Having a Life in Science

Abstract

Ariana Sutton-Grier, a wetlands ecologist, seems to be on track toward a successful career as an academic scientist. She earned her PhD from Duke University, has numerous publications to her credit, and has received several National Science Foundation (NSF ) grants. She is an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellow, hosted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). But Sutton-Grier is not sure she’ll end up at a university. “I’m still considering academia,” she says, “but I’m enjoying my policy fellowship. The analytical and critical thinking skills I bring can add a lot of value to the questions and policy decisions that NOAA is thinking about.” How to keep women scientists of Sutton-Grier’s generation in the academic fold is the subject of considerable study. Many women opt out because of both systemic barriers and individual choice. Some are turned off by the culture of research institutions, which they describe as overly competitive and demanding. Others see the tenure track being in conflict with their desire to have children. At the same time, good career options in business, government, and the nonprofit world beckon. Women have always been a minority in the science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields. It was long assumed that if women entered the member of the National Academies of Sciences Committee on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering. Considerable progress has been made. A few short decades ago, many graduate science programs refused to accept women. Today, overt sexism is rare. “I actually can’t think of any instance where I felt discriminated against,” says marine ecologist April Blakeslee, a postdoctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, in Edgewater, Maryland. Indeed, when women apply for tenure-track jobs in biology, they may even have an edge. According to a 2010 National Research Council report (see the further reading section), of PhD biologists applying for tenure-track positions from 1999 to 2003, 26% were women; 28% of those who were invited to interview were women, and 34% of first offers of jobs were to women. The question is why only one in four applicants for tenure-track positions are women. Of all the STEM fields, biology should be the first for which women plant a flag of victory. Women now receive roughly half the doctoral degrees in the biological sciences, compared with 30% in the physical sciences and mathematics and 20% in computer sciences and engineering. Yet women hold just 22% of tenured professorships in the biological sciences and 42% of nontenured positions. “Most strikingly,” according to graduate school pipeline, the parity problem in academia would be solved. If you educate them, they will come, the thinking went. For decades, NSF, AAAS, and universities around the country have been working to eradicate barriers that discourage women from pursuing degrees in science. The goal was to ensure that the nation was not losing the contributions of half of its top talent. “More diverse groups of people bring more creativity to solving problems,” says Joan Steitz, professor of molecular biophysics and biochemistry at Yale University and a