F=1 in 1987

F=2. This odd-looking equation was the subject of FemaleScienceProfessor’s blog earlier this month, where F represents women sitting on a committee picked by a dean or chairperson. When F=2, that committee has not merely one but two women sitting on it. According to this blog post F=2 makes all the difference compared with F=1, which often denotes the 1 woman as the token woman. In science F=1 or even F=2 is still common—not just on committees. My own experiences as a chemistry major at a small liberal arts college were filled with F=1 classes. The concept of needing more women on a committee, in a department, in a classroom—the concept of critical mass—is one often discussed in the Women in Chemistry Oral History project.

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Peter J. W. Debye; Nobel Prize Chemistry 1936

Congratulations to the 2009 Nobel Prize winners for their outstanding scientific accomplishments in  chemistry, physics, and physiology or medicine. I hope the Oral History Program will soon add the stories of Thomas Steitz, Ada Yonath, Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Charles Kao, Willard Boyle, George Smith, Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider, and Jack Szostak to our collection, which already includes numerous Nobel laureates, such as David Baltimore, Donald Cram, Alan MacDiarmid, Linus Pauling, and Kurt Wüthrich.

Image courtesy of Williams Haynes Portrait Collection, CHF Collections.

Earlier this month Kim Clijsters won the U.S. Open tennis tournament after being away from competitive tennis for two years while she had her daughter, Jada. Whereas professional sports careers do not offer formal parental leave, careers in science should. Academia is slowly adjusting to the idea of parental leave, and some large companies embrace it. But not all scientists (academic or industrial) find themselves so lucky; parental leave should not be a matter of luck—how unscientific. Continue Reading »

Another new source of energy is making the news: natural gas from shale rock formations. NPR’s Morning Edition recently lauded shale gas as a relatively clean, abundant, domestic source of energy. What it failed to mention were the environmental impacts of extracting natural gas from shale. Continue Reading »

Doctoral degrees awarded in S&E and non-S&E fields to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, by sex: 1966–2006

I have very strong feelings about topics surrounding the issue of women in science. I viewed myself as fitting into the category until fairly recently, and I am intimately aware with the ways in which a career in science can impinge upon any non-career life activities. The Women in Chemistry Oral History project is my own effort to encourage more women science. Yet every time I read an article about Title IX and science my head starts to spin, and I do not know what to think. Would the application of Title IX to science finally bring the parity long desired? Or not? Last week a C&E News article expressed concerns about the application of Title IX to science. When statistics show that there are rising percentages of women earning Ph.D.s and entering the workforce, the article wonders whether we should begin to worry about why male students are not entering science—something the application of Title IX will not tell us. Continue Reading »

The California state budget crisis is causing scientific havoc. Already strapped for funds, frantically applying for stimulus money, now researchers at University of California schools must also worry about their employer (the state of California) having no money, salary cuts, increased tuition and fees for their students (the people that work in the labs), and the exodus of coworkers. What will this mean for science? What will this mean for California? Continue Reading »