberth, IS manager at L.L. Bean Information Services, was fortunate to have a boss who felt that “The work is 24/7, but the expectation can’t be that you’re working 24/7.” That gave her the flexibility to spend time with her kids in, for example, the afternoon, knowing that she could go back to work in the evening.

At L.L.Bean, Lamberth says, women are definitely not in the minority. Her boss is a woman, and of the eight-member leadership team in her division, only two are men. “I sit in an awful lot of meetings that are exclusively women,” she says. “Within our own department, the glass ceiling appears to be broken. It’s easy enough to find female friends and mentors. Of places that I have worked, I would say that L.L.Bean appears to me to be the most neutral in terms of gender being a factor in a person’s ability to get work done or advance in the organization.

Lamberth's advice is to find women in senior IT positions to be role models or mentors.

Finally, Robin Beck is CIO at the University of Pennsylvania. There she found a culture that was more supportive of work-family balance than her previous position at General Electric. Now she is excited to mentor younger women in IT. Her advice:

Be very clear with your employer on your priorities and the schedule that works best for you. The same goes for your family. Ask them for help in making changes that will work better for you. For many women, it takes courage, personally and professionally, to tell people you need help.

Now, if I were in IT, I wouldn't find this article particularly heartening. The advice seems to be to move from job to job until you find one that suits your lifestyle, and find a helpful more senior woman to be your mentor, a task that is easier said than done.

The issue of balancing work and family is a difficult one for women. Women are usually expected to be the primary caregivers, even if they work full time. I suspect that many women would require less flexibility in the workplace if their spouses or partners took care of their share of the parenting and housekeeping duties. (Note that that isn't to say there aren't men who take on those duties, but the reality is that the average woman still does more of the housework than the average man.)

For more discussion, check out the comment thread at Feministing, where a number of women (and men) talk about their own experiences in IT.

Related articles in the same issue of Computer World:

• Seven Rules for Women in IT (which sounds like good advice for men too)
• A Nuanced View of Women in IT (results of a survey of almost 2000 female IT professionals)

Tags: information technology, computer science, women in IT

Women in Science News Roundup: Middle East Edition

I was hoping to have a couple more items before posting, but this is what I've got:

In Saudi Arabia women are constrained from entering many occupations because of strict segregation of the sexes. This affects their eduction as well: The women's program at King Saud University, for example, does not offer engineering courses to women "on the premise that a profession in engineering would be impossible to pursue in the context of sex-segregation practices." In information technology at least, the opportunities for women may be opening up, as the Saudi Arabian government and private companies set up women-only work centers. What surprises me is that more Saudi women are more likely than men to have advanced degrees, as reported in this Arab News article.

Nearly 250,000 Saudi women currently work at government departments and 45,000 others at private firms. The number of Saudi women is expected to exceed that of their Saudi male counterparts by 2010 when the Saudi population is estimated to cross 26 million, according to a report by the Riyadh Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Furthermore, Saudi women are more likely to have advanced degrees than the men.

Segregated workplaces and telecommuting allow these women to join the workforce.

Telecommuting seems fit for Saudi society, which is grappling with the moral implications of allowing men and women to work together. Saudi Arabia is a conservative society, and contrary to popular notions in the West that men enforce these gender-segregation laws on women, a lot of Saudi women say they prefer to have places reserved for them so long as they be granted equal access to jobs and services.

It's not surprising to me that Saudi women's primary concern is to have equal access to jobs and services. While telecommuting seems to work for IT, I'm not sure how that could translate into jobs in science and engineering that cannot be performed at home or that require equipment that would be too expensive to have in duplicate laboratories for men and women.

In contrast is the article in the Times Online about Sheikha Lubna Al Wasimi, computer scientist and finance minister of the United Arab Emirates. She was born into a UAE royal family, traveled to Britain for secondary school, and ended earning a degree in computer science and systems engineering at one of the California State University campuses.

“I always loved science and technology, so I decided to become a geek,” she said. On graduation, she turned down job offers in America and headed home. Her family expected her to work for the government, but she joined an Indian-owned software-development firm, Datamation. “I was the only Arab and the only woman and they said I would never cut it . . . story of my life.”
[. . . ]
Most of the men dismissed her, but she quickly established her credentials by coming up with a computerised manifest system that reduced the time it took to handle cargo containers from one hour to 10 minutes.

The innovation earned her the UAE’s Distinguished Employee Award in 2000 – the first woman to bag the honour – and prompted Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, then chairman of Dubai Ports and Customs, to give her a £2.5m grant to set up a new company, Tejari.com, to develop government and business-to-business e-commerce. The firm is now the biggest e-commerce outfit in the Middle East.

With that experience she was eventually offered the Finance Minister position. What irritates me is that Lubna, who never married, is vehemently not a feminist, because that isn't "feminine."

At a youthful-looking 49, surely there’s still time, especially as she now has her own perfume line? Lubna giggles.

“Quite right. You know it’s a very feminine fragrance and I’m not a feminist. I like being a lady. I don’t like this business of women marching. A woman should be beautiful, eloquent, smart and hard-working but, above all, feminine.”

I think it's a shame she considers fighting for her countrywomen to have similar opportunities that she had because of her family background to be "unfeminine."

Tags: Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, computer science, women, Sheikha Lubna

The Romance of Space and the Space Shuttle Endeavor

Maybe I read too much science fiction in my formative years, but there's something about the idea of leaving Earth - even just to orbit - that I find very exciting. Watching the space shuttle take off makes my heart start beating a little bit faster.

The current shuttle mission, STS-118 on the Endeavor, is extra special because one of the mission specialists is elementary school teacher Barbara Morgan. In 1986 Morgan was the backup to Christa McAuliffe in the "Teachers in Space Program." In January 1986, the Challenger was launch with McAuliffe aboard. Of course, the Challenger and McAuliffe never made it to space. Now, almost 22 years later, Morgan has finally become the first teacher in space.

What I didn't realize was that Morgan is much more than just a teacher in space. She joined the astronaut program full time in 1998 and trained as a mission specialist. From her NASA biography:

Following the completion of two years of training and evaluation, she was assigned technical duties in the Astronaut Office Space Station Operations Branch. She then served in the Astronaut Office CAPCOM Branch, working in Mission Control as prime communicator with on-orbit crews. More recently, she served in the Robotics Branch of the Astronaut Office.

Despite her decade at NASA, she still considers herself a teacher. As she points out:

You know that question always kind of makes me laugh! People don’t ask the physician astronauts or the engineer astronauts or the chemists: “Are you still a chemist? Are you still a physician" or “Are you still an engineer?” Yes, I’m still a teacher and look forward to eventually going back in the classroom. I do know teaching is tough and challenging. And there’s a skill to it, just like everything else. You have to keep up with that. I’m going to need to sharpen my skills again, take some classes, and go observe a lot of my colleagues and work hard to get back into it to be able to do as good a job as I can.

I know this is going to sound corny, but Morgan's story makes me choke up a bit*. I don't know how she feels about it, but "finally going into space after 22 years" would be the high point of my life. Oh, well, maybe I'll be a space tourist someday . . .

Morgan won't be the only woman on board. Mission specialist and chemist Tracy Caldwell will also be on board the Endeavor. In a pre-flight interview, she explained what drew her to study science:

I had to learn how to be a scientist. But I had an interest in understanding how things worked. And when someone explained it to me, and better yet when they showed it to me and I could see things moving around, then the light bulb went on inside. And what I really liked about chemistry in particular was it answered questions like, why the sky was blue. I mean, it really answered it! It wasn’t just some fairy tale, nursery rhyme, it was the real thing. Why water boiled. I was really surprised to find out it didn’t have so much to do with temperature as I thought. Just all of these, all of these everyday things that you come in contact with, science answered. And better, chemistry made complete sense out of math! And I was not only not good at math. I was afraid of it and I told myself I wasn’t good at it because it just didn’t come natural. And I struggled with it probably more than I needed to. When I got into college and I started to get very involved in chemistry and taking classes I never knew existed when I was in high school about chemistry, I started to use math more. And when I learned things in calculus that were so strange, you know, as a concept, like well, who thought of this? And why do we use this? When I got to chemistry and started learning the physics of chemistry I actually started using that math to describe the properties of an atom. And I could picture an atom in my head and I, I knew what atoms did and I could see how the math explained what an atom did. It, it made so much more sense to me. And I really enjoyed that, just learning how things worked.

And that sums up a big part of the fun of science for me: making sense of the way the world works. Sometimes I wonder if initiatives to encourage girls to study engineering and science that emphasize "helping humanity" are just missing that point.

Anyway, now, four days into the Endeavor's mission, they've found the heat shield on the belly of the shuttle was damaged during launch. NASA is reporting that they don't believe repairs are necessary, but, even so, I'll be holding my breath when they land. My best wishes are being sent to Morgan, Caldwell and the rest of the Endeavor crew.

More:

• Space.com video of Barbara Morgan talking about being an Educator Astronaut.
• Barbara Morgan Preflight Interview 1 and Interview 2
  
• CNN video: After 22-year wait, teacher ready for space trip
• STS-118 Education Resources
  

* On some days, the photo montage during the opening credits of Enterprise gets to me in the same way, so maybe I'm just a bit of a sap.

Photo: From the official NASA mission page. The crew members of STS-118 pose for their official portrait. Pictured from the left are mission specialists Richard A. (Rick) Mastracchio, Barbara R. Morgan, Pilot Charles O. Hobaugh, Commander Scott J. Kelly and mission specialists Tracy E. Caldwell, Canadian Space Agency's Dafydd R. (Dave) Williams, and Alvin Drew Jr.

Tags: astronauts, Barbara Morgan, Tracy Caldwell, Endeavor

Women in Science News Roundup: Africa Edition

Here are some recent articles about women in science in Africa. Again, I'm sure there is more out there that isn't in English.

allAfrica.com has a report from the Cameroon Tribune about a University of Yaounde-UNESCO workshop for promoting women in the sciences.

Opening the workshop, the Rector of the University of Yaounde I, Dr Mrs Dorothy Limung Njeuma, said it is the desire of government to enhance the capacities of women in every sphere of professional life. "This follow-up course is another tangible proof that the government is sparing no effort to enable the Cameroonian woman in general and the professional woman in particular to be aptly trained so as to face the various challenges of our nation," she said.

In 1962 Dr. Njeuma won a scholarship to attend Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, where she studied biology. She received her PhD in Zoology from the University College London in 1970. After returning to Cameroon, she taught science until being tapped as the Vice Minister for National-Education. She has served in several educational positions since then.

I'll admit I have mixed feelings about stories like this. The literacy rate for women in Cameroon is only about 60%, so it seems like worrying about encouraging women to pursue science should be secondary to making sure all women can read. As Kamala Sarup wrote in an article for American Chronicle:

Technology and science depend on literate people. We can't provide instructions to build and operate machines and computers and disseminate scientific knowledge without literacy.

On the other hand, I think that women who do want to study science should have that opportunity. It must be a dilemma for developing countries with limited resources: how to promote science without leaving behind those who cannot read.

The Good News (South Africa) reports on the 2007 L'Oreal-UNESCO South AfricaWomen in Science Awards.

• Professor Susan Harrison of the University of Cape Town won the top award as Distinguished Woman Scientist.
  

  Professor Harrison enjoys an outstanding national and international reputation as a leading researcher in Bioprocess Engineering and is involved in regional biotechnology initiatives.

• Dr. Nadine Strydom won the Best Emerging Young Scientist Award.
  

  The adjudicators praised her work on the biology and ecology of the larvae of coastal fishes by saying it has the potential to impact not only the fishing industry but also the environmental debate surrounding marine resources. They said despite working in an area that is not scientifically prominent she shows potential of developing into world class researcher with the ability to mentor and develop students in her area of expertise.

• Fellowships for Women in Science were won by:
• Dr Carol Padoa - Health Science
• Dr Marieka Gryzenhout - Microbiology
• Carren Ginsberg - Statistics
• Izendu Aghaci - Mechanical Engineering
• Dr Mary Kawong - Public Health

allAfrica.com writes about women who make a difference in Nigeria. Among the women is one with a chemistry background, Ibukun Awosika. Today Awosika runs a furniture manufacturing company.

With her background in chemistry and a brief stint in accounting, one would expect her to be calling the shot in banking or other lucrative establishments. But Mrs. Ibukun Awosika developed a passion for hammer and nail, a terrain which is rightly or wrongly believed to restricted men. "I have never thought that this profession is meant for men. I was brought up in my house to believe that you can do anything. My father has mainly girls with two boys. But the girls were never made to believe that there was something we were not supposed to do. Sincerely, that helped me when I started. Another thing is that when I discovered my talents, money didn't stop me from pursuing my goals and aspirations. [. . .]"

Also included in the list is Professor Dora Akunyili, a pharmacist and Director General of National Agency for Food and Drug Administration and Control.

Though she taught in the University [of Nigeria] for 19 years and her academic excellence has always stood her out, but the rate at which she has brought sanity into the drug market by fighting counterfeit drugs. And even when her life was on line, she kept moving on to ensure that fake drugs are completely wiped out of the Nigerian markets, the feat her predecessors failed to achieve.

I imagine that's a lot more personal risk than the average pharmacy professor takes.

Finally, David Ng of the University of British Columbia, and Michelle Brazas of the British Columbia Institute of Technology, and David Peterson of the University of Georgia have just returned from two weeks of teaching molecular biology in Nigeria. Ng is blogging about his experiences at the Worlds Fair:

• Visiting Nigeria: Part 1 - An Introduction
• Visiting Nigeria: Part 2 - Omens and Getting There
• Part 3 isn't up yet, but I'm hoping it turns out there were some women taking their course.
  

Tags: women in science, science in Africa, Cameroon, South Africa, Nigeria, Dorothy Limung Njeuma, Susan Harrison, Dora Akunyili,Nadine Strydom

Women in Science Link Roundup: The Arts

A few recent links about women, science and art and fiction.

Abel Pharmboy writes about Odile Crick, the wife of Francis Crick, who died on July 5. Odile drew the double-helix structure of DNA in Crick and Watson's famous 1953 paper.

LabLit.com reports on the work of London artists Denise Wyllie and Clare OHagan's series of artworks to raise awareness of Rosalind Franklin and ovarian cancer.

Wyllie explains: “We were talking to a fellow artist about our project and she said, ‘Oh you know about Rosalind Franklin, of course’, but of course, we didn’t.” Intrigued, the artists researched Franklin’s story and were shocked by what they found. O Hagan says: “We were fuelled by anger that we knew nothing about Franklin’s work and that her work wasn’t recognised. It inspired us to make art to acknowledge her scientific achievements.”

Poppy Z. Brite points to a passage that's a great example of what not to write:

By all reports, gorgeous female characters in books must wear less makeup than any other women on earth, with the possible exception of starlets sitting for interviews. The I-don't-see-myself description appears on page 3 of Sequence, an alleged suspense thriller by Lori Andrews. Here, two pages later, is the sentence that made me throw the book across the room (and, later, in the trash):

Alex felt that she could persuade the corpse, woman to woman, to yield up her genetic secrets.

* Harry Potter SPOILER *

The Today Show talked to J.K. Rowling about what happens to her characters after The Deathly Hallows:

Luna Lovegood, the eccentric Ravenclaw who was fascinated with Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and Umgubular Slashkilters, continues to march to the beat of her own drum.

“I think that Luna is now traveling the world looking for various mad creatures,” Rowling said. “She’s a naturalist, whatever the wizarding equivalent of that is.”

Tags: Rosalind Franklin, Denise Wyllie, Clare O'Hagan, Odile Crick, Luna Lovegood

Free Presentation on "Sisters in Science"

The Montgomery (Alabama) Independent reports that Diann Jordan will give a free talk on Thursday, August 9 on "Sisters in Science: Conversations with Black Women" at St. Jude High School in Montgomery Alabama.

In her presentation, Jordan puts a whole new twist on science and history. She tells the inspiring stories of a virtually unknown group of African-American women who were pioneers in the fields of science and math.

In their own words, each scientist reflects on her early influences, her triumphs over obstacles of race and gender, and her role as mother, wife, and scientist.

Jordan is a professor of biology and science education at Alabama State University. This presentation is part of the Alabama Road Scholar (pdf) program.

Tags: Diann Jordan, Sisters in Science, Montgomery, Alalbama

Women in Science News Roundup: North America Edition

I am way behind my rounding up the news, so this week I'm splitting the posts by continent.

Blog bits:

• Start with the latest Scientiae and What's Up Post Doc? blog carnivals.
  
• At the Chronicle of Higher Education the X-Gals post their final installment, "On the Origin of Academic Species."
  
• Page 3.14 interviews marine biologist and blogger on The Intersection Sheril Kirshenbaum.
• Fairer Science reports on Wellesley's College's new president, immunobiologist Kim Bottomly.
• Zuska writes about the controversy provoked by the announcement by blogger Absinthe about a new online support group for junior female particle physicists. She also recommends Women, Science, and Technology: A Reader in Feminist Science Studies, edited by Mary Wyer; Mary Barbarcheck, Donna Giesman, Hatice Orun Ozturk, and Marta Wayne.
• Tara at Aetology has a follow-up on her posts about Danica McKellar's approach to getting girls excited about math.
  

The Jamaica Gleaner profiles scientist Dianah Barrett who received the Jennifer Cox Award from St. Andrew High School.

She laughs when asked why she pursued not only a doctorate in chemistry, but a post- graduate and a master’s degree in the discipline as well.

“That’s what people always (ask!),” she stated with a laugh. “Why chemistry?”

She explained that she has always enjoyed science subjects and that while she was in high school she realised that she wanted to pursue a career that would help people suffering from diseases.
[. . . snip]
“In father’s study, there were so many books about science as he has always liked technology and science and my mom’s background is in nursing and she also worked for drug companies.

“My parents are my heroes, my inspiration!” she revealed. “Pursuit of higher education was always encouraged in our household and what our parents told us, they lived themselves. Dad always said reachfor the Moon, if you don’t reach it, at least you’ll fall among the stars.”

Barrett was a 2005 United Negro College Fund-Merck Graduate Fellow at Harvard University.

Here are some news stories about women (and girls) in science and engineering from the US and Canada:

Read President Bush's speech when presenting the 2005 and 2006 National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology Awards at the White House. Two of the medal winners were women: Rita Colwell and Nina Federoff. Tara at Aetiology has has more about the work of Rita Colwell.

There are a record number of women (32%) enrolling for the fall 2007 semester at Princeton's graduate school of Engineering and Applied Science.

“We have reached a critical mass of women graduate students and we expect that number will only grow in the future,” said Stephen Friedfeld, associate dean for graduate affairs at Princeton Engineering.

Friedfeld said that women engineers seem to find Princeton a particularly hospitable place for a number of reasons, citing student groups such as Graduate Women in Science and Engineering, the Graduate Engineering Council, and the Graduate Engineering Ambassadors.

The Los Angeles Times reports that Caltech also has a record number of women enrolling this fall. 87 of the 235 members of the freshmen entering class (37%) are female, a significant increase from last year's 28.5% and the highest number since women were first admitted in 1970.

The new rise may not seem very dramatic to the outside world. Caltech still lags the 46.1% female enrollment expected in this fall's freshman class at its East Coast rival, MIT, which offers a broader range of majors, and the 42.6% expected at Harvey Mudd College, the science-and-math-focused school in Claremont. And all those schools still lag the current 57% female enrollment total at colleges nationwide.

They say they haven't lowered their admission standards, but made other changes to recruit young women.

Among other things, Caltech made its female applicants more aware that, for example, they could be physics majors but also study music and literature, said Rick Bischoff, director of undergraduate admissions."That's not to say men are not interested in those issues," but those seem to resonate more with women, Bischoff said.

Back when I was looking at universities, Caltech had the reputation of being an uncomfortable place for young women - typical behavior was described as groups of young men standing and staring with mouths agape when any female came within their vicinity. Based on this article, the atmosphere apparently hasn't changed much in 20 years.

Caltech students said they are not expecting a revolution in social life or an end to the much-discussed practice of "glomming," in which a posse of young men annoyingly seek the attention of one woman. But, they add, it doesn't require an 800 on your math SAT to realize that the improved ratio will boost men's chances for an on-campus girlfriend.

And no one thinks that this might be one reason why young women choose to attend one of the other fine universities in California or elsewhere in the U.S.? I know it made me think twice about going there.

The Tacoma (Washington) News Tribune reports that University of Puget Sound computer science professor Andrew Nierman and Washington State University Vancouver professor Scott Wallace have received NSF grant money "to craft a gaming engine specifically designed to make learning computer science more fun for students."

“Nationwide, computer science enrollments are down,” University of Puget Sound computer science professor Andrew Nierman said.

“Traditionally, computer science has also had trouble attracting women. I think we do have to think about marketing ourselves. I think we do have to work to make it interesting,” Nierman said.

KVOA News 4 in Tuscon, Arizona reports that the incoming class at the Del E. Webb School of Construction at Arizona State will have its largest number of women ever (14%), thanks to it's new female recruiter Melissa Luna.

Women tended to flock to residential housing until the market began to slow about a year or two ago, he said. Often it's the already established female presence that is responsible for enticing new workers."I think there tends to be more visibility as far as other senior leaders in those companies that were women," Eicher said.The lack of female faculty members has been a hindrance for attracting women to the school, he added."It has always been difficult no matter what the engineering curriculum ... to get women to come in," he said. "They're heavily recruited in the industry. It's hard to draw them back."To try to remedy the absence of female role models, the school tries to pair incoming students with female upperclassmen as part of a mentor system, Luna said.

The Honolulu Advertiser reports that The Maui Economic Development Board's Women in Technology Project is sponsoring MentorNet programs for students at the University of Hawaii.

MentorNet provides a one-on-one pairing with professionals in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) industries, who are willing to serve as mentors to graduate and undergraduate students, providing advice and information on their fields.

They also report that U.S. Senator Daniel Inouye commented on the America COMPETES Act:

It includes a provision directing the National Science Foundation to develop a mentoring program for women interested in pursuing science education, modeled on the Women in Technology Project.

Inouye noted the Women in Technology Project has expanded across Hawaii with programs to assist female students who are interested in STEM careers.

He said it is important for the government to encourage women to pursue STEM opportunities.

"We need to ensure that we do not neglect a segment of the population, but rather maximize all of this country's great human resources," he said.

Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey was a co-sponsor of the COMPETES Act.

Menendez successfully fought to include provisions from his Partnership for Access to Laboratory Science (PALS) Act to ensure the bill will increase the number of women and minorities in the science and technology fields and aid in revitalizing high school science labs in rural communities.

The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that there a number of events for kids in Ohio and Kentucky who are interested in engineering, science and math. At least one is aimed at girls specifically.

The Society of Women Engineers University of Cincinnati chapter has several outreach events for middle and high school girls: They put up a building in October, testing its strength against earthquakes and other disasters; they take apart a toaster in December and design prosthetic devices for a fictional shark attack victim in February. Later they'll design a safety harness for Chip, the Hollywood stunt egg.

The Detroit Free Press reports that Camp Infinity at Lawrence Technological University (sponsored by the Michigan Council of Women in Technology Foundation) gave girls in Oakland, Wayne and Macomb Counties the opportunity to learn how to make web sites, program robots and learn about careers in technology fields.

Camp Infinity targets girls between fourth and seventh grades because studies show that a girl's interest in math, science and technology drops off at the middle school level, Bayer said.

"Once they get to high school, it's too late," Bayer said. "We go for the younger girls so when they get to high school, they will still think learning about math or science is cool."

While I think it's great the course is for younger girls, it seems defeatist to say that it's "too late" once they reach high school.

Lower Hudson Online reports on the Exploring Interests in Technology and Engineering (EX.I.T.E) Camp, run by IBM for middle-school girls, at the T.J. Watson Research Center.

"The best part of EX.I.T.E. Camp," said Aviva Frank, 13, of New Castle, "is the fact that I can be smart and do all kinds of crazy experiments without having people point at me and call me a nerd."

The Ottowa Business Journal reports on the EX.I.T.E. Camp that will be held at IBM's offices in Kanata in a couple of weeks.

IBM estimates that 85 per cent of the more than 5,000 girls who have participated in the camp worldwide since 1999 have indicated that they would be interested in pursuing a career in science, engineering, math or technology

CBS3 of Allentown, Pennsylvania has a video report on the Da Vinci Science Center's Material Girls Science Camp.

"A lot of girls, especially in 5th/6th grade, start to think science is just for boys and it’s really not. So we're just trying to encourage them that it’s a lot of fun," said Da Vinci Science Center Educator Ruth Brown.

Brown used to be a chemical engineer and now she's teaching girls how to their make their own hand sanitizers. The girls will locate areas with large amounts of germs at the center and test their sanitizers to see if they work.

"What we're trying to do is teach them science, biology, chemistry, some physics and nanotechnology with products they're familiar with, so they're definitely learning science," Brown said.

At Feministing Jessica posted video from Vermont's all-girl welding camp, Rosie's Girls.

The Deseret News looks at the summer camp for girls at the Utah Museum of Natural History.

"It's important for girls to do some science exploration and see females in scientific roles and science careers," said Shelli Campbell, public programs coordinator for the Museum of Natural History. "Sometimes when girls are in a mixed group doing science the boys can sometimes tend to take over."
Though the girls are a little young to look at career choices seriously, Campbell said she hopes the camp can plant a seed of science interest and that the girls will see that they can go far in a scientific career and they can do anything as long as they put their mind to it.

The Indy Star reports on a program at Purdue University, "Cheering in the Classroom," teaches girls science principles and how to apply them to cheerleading.

After the lecture Saturday, they hit the swimming pool for a "flying" competition. Climbing on the shoulders of two male Purdue cheerleaders, the girls squeezed their limbs together in an attempt to be flung across the pool the farthest -- and to be the most aerodynamic.
[snip . . .]
"I want the girls to realize there are other options out there other than the ones they see every day," Jacobs said. "There's more to do than be a nurse, an elementary school teacher or a housewife."

More posts tomorrow!

Tags: women in science, women in engineering, science summer camp

Women in Science News Roundup: Europe Edition

Here's the roundup from Europe, although I guess it's more accurate to say from the British Isles and Ireland. What's clearly missing is news from the non-English press. I'd love non-English news tips if you can give me an overview or synopsis in English.

UPI reports on a conference in Potsdam Germany to discuss career and family. It's not clear how representative the quotes are, but it appears that - surprise, surprise - men and women have different views on how compatible being a scientist and raising a family are.

"As scientists and parents, we are actually quite lucky -- because a family serves as a good balance to a job that incites us and requires us to go beyond the 40-hour week, but which is quite flexible at the same time," a father of four said at the conference.

"Children are part of life and they enrich us," a mother said. However, children and career are not easily compatible in the German research system, and there are no doubts about where there is room for improvement, according to Jutta Allmendinger, president of the Social Science Research Center, in Berlin.

Laboratory News reports that the Institute of Physics has launched project Juno to help reduce the gender gap in physics departments.

Based on the findings of a series of visits to university departments over two years, the Institute has turned the good working practices found in some university physics departments into a code of practice. Academic departments can sign up to this code of practise and become recognised as a Juno Supporter or Juno Champion.

“There are many benefits to a physics department in becoming a Juno Champion” said incoming Institute president, Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell. “By meeting the five Juno principles a department shows that it has a working culture in which all staff and students, both men and women, can achieve their full potential – and that has to be good for recruitment and retention of talented staff and students. Juno is not just for physics – the code of practice is applicable to any academic department concerned with promoting diversity.”

icWales is "calling for the most inspiring women in Wales" for the Western Mail Welsh Woman of the Year Award. The "Women in Science & Technology" Category closes to nominations on September 12th.

This award recognises women making strides in science and technology-related activities in manufacturing and industry, academia or the public sector. This category provides women who work in these traditionally male-dominated areas of work with an opportunity to demonstrate how their activities have benefited their respective fields in Wales.

Last year's award went to Cardiff University mechanical engineering professor Karen Holford, a founder member of Women into Science and Engineering in Wales.

The Irish Times reports on a forecast by the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) that 44% of managers will be women by 2012. The percentage of women in professional and management occupations are expected to increase, in most, but not all fields.

One exception to the trend is that the proportion of women entering science and engineering professions is not expected to change.

The Norwich (UK) Evening News reports that the Norfolk-based Women's Employment, Enterprise and Training Unit (Weetu) has responded to a study that reported only 8% of the patent applications from the region were by women.

Nicky Stevenson, acting manager of Weetu, said: “While patents reflect the level of inventions I don't think it reflects the level of enterprising skills of women in the region - it's far, far higher than this.

“However, educational choices that girls and young women make - not to go into science, engineering and technology - is going to have an impact on their ability to design products for patenting, which is essentially an engineering or design skill.

“From Weetu's point of view, a lot of the women starting up businesses with our help are not designing products and are more likely to be in selling services.”

Ms Stevenson believes the tendency for girls and young women to choose “softer subjects” in the arts needs to be addressed in schools.

According to the Pakistan Daily Times, Lancashire access and support for science, technology and maths (LASS) is anew project to encourage Pakistani and Bangladeshi girls to study science.

Setpoint manager Barbara Tigar said: “There is a problem nationally in that there are very few girls from Bangladeshi and Pakistani backgrounds getting involved in STEM areas.

[. . .] ‘’Since September, we’ve been running after school and lunch clubs to support the girls towards achieving their bronze creativity in science and technology (CREST) award.”

A group of year eight girls from Beardwood are celebrating after winning their bronze CREST award, and also being named as the best overall team out of all five schools, for the bath bombs and jewellery they made.

I'm not sure how making jewelry encourages girls to study science, but I guess they've figured out some connection.

There's gotta be more European news out there - send me some links!

Tags: women in science, education, Welsh Woman of the year, gender gap

Scientiae Carnival @ Twice: Balance

The August Scientiae Blog Carnival is up at Twice with the theme "Balance Questions and Answers." There are a lot of great links to posts about balancing science, academia, family, mental health, and life in general.

I also love the adorable drawings of a girl chemist and girl microbiologist at the Keet and Nini Show. Keep an eye on the blog - Keet is hoping to make a series and maybe even get them printed on sheets. That would be a great gift for a little girl.

The next carnival will be at Zuzka's with the theme "Unleash."

Tags: scientiae carnival, women in science, Keet and Nini Show

One of the smelliest jobs in science?

I know I said "family obligations" last week, and so I did: family visited from out of town. One nice thing about vacationing from home was being a tourist in my own back yard. One day we took a trip to the La Brea tar pits in Los Angeles. Pit 91 was being excavated in what has to rank among the dirtiest jobs in science: painstakingly excavating bones from gooey smelly asphalt. The afternoon we were there, all the excavators were women.
Anyone who claims that women won't do dirty work is just clueless. Here's a video showing the kind of excavation going on there (note: it's set to The Who, so you might want to turn the volume down if you're pretending to do something productive!).

Painstaking, to be sure, but it must be thrilling to make a find. If you are at least 16 years old and in the Los Angeles area, you can volunteer to either work on the Pit 91 excavation or in the science laboratory, no previous experience required! Check out the Page Museum/tar pit web site for details.

And here I am next to a giant sloth which I hope isn't going to end up my blogging mascot . . .

Tags: La Brea tar pits, paleontology, Los Angeles