All Entries in the "STEM Fields" Category
Jacqueline Beatty Recognized for Innovation in Dietetics Education
As an assistant professor of nutrition at Simmons University, Dr. Beatty teaches courses and conducts research on clinical nutrition, eating disorders, sports nutrition, and chronic disease prevention through lifestyle health behaviors.
Despite Increases in Dermatologist Representation, Women Lag Behind in Dermatology Research Participation
Despite women representing 52.2 percent of all dermatologists in the United States, women’s representation in senior authorship among academic dermatology articles has declined over the past 15 years.
Grants or Gifts Relating to Women in Higher Education
Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
Three Women Honored With 2024 Kavli Prizes in Astrophysics and Neuroscience
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters awarded Sara Seager with a Kavil Prize in Astrophysics. Nancy Kanwisher and Doris Ying Tao were awarded Kavil Prizes in Neuroscience.
An AI Teammate With a Woman’s Voice Can Increase Productivity Among Women Employees
Previous studies on organizational culture have found teammates from underrepresented backgrounds have higher performances when working with teammates of a similar background. A new study has found introducing AI programming that aligns with a minority teammate’s background can have the same result.
Study Examines Prevalence of Sexual Harassment and Discrimination Among OB/GYN Clinicians
Over the past 10 years, women’s representation among OB/GYN clinicians has significantly increased. However, despite the field being dominated by women, sexual harassment and discrimination were found to be prevalent among clinicians, especially medical students and surgical trainees.
Verna Hendricks-Ferguson Honored for Distinguished Pediatric Oncology Research Contributions
Dr. Hendricks-Ferguson’s current research focuses on making significant contributions to the pioneering study of palliative and end-of-life communication practices by pediatric oncology providers with parents of children with cancer.
Porché Spence Recognized for Outstanding Commitment to Advancing Diversity in Ecology
Dr. Spence currently serves as an assistant professor of environmental studies at North Carolina A&T State University. Throughout her career, she has developed several educational programs geared towards introducing students of color to environmental science fields.
Cornell University Study Reveals Potential Biological Predictor for Postpartum Depression
A team of researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine has found an association between postpartum depression and a steep drop off in immune cell RNA packages during the second and third trimesters of pregnancies.
An Update on Gender Equality in Research and Innovation
A new report from Elsevier has provided a status update on gender parity in global research and innovation. Although significant progress has been made over the past 20 years, disparities remain among STEM disciplines and advanced-career scientists.
Grants or Gifts Relating to Women in Higher Education
Here is this week’s news of grants and gifts that may be of particular interest to women in higher education.
Arizona State University’s Malena Español Recognized for Outstanding Teaching in Mathematics
Dr. Español was honored for her outstanding scholarship and teaching influence at higher education institutions in the United States and Argentina. She currently serves as an assistant professor at Arizona State University.
Eight Out of Every Ten Women Polar Scientists Report Negative Experiences During Research Expeditions
Despite the large majority of women polar scientists reporting negative experiences, most women still wanted to continue doing polar research, suggesting an urgent need to improve their working conditions.
Marcia Rieke Honored With Gruber Cosmology Prize for Contributions to James Webb Space Telescope
Dr. Rieke has conducted decades of extensive research with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and James Webb Space Telescope. She was honored with the 2024 Gruber Cosmology Prize for her contributions to understanding infrared astronomy.
Virginia Sisiopiku Recognized for Excellence in Transportation Engineering Education
Dr. Sisiopiku has served as a professor with the University of Alabama at Birmingham for more than two decades, teaching and advising both undergraduate and graduate students in transportation engineering.
MIT Adds Six Women Scholars to School of Engineering Faculty
Abigail Bodner, Andreea Bobu, Samantha Coday, Anna Huang, Yael Kalai, and Jessica Stark have been appointed to the faculty of the School of Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
American Society for Mechanical Engineers Honors Xin Zhang With Its 2024 Lecture Award
Dr. Zhang has been a faculty member in the department of mechanical engineering at Boston University for over two decades. Her research centers round the development of metamaterials and microelectromechanical systems.
Sarah Millholland Recognized for Outstanding Early Career Research in Astronomy
Dr. Millholand has served as an assistant professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for the past two years. She was honored for her outstanding contributions to the understanding of the formation and dynamics of extrasolar planetary systems.
Study Finds Women Early-Career Scientists Significantly Less Likely to Receive Grant Funding Than Male Peers
Achieving tenure is crucial for education professionals to gain academic freedom in their work and pursue research initiatives. However, a new study has found men are twice as likely as women to hold a tenured academic position in the life science fields.
Study Finds Treatment by Women Physicians Associated with Lower Mortality
Researchers from the University of Tokyo, Harvard University, the University of California, San Francisco, and the University of California, Los Angeles have discovered patients treated by women doctors are associated with lower mortality and hospital re-admission rates.
Women’s Comprehensive Health and Research Center Established at the Cleveland Clinic
The new center at the Cleveland Clinic will provide specialty care tailored to areas and conditions that are specific to middle aged and elder women. The initiative will also focus on advancing education and research into women’s healthcare.
Sweet Briar College and the University of Virginia Create a Pathway Program for a Master’s Degree in Engineering
The two Virginia institutions have launched a new program, UVAccelerate, that will provide students from Sweet Briar College, a women’s school, the opportunity for early-entry into the master of engineering degree program with the University of Virginia
Georgia State University Launches Program to Support Black Women in Tech
“This started off as listening to our students, talking to our students, seeing what they wanted and what they were feeling. We realized that they feel like they don’t belong in their classes,” said Georgia State University professor Dr. Anu Bourgeois.
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Establishes Cybersecurity Exchange Program for Women
The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill has partnered with Nagoya University in Japan to establish the Women’s Undergraduate Cybersecurity Engagement Program, in which women students from both institutions will participate in workshops and learning simulations led by faculty from their partnering school.
Kimryn Rathmell Has Been Named Director of the National Cancer Institute
Kimryn Rathmell is the Hugh Jackson Professor of Medicine and chair of the department of medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. Dr. Rathmell will become the seventeenth director of the National Cancer Institute and only the second woman to hold this position leading the nation’s fight against cancer.
Jenna Carpenter Selected to Lead the Mathematical Association of America
Jenna Carpenter is the founding dean of the School of Engineering and professor of engineering at Campbell University in Buies Creek, North Carolina. She will become president of the association on July 1, 2024. Dr, Carpenter is currently the president of the American Society for Engineering Education.
Shannon Schmoll to Lead the International Planetarium Society
Dr. Schmoll is the director of the Abrams Planetarium and an instructor in the department of physics and astronomy in the College of Natural Science at Michigan State University, She will serve a six-year term beginning this year — two years each as president-elect, president, and past president.
University of Pennsylvania Scholar to Share the Nobel Prize in Medicine
Katalin Karikó, an adjunct professor of neurosurgery and a research scientist at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania is sharing this year’s Nobel Prize in Medicine. She and her colleague Drew Weissman, the Roberts Family Professor in Vaccine Research at the University of Pennsylvania, were recognized for their groundbreaking resarch which led to the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
Mississippi State University Scholar Named Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Applied Remote Sensing
Qian “Jenny” Du is the Bobby Shackouls Professor at Mississippi State University. Before joining the faculty at Mississippi State in 2004, Dr. Du was an assistant professor in the department of electrical engineering and computer science at Texas A&M University-Kingsville, from 2000 to 2004.
How Women Lose Out in the Training of New Inventors
A new study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology finds that female Ph.D.s have a 21 percent lower likelihood of being matched with advisors who are top inventors than male Ph.D.s, and even when matched, are approximately 17 percent less likely than their male Ph.D. counterparts to become new inventors.
Adele Wolfson Recognized for Her Work to Advance the Careers of Women in Biochemistry/Molecular Biology
Adele J. Wolfson, a professor emerita of chemistry and natural and physical sciences at Wellesley College in Massachusetts, received the Sustained Leadership Award from the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology. Dr. Wolfon will be honored and give a lecture at the society’s 2024 annual meeting, in San Antonio in March.
Women of Color Are Scarce in STEM Higher Education and the Workforce
A new report from The Education Trust shows that vast disparities in attainment by race, ethnicity, and gender persist in STEM education and employment, thereby limiting access and opportunities for social and economic mobility for some — particularly women and people of color.
Women on Inventor Teams Can Produce Products of Greater Value
A recent study by scholars at Emory University in Atlanta, the University of California, Riverside, and the University of Vienna in Austria, challenges a long-held finding in academic literature that the presence of women on company invention teams results in products of lesser value than inventions produced by teams that consist only of men.
Stanford University Study Finds a Gender Gap in Academic Authors Who Get to Share in Patents
New research undertaken by an interdisciplinary team of Stanford Law and Stanford Medicine students, looks at the overlap between biomedical research paper authors and those authors who go on to be named inventors of their research on patents. Among the findings is a gender discrepancy between male and female authors, with male authors receiving patents more frequently.
Seven Women’s Colleges Receive More Than $5 Million in Grants From NASA
NASA awarded more than $5 million in grants to seven women’s colleges and universities to research and develop strategies that increase the retention of women in STEM degree programs and careers. The awards seek to address the significant national gender gap and disparate experiences of women in STEM in the United States, both in higher education and the workforce.
