Women in bioinformatics & data science - Latin America

Abstract

Science and technology are masculinized environments in which gender disparities remain structural [[1]Shen H. Inequality quantified: mind the gender gap.Nat. News. 2013; 495: 22Google Scholar,[2]Jiménez L Conteville LC Feldfeber I Didier MG Stegmayer G Marino-Buslje C et al.Highlights of the 1st Latin American Conference of Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science.Biophysicist. 2021; 2: 99-102Google Scholar. The impact of these disparities is evident not only at a macroscopic level, such as the difference in access to promotions, leadership, or funding. It is also present in many aspects of scientific work. Quantitative studies show that women scientists publish less and have fewer opportunities than men to participate in international collaborations. These differences could be more profound depending on the country. In developed countries, articles with women in leading authorship positions receive fewer citations than those with men in the same positions [[3]Saldivar J, Buslón N, Rementería MJ. Exploring gender differences in bioinformatics research. 2020;21–2.Google Scholar]. Saldivar and collaborators have also shown that the articles authored only by women received considerably fewer citations than those written only by men [[3]Saldivar J, Buslón N, Rementería MJ. Exploring gender differences in bioinformatics research. 2020;21–2.Google Scholar].The daily challenges women face are not limited to the exclusion and misevaluation of their work. It also involves more severe and (unfortunately not uncommon) discrimination and harassment events. In a survey evaluating the experiences of hundreds of scientists, 64% of the respondents had personally experienced sexual harassment, sexual remarks, or inappropriate jokes in their scientific fieldwork [[4]Clancy KBH Nelson RG Rutherford JN Hinde K. Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): trainees report harassment and assault.PLOS ONE. 2014; 9e102172Google Scholar]. Moreover, 72.4% had directly observed or knew about inappropriate or sexual comments being made by their colleagues. In addition, most people who reported having been harassed or assaulted said they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the outcome of the assault report [[4]Clancy KBH Nelson RG Rutherford JN Hinde K. Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): trainees report harassment and assault.PLOS ONE. 2014; 9e102172Google Scholar]. It is a fact that the people affected by harassment often struggle to continue on the same path or line of work. At the same time, their perpetrators are usually not affected and continue to gain power and prestige [[5]Bell RE Koenig LS. Harassment in science is real.Science. 2017; 358 (1223–1223)Google Scholar].These observations evidence how “brotherhoods” of men scientists impact the daily devaluation of women's work, making it harder for them to progress in their careers [[4]Clancy KBH Nelson RG Rutherford JN Hinde K. Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): trainees report harassment and assault.PLOS ONE. 2014; 9e102172Google Scholar]. A vast literature of sociology research shows that, time after time, women in science are deemed inferior to men and often evaluated as less capable when performing similar or identical work [[6]Moss-Racusin CA Dovidio JF Brescoll VL Graham MJ Handelsman J. Science faculty's subtle gender biases favor male students.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2012; 109: 16474-16479Google Scholar,[7]Moss-Racusin CA Molenda AK Cramer CR. Can evidence impact attitudes? Public reactions to evidence of gender bias in STEM fields.Psychol. Women Q. 2015; 39: 194-209Google Scholar]. It is also a fact that women struggle daily to secure tenure, obtain research funding, get deserved authorship on papers, and receive scientific recognition while creating safe spaces for them and networks to survive the system. These are among the reasons why students and postdocs who wield little power often “choose” other paths.Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science Latin America (WBDS LA) was created as an initiative to include those systematically excluded and discriminated against. Since 2019, this community, founded by women working in the fields of Bioinformatics and Data Science, has been working to build a space with a broad perspective so all marginalized genders can feel safe and empowered. WBDS LA has been organizing a yearly conference to boost collaboration and networking within the community of women scientists from the public and private sectors.The second WBDS LA conference was held virtually between the 22nd and 24th of September 2021. Dr. Wendy González and Dr. Cristina Marino-Buslje were the Scientific chairs, while Dr. Ana Julia Velez Rueda was the Program chair. More than 1,300 participants registered from over 50 countries, mainly South American countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia, but people from European and Asian countries also participated. A total of 170 abstracts were received; the nine best-scored abstracts were selected for oral presentations, and the others were invited for poster presentations. Two oral and two poster presentations were awarded. Also, four workshops took place during the last conference day.The conference counted on the participation of 13 well-recognized keynote speakers from Latin America, covering a wide variety of topics related to Data Science and Bioinformatics. Among them were Gabriela de Queiroz, Data Scientist Chief at IBM and co-founder of R-Ladies, and Dr. Janet Thornton, a specialist in Computational Enzymology from the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI).Aligned to our mission of training people on gender perspectives, a roundtable about Inclusion and Diversity was coordinated by MSc. Mailén Garcia. In this session, Dr. Eliade Lima, Dr. Fran De Castro Bubani, and Dr. Patricia Castillo-Briceño discussed the progress and challenges of inclusion and diversity in science and technology.By having events like WBDS LA Conference, with women researchers as speakers and teachers dialoguing about gender and inclusion, we aim to reduce barriers and promote the aspects that are important to construct more equal and diverse scientific and technological communities. Summarizing our conference's spirit, this Special Issue in MethodsX collects the contributions of some of the event's participants. It provides the readers with a selection of the notable work done by women. Science and technology are masculinized environments in which gender disparities remain structural [[1]Shen H. Inequality quantified: mind the gender gap.Nat. News. 2013; 495: 22Google Scholar,[2]Jiménez L Conteville LC Feldfeber I Didier MG Stegmayer G Marino-Buslje C et al.Highlights of the 1st Latin American Conference of Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science.Biophysicist. 2021; 2: 99-102Google Scholar. The impact of these disparities is evident not only at a macroscopic level, such as the difference in access to promotions, leadership, or funding. It is also present in many aspects of scientific work. Quantitative studies show that women scientists publish less and have fewer opportunities than men to participate in international collaborations. These differences could be more profound depending on the country. In developed countries, articles with women in leading authorship positions receive fewer citations than those with men in the same positions [[3]Saldivar J, Buslón N, Rementería MJ. Exploring gender differences in bioinformatics research. 2020;21–2.Google Scholar]. Saldivar and collaborators have also shown that the articles authored only by women received considerably fewer citations than those written only by men [[3]Saldivar J, Buslón N, Rementería MJ. Exploring gender differences in bioinformatics research. 2020;21–2.Google Scholar]. The daily challenges women face are not limited to the exclusion and misevaluation of their work. It also involves more severe and (unfortunately not uncommon) discrimination and harassment events. In a survey evaluating the experiences of hundreds of scientists, 64% of the respondents had personally experienced sexual harassment, sexual remarks, or inappropriate jokes in their scientific fieldwork [[4]Clancy KBH Nelson RG Rutherford JN Hinde K. Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): trainees report harassment and assault.PLOS ONE. 2014; 9e102172Google Scholar]. Moreover, 72.4% had directly observed or knew about inappropriate or sexual comments being made by their colleagues. In addition, most people who reported having been harassed or assaulted said they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the outcome of the assault report [[4]Clancy KBH Nelson RG Rutherford JN Hinde K. Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): trainees report harassment and assault.PLOS ONE. 2014; 9e102172Google Scholar]. It is a fact that the people affected by harassment often struggle to continue on the same path or line of work. At the same time, their perpetrators are usually not affected and continue to gain power and prestige [[5]Bell RE Koenig LS. Harassment in science is real.Science. 2017; 358 (1223–1223)Google Scholar]. These observations evidence how “brotherhoods” of men scientists impact the daily devaluation of women's work, making it harder for them to progress in their careers [[4]Clancy KBH Nelson RG Rutherford JN Hinde K. Survey of Academic Field Experiences (SAFE): trainees report harassment and assault.PLOS ONE. 2014; 9e102172Google Scholar]. A vast literature of sociology research shows that, time after time, women in science are deemed inferior to men and often evaluated as less capable when performing similar or identical work [[6]Moss-Racusin CA Dovidio JF Brescoll VL Graham MJ Handelsman J. Science faculty's subtle gender biases favor male students.Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 2012; 109: 16474-16479Google Scholar,[7]Moss-Racusin CA Molenda AK Cramer CR. Can evidence impact attitudes? Public reactions to evidence of gender bias in STEM fields.Psychol. Women Q. 2015; 39: 194-209Google Scholar]. It is also a fact that women struggle daily to secure tenure, obtain research funding, get deserved authorship on papers, and receive scientific recognition while creating safe spaces for them and networks to survive the system. These are among the reasons why students and postdocs who wield little power often “choose” other paths. Women in Bioinformatics and Data Science Latin America (WBDS LA) was created as an initiative to include those systematically excluded and discriminated against. Since 2019, this community, founded by women working in the fields of Bioinformatics and Data Science, has been working to build a space with a broad perspective so all marginalized genders can feel safe and empowered. WBDS LA has been organizing a yearly conference to boost collaboration and networking within the community of women scientists from the public and private sectors. The second WBDS LA conference was held virtually between the 22nd and 24th of September 2021. Dr. Wendy González and Dr. Cristina Marino-Buslje were the Scientific chairs, while Dr. Ana Julia Velez Rueda was the Program chair. More than 1,300 participants registered from over 50 countries, mainly South American countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Argentina, and Colombia, but people from European and Asian countries also participated. A total of 170 abstracts were received; the nine best-scored abstracts were selected for oral presentations, and the others were invited for poster presentations. Two oral and two poster presentations were awarded. Also, four workshops took place during the last conference day. The conference counted on the participation of 13 well-recognized keynote speakers from Latin America, covering a wide variety of topics related to Data Science and Bioinformatics. Among them were Gabriela de Queiroz, Data Scientist Chief at IBM and co-founder of R-Ladies, and Dr. Janet Thornton, a specialist in Computational Enzymology from the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI). Aligned to our mission of training people on gender perspectives, a roundtable about Inclusion and Diversity was coordinated by MSc. Mailén Garcia. In this session, Dr. Eliade Lima, Dr. Fran De Castro Bubani, and Dr. Patricia Castillo-Briceño discussed the progress and challenges of inclusion and diversity in science and technology. By having events like WBDS LA Conference, with women researchers as speakers and teachers dialoguing about gender and inclusion, we aim to reduce barriers and promote the aspects that are important to construct more equal and diverse scientific and technological communities. Summarizing our conference's spirit, this Special Issue in MethodsX collects the contributions of some of the event's participants. It provides the readers with a selection of the notable work done by women. We acknowledge the opportunity provided by the Editorial Management of MethodsX to highlight the hard work of the community of Latin American women working in data science and bioinformatics-related areas.