By Lauren Koenig

Wildlife Jewels has roots going back to 2014. What was the path from that early art-based initiative to the conservation nonprofit it is today?

Wildlife Jewels grew from my lifelong passion for wildlife and from a belief I have carried since childhood: wildlife alive and living freely in their natural habitats is more precious than any jewel.

That belief is why I founded and named the Wildlife Jewels® Collection in 2014. To me, the animals themselves are the true jewels of our planet — living, irreplaceable treasures whose value cannot be measured. This became the heart of the collection and our central message: Wildlife Are The Jewels®.

The collection debuted publicly in a Laguna Beach gallery in 2015, initially featuring Birds-of-Paradise and a peacock. The exhibition celebrated their extraordinary beauty while also drawing attention to the human-caused threats wildlife face. The collection soon expanded to include species such as the Persian cheetah, rhinoceros, pangolin, seabirds, and many other animals. In 2016, I began translating the artwork into fine art fashion and wearable designs. The collections appeared in exhibitions and fashion presentations across the United States, including a showcase at Harvard University.

Over time, the storytelling became increasingly connected to individual animals I had encountered through field observations, rescue situations, rehabilitation organizations, and sanctuary visits. Eventually, I realized awareness alone was not enough. Wildlife was facing growing, immediate, and often preventable threats, and I wanted Wildlife Jewels® to move from inspiring concern to taking direct action.

That vision led to the establishment of Wildlife Jewels® as a U.S.-registered 501(c)(3) public charity in 2023. Based in Solana Beach and Corona del Mar, California, the organization now works locally and globally through wildlife monitoring and response, rescue, education, community programs, conservation art, technology, field documentation, collaboration, and advocacy. Wildlife Jewels® has received Congressional recognition and recently became a member of the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Joining IUCN allows us to bring our conservation, rescue, education, arts, and community-based approach into a global network working to protect nature.

What began as an art collection has become a conservation organization, but the belief behind the name has never changed: the animals themselves are the jewels, and they deserve far more than admiration—they deserve protection.​

​African American women face unique challenges in college because they are often first- generation university students and lack the guidance and support from family role models. Ezella McPherson’s book, Dream On! Supporting and Graduating African American Girls and Women in STEM, addresses these distinct problems and offers advice to these students tackling a major in STEM. Her recommendations are based on her research in sociological and educational theories. Ezella also discusses the “hidden curriculum,” the non-academic areas of engagement and protocols that are a necessary part of a successful college experience.
 
The following is excerpted from an interview with Ezella where she shared what inspired her work, how she turned her academic research into a book, and advice for STEM majors and aspiring writers.

Scientista: What motivated you to write your newest book, "Dream On?"
 
Ezella McPherson: “I wrote the book because it actually goes back to my undergraduate experience at the University of Michigan. A lot of my friends who are African American women had high dreams of becoming doctors or majoring in a STEM field. I noticed that they put their dreams on hold – only a few became doctors or even majored in biology, math, or statistics. I saw that there was a limited number of African American women going into STEM fields at the University of Michigan overall. Even I put my dreams on hold because of the academic rigor at the University of Michigan. I too was a part of the group that left STEM and that's the reason why I wrote the book. It's my own personal story and the story of my friends. 

“Later, when I was going to work at the University of Illinois, I noticed the same issue. I saw two of the women of color that I worked with in STEM and again, African American women having higher aspirations of majoring in STEM as a freshman. But when it came to actually doing the rigor of the work, they also left STEM. The same thing happened at Wayne State in Indiana University South Bend. 

“That's why I wrote my book. It was just to provide a narrative for understanding the experiences of African American woman in STEM, with the hope to create and facilitate African Americans being able to stay in STEM and get their degrees.” 
 
S: The cover of your book says “Supporting and Graduating African American Girls and Women in STEM.” What happens between earlier education and college, and even during college, that causes African American women to be pushed out at higher education levels in STEM fields?
 
EM: “So what happens in STEM is this: From our research, I found that African American girls actually have a love for science and math in K through 12. They don't have any challenges until they get to college. They are leaders in the classroom, they are participating, asking questions to their teachers. But then in college, something happens that changes the narrative. There is a hidden curriculum. The hidden curriculum has created a culture that causes African American women to leave STEM. The hidden curriculum consists of academic rigor and [not being aware of it] results in failing courses and a number of other things that I will discuss later. In order to survive and thrive, you have to be able to navigate that hidden curriculum in college.”
 
S: Your book covers some of the biggest challenges facing African American women pursuing careers in STEM, especially in college. Can you briefly describe some of these challenges? 
 
EM: “Academic rigor and competitiveness – that feeling like you are competing for a grade, right? Oh, yeah. Only a certain amount of people can get an A or B in the class because classes are graded on the curve. In STEM there is course failure and information overload. The African American woman in my study talked about how they fail courses as a part of the process of becoming a STEM major. There was a lot of information thrown at them, and they weren't necessarily able to grasp all of it because you have to memorize all the information in terms of the STEM major courses. 

“Attendance at office hours – African American women learned that in order to really grasp material it wasn’t just about going to lectures. You also have to go to the office hours and meet with professors. I want to also make note that [in my book I talk about] a predominantly white institution, I call it Town University. Town University is a synonym for the institution where I attended where I learned that it is necessary to make use of campus resources, such as the tutoring center and consulting with your peers on campus. You have to learn about the departmental culture. What does that departmental culture look like in terms of making friends if you're doing good work with peers? Those are a couple of things that can present challenges for African American women in STEM.”
 
S: “There's so much information thrown at you in a STEM major right off the bat. And it can be really difficult especially with some of those auxiliary time-consuming tasks, such as attending office hours and tutoring.
 
EM: “Exactly. Relationship building was so important. African American women told me the professors tell you ‘come to my office,’ but then sometimes they went to office hours and the professors were not available. In my study, they really stressed going to office hours because that's where they built a relationship with their professors and/or their teaching assistants.”
 
S: How has your own research background in educational policy helped prepare you to do the research you describe in your book?
 
EM: “Educational policy really helped me think about more of the education policies and practices and systemic issues that have pushed African American women out of STEM majors. I would also say that my qualitative research methods really helped me think about how do I tell the narratives: how do I tell the story of African American women in STEM? I believe I was prepared because of the qualitative methods that I learned at the University of Illinois where I not only had to do my major, but also had to do a methodology specialization where I did qualitative methods. I did a multiple case study and from that case study, I was able to see the differences in terms of the lived experiences of African American women in STEM and those who left STEM. I think that this background allowed me to really get at their stories, because it's important to tell their stories and to do multiple case study research methods. You really have to drill down to the oral history of it too, in terms of learning their life histories.”
 
S: What was the most surprising thing you found while doing your research?
 
EM: “The most surprising thing that I found was that hidden curriculum that created racial and gender barriers to African American women being able to pursue degrees in STEM. You just don't know because it's hidden in plain sight. Without knowing that hidden curriculum, how do you navigate it as the first person, maybe in your family, pursuing this degree? That's why I would encourage people to get the book so that they're able to understand the hidden curriculum. I'm rebuilding it openly from the stories [shared by the women in the studies] so that you can navigate through STEM majors.”
 
S: What are some possible solutions for fixing the 'push out process' African American women face while completing their STEM majors? What can universities do? Is there anything students can do themselves? 
 
EM: “I would say that there's a need for institutions to provide African American women support networks to facilitate their successes. A lot of students have to do it on their own. There's a national society for Black Engineers (NESBE). However, that's a student-led organization. It's not a faculty-led organization or a support system like the Office of Minority Student affairs. So, what I am proposing, or ‘my call to action,’ is for institutions to start to facilitate support networks. 

“Students can also find a mentor and there should be a mentorship program. However, there may be some challenges for African American women who may be looking for other African American women. They may have to get folks outside of their race and gender to mentor them. But that's okay, as long as the person advocates for African American women in STEM to earn those degrees. 

“The biggest thing to do is definitely pick up a copy of the book. Pick up a copy of the book because there's so much in there that is important for understanding the hidden curriculum. I have to piece together an education theory because we don't really have our own [separate African American women] educational theory. I had to put together these other theories from sociology and I think I did cultural capital and social capital, which focus on student support networks. Students can really be proactive and like I said, I suggest reading the book, as well as seeking out mentors, student organizations on campus, and getting involved. Even if your mentor isn't in STEM, they can still connect you to resources on or off campus. So, I think seeking out that support, especially for the first-generation STEM major, is going to be so important as you navigate through the process.” 
 
S: Research has often shown that role models and mentors are really important for helping people achieve their goals. Do you have any favorite role models, or a favorite inspiring story of someone you met while doing the research for your book?
 
EM: “Absolutely. One of my mentors is my dissertation advisor, Dr. William Trent. He's the one that really encouraged and inspired me to do a dissertation on African American women in STEM from my specialized exam, qualifying exam, I think I wrote maybe one page on the topic of African American women in STEM and it ended up as my dissertation topic. Oh, that was really inspirational! 

“And then my other mentor, Dr. Robin Jarrett, was very influential in teaching me ethnographic methods, as well as qualitative methods. Ethnography is a type of qualitative method. She taught me qualitative methods and introduced me to readings on qualitative methods and ethnic families. I learned a lot about how to study a specific culture. 

“During the process [of writing my book], I was able to meet well-known STEM scholars that gave me my endorsements. Dr. Freeman Hrabowski III is the current president of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, he gave me one of my endorsements. He’s a well-known scholar that did my half program at UMBC and made it very successful for minority students. And then Dr. Sandra Hanson, who is also a well-known STEM scholar, she wrote a book called “Swimming against the Tide: African American Girls and Science Education."It’s about African American women and girls in STEM. And then finally, Dr. Alexa Canady, who was the first African American woman neurosurgeon, wrote the foreword to my book. Everyone accepted my request to write the endorsements for the book, so that was pretty awesome in terms of meeting those new people.”
 
S: Do you have any advice for readers of this article who may be experiencing the same challenges you talk about in your book?
 
EM: “Absolutely. Seek a mentor to guide you step-by-step through the process and provide tools and resources. There are different organizations, national organizations that you can go to: the American Association for University Women, the Society of Women Engineers, and NSBE, the National Society of Black Engineers. And just a host of other national organizations. Some of those organizations have chapters, undergraduate chapters, or graduate student chapters, that you can participate on your campus. That is very important to do. Even the Scientista Foundation will be a great resource for students to get through this process. 

“So read the book to get an understanding of the experiences of African American women in STEM because it’s very comprehensive. You'll learn about the challenges, but also resources and solutions. The book is very comprehensive and inspirational, designed to encourage not only us African American women, but all women of color and first-generation college students to continue to dream on and pursue that STEM degree.
 
“I think also that it is important to establish a community in STEM. You have your STEM family and also you have your own biological family. An important finding is that African American women in STEM, they have their own kin who that supported them: African American mothers and fathers who supported their daughters. It's important to emphasize that role of family as well in STEM communities.” 
 
S: Turning research into a book is hard work. Do you have any advice for our aspiring scientist writers looking to take on a similar project?  
 
EM: “So what happened with this book is actually a little interesting. I already had two completed chapters and I had 40 pages already written because they were supposed to be in other books. But for one of the books, the [publishers] decided they didn't want [to focus on just] the undergraduate experience. It just turned out to be the academia experience. And that ended up being chapter six of this book. I reorganized the data and I turned it into a collection of horror stories. It changed to chapter six in terms of looking at that leaky pipeline and the push out process. Eventually, I reorganized my material into different sections, with additional information added later. I’m a fast writer and I was able to write it pretty much over Memorial Day weekend 2020, during the pandemic. 

“The advice that I give to people is to be persistent. If you want to write the book, write the book. Seek a mentor who has previously published a book. What I learned is a page a day, 365 days a year, is a book. It seems like that’s not a lot, but it actually is a lot. If I had to do it all over again, I probably would have published my findings earlier than I did because now STEM is so very important.
 
S: Along that line, what was the most challenging part of writing this book?
 
EM: “I found myself having to delete certain sections and having to just sort of summarize what I had said so that I'm not in breach of a copyright issue [with my earlier work]. And then also, like I said, [the content of] Chapter Six is going to be in a different book as well. So really analyzing that data and really trying to say, let's go beyond just sharing horror stories.”
 
S: What are your next steps and future plans in your professional life? What are some of the remaining unanswered questions in your field of research?

EM: “Well, some of the remaining questions in STEM is why are women and girls leaving STEM? I think that's important to do some research on. How do you prepare the next generation of women medical doctors? These are some important research questions that have been unanswered and I'd love to delve deep into. 

“What are my current opportunities? Well, I'm currently doing speaking engagements. One that I did in March was called “Dream through STEAAM.” STEAAM is science, technology, engineering, architecture, the arts and math. I also plan to continue to be an advocate for women and girls in STEM. I want to encourage them to stay in STEM and pursue their dream majors and careers. And just encouraging them for the team to dream on.”

You can learn more about Dr. Ezella McPherson by following her on Twitter or Instagram at @drloveswriting.

Rowan P. Marshall contributed reporting and conducted the interview for this article. 

Do me a favour, and type “women in STEM” in your Google search engine. Trust me, go on and do it! So, how many search results do you get? You should get hundreds of millions of results ranging from newspaper articles to government statistical reports, and I’m sure they all say the same thing: the gender gap in STEM is alive and well! The gap is larger in some fields than others, especially in engineering and in computer science. According to the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES), only 18.7% and 20.9% of undergraduate degrees in computer science and in engineering, respectively, are awarded to women.

What is Forensic Science?

When you hear the words “forensic science,” what thoughts initially come to mind? Most likely it is the glamorized depiction in mainstream media thanks to the abundance of popular true crime TV shows like CSI and Bones. Believe it or not, DNA matches are not processed in minutes (in fact, DNA processing can take over 50 hours!) and forensic scientists do not interrogate or arrest suspects. 

A more realistic perspective can be taken from the Canadian Society of Forensic Science’s definition of the field as “the application of science, and the scientific method to the judicial system.” Forensic scientists employ lab techniques such as DNA analysis, fingerprinting, and even photography to investigate the physical and material evidence at crime scenes. Forensic science is an incredibly diverse field and includes disciplines like chemistry, psychology, anthropology, toxicology, and more!

Representation Matters! 

The way forensic science is portrayed by the media might not be useful for solving any real-life crimes, but it can help us answer why women are so attracted to the grisly and gruesome world of forensic science. 
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Dr. Max Houck, a forensic expert and university professor, has attempted to identify the factors that motivate women to pursue careers in this field. Houck highlights that a major factor is the prevalence of intelligent and talented female forensic scientists on TV. Characters such as Dr. Temperance “Bones” Brennan and NCIS’s Abby Sciuto serve as role models for aspiring female scientists. Their success in this field, albeit fictional, depicts forensic science as welcoming of women. In fact, many women scientists claim to owe their decision to pursue a career in STEM due the science fiction media they were watched to while growing up. Many female television viewers are more exposed than men to the “CSI effect,” as women have been shown to watch way more true crime stories than men. 

Context Counts

Women may also be drawn more to forensic science because it’s viewed as a meaningful career that can improve society. Forensic science is often depicted as a concrete way to help others by catching the bad guy while securing justice and closure for a victim’s family. Many helping professions are female-dominated, and although there is some controversy about whether it is because women are often socialized to be more caring, contextualizing STEM fields in real life does increase women’s presence within them. Unlike other STEM fields which can seem more theoretical or isolated from society’s big social issues, forensic science has a clear altruistic purpose and is presented as connected to real-life. 

Frances Glessner Lee, the “godmother of forensic science”

We should not be too surprised that the majority of forensic scientists are women considering that it was indeed a woman who transformed the field into what it is today. Frances Glessner Lee, nicknamed the “godmother of forensic science”, had quite an unconventional path to crime scene investigation. Born to a wealthy family in 1878, she became intrigued by police investigations as an avid reader of Sherlock Holmes books. However, women were not allowed to pursue forensic science and instead she was encouraged to engage in more appropriate activities of the time, such as crafts and music. Hoping to fulfill the roles expected of her by her traditional family, she became a wife to a successful lawyer and a mother of three children. 

But things changed in 1929 when 51-year-old Lee, now divorced and retired from her business in antiques, became newly inspired while recovering from surgery. She recuperated at Mass General hospital alongside her long-time friend and a prominent medical examiner George Magrath. During their stay, Lee and Magrath had many conversations about the lack of adequate training for medical examiners and detectives who often resolved their cases based on intuition rather than crime scene evidence. Upon her release from the hospital, Lee knew she had to do something. But what could she, as a woman with no formal training in the field, do to legitimize the field?

Donations and Dioramas

First, Lee, who was incredibly wealthy, chose to gift Harvard University with $250,000 (a whopping $4.6 million today!) to establish the Department of Legal Medicine with Magrath as its head. She spent long hours doing her own independent research on the field, reading hundreds of books and manuscripts and later donating over 1,000 books to create the George Burgess Magrath Library of Legal Medicine. For many years, Lee tirelessly defended the necessity of legal medicine for unbiased crime scene investigations and developed close relationships with police officers and experts in the field.

In 1943, Frances Glessner Lee became the first female captain in the New Hampshire State Police (and the first female police captain in US history!). Around this same time, she decided to use her craft-making skills to foster police officers’ investigative skills during training. She took the traditionally female pastime of dollhouse-making and gave it a macabre twist by creating 20 dioramas, each depicting a crime scene. Lee’s “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death” were based on real-life past crimes and featured an unbelievable amount of detail. From mini cigarettes and carpet cleaners to blood-stained sheets and hammers, her dollhouses had one important goal: to train future police officers to solve a crime by carefully observing the material evidence. 

In 1945, Lee first introduced her dioramas to her biannual Frances Glessner Lee Seminars on Legal Medicine. These week-long seminars were opportunities for forensic experts and police detectives from all over the country to network and share their knowledge, and later undergo a training exercise using the dioramas. Each participant was given 90 minutes to study each dollhouse, and had access to a flashlight, a magnifying glass, case notes, and witness statements. Lee’s Nutshell Studies were used to train detectives even years after her death in 1962. Today, despite the dissolution of Harvard’s Department of Legal Medicine, her dioramas are still employed as a training tool and reside in Maryland at the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner. 

Applying Lessons Learned from Forensic Science 

​The increased presence of women in the field of forensic science proves that there are ways to make STEM fields, including engineering and computer science, more inclusive and welcoming of women. The representation of real (and even fictional!) women in STEM is crucial to filling the gender gap – after all you can’t be what you can’t see. Additionally, let’s not forget that an approach to STEM that connects learning to real-life issues attracts and keeps women in STEM. Watching reruns of CSI and Bones might be a guilty pleasure for some viewers, but there’s a valuable lesson in repeating the message that women can and do belong in science.

Want to see Frances Glessner Lee’s dollhouses for yourself? 
​

• Test your own crime-solving skills & visit https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/nutshells or http://deathindiorama.com/explore.html 

Check out other influential women in forensic science!

• Clea Koff, a forensic anthropologist known as the “Bone Woman”: http://www.cleakoff.com/ 

 

• Laura Pettler, a forensic criminologist and a specialist in domestic violence homicides: http://laurapettler.com/ 

 

• Porntip Rojanasunan, or Dr. Death, Thailand’s most prominent forensic pathologist and a human rights activist.

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• Kathy Reichs, a forensic anthropologist and best-selling author whose books inspired the hit TV show ‘Bones’: https://kathyreichs.com/ ​

The year 2020 marks the 120th year of the globally acclaimed Nobel Prizes. This October was slightly different because we were recognizing the most important scientific discoveries and inventions at the same time that we were also experiencing the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic. While cures to major diseases like coronavirus and the flu remain elusive, the vaccines under trial may be future candidates for the Nobel prize. Here’s hoping that at this time next year we will be celebrating new breakthroughs in medicine that uphold Alfred Nobel’s mission to reward discoveries that help humankind.  ​

To complement two earlier articles focusing on gender bias and overall trends in the Nobel Prizes, this article takes a more holistic view of the Nobel Prizes, with a focus on gender disparity in Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine/Physiology (PCM), and how the awards have changed over time. There are encouraging signs of a more welcoming attitude change and mindset and a growing number of women scientists making headway in the male dominated PCM fields. The number of women PCM Laureates in the first two decades of this century has already surpassed the number of women PCM Laureates in the first 100 years of Nobel history.

I start with duly acknowledging the 2020 Nobel recipients and why this is a historic year for women Nobel Laureates in PCM. It is followed with a discussion about the ever-present gender gap in Nobel awards in PCM and how it is perpetuated by a growing trend in which the Nobel prize is shared among 2-3 scientists. When possible, I compare the gender gap in PCM with other awards in Social sciences and Humanities (Economics, Peace, and Literature, aka EPL). Finally, I conclude with evidence showing incremental progress has been made to close the gender gap and I describe efforts made by Nobel leadership to increase diversity among prize winners. Supporting efforts like these will be essential for improving diversity in scientific thought and invention at all levels of research.

The Nobel Prizes in 2020

The 2020 PCM Nobel prizes acknowledged and celebrated a total of 8 scientists, including 3 women. Each disciplinary Nobel in PCM was shared by multiple scientists: three in Physics, two in Chemistry, and three in Medicine/Physiology, following the new trend in which the Nobel has become a shared prize. In contrast to PCM, the 2020 EPL Prizes were awarded to 3 individuals, including the sole female (Louise Gluck) in Literature.
 
The addition of these three female winners in PCM increased the number of women Nobel winners in this field by 38% (from 8 to 11). One of these women, Andrea Ghez, received the Physics award only two years after Donna Strickland won the same award in 2018. In addition to awards won by Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963, Ghez is only the fourth women to join the Physics Nobel ranks. She was part of a team of 3 physicists recognized "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy," commonly referred to as the formation of black holes. As a physicist myself, I was overjoyed and pleasantly surprised that Ghez received the Nobel in Physics, as I had articulated the urgent need to nominate more women physicists in a 2018 article : “Wanted: More Nobel Prizes for Women Physicists.”
 
2020 was also the first time ever that two women, Jennifer Doudna and Emmanuelle Charpentier jointly shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for “the development of a method for genome editing." Commonly known as CRISPR-Cas9, this method is a revolutionary gene-editing tool that allows scientists to rewrite DNA and change the code of life over the course of a few weeks. “There is enormous power in this genetic tool, which affects us all. It has not only revolutionized basic science, but also resulted in innovative crops and will lead to ground-breaking new medical treatments,” says Claes Gustafsson, chair of the Nobel Committee for Chemistry. A similar event had occurred only once before in 2009 when two women shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology/Medicine.

In recent years, the Nobel Foundation’s leaders, like secretary-general of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences Göran Hansson, are beginning to pay attention and discuss diversity in the Nobel prizes. Under Hansson’s leadership, appropriate measures are already underway to decrease the gender gap and increase both geographic and racial diversity. However, there is still a long way to go towards achieving diversity and gender balance, and we must continue to advocate for these changes.  

Closing the Gender Gap

The continuing gender gap in the sciences is one of the most discussed issues at all levels in academia. The Nobel Prizes to women in PCM are representative of this disparity. Since its inception, 601 men and 23 women (including Marie Curie who won the Nobel twice in 1903 and 1911) have received the PCM awards. This accounts for merely 3.69% women of all Nobel Laureates in 120 years. To put it differently, for every year a man has won the Nobel, a woman received the award once every 5 years. Averaging out the awards over time, however, ignores that most of these awards to women have only happened in recent history. This is clearly shown in Figure 1 which charts the number of women Laureates in PCM (and EPL, for comparison) every twenty years.

New efforts recognizing the need to bridge the gender gap across scientific fields may give us reason to remain optimistic. Luis Echegoyen, the President of the American Chemical Society, said, “For too long, many discoveries made by women have been underplayed and they have simply not been recognized.” Similarly, Michael Maloney, CEO of the American Institute of Physics, noted, “We have a long way to go yet to achieve gender equity in physics and a longer path yet to achieve true inclusivity and belonging in our field.” 

Working to acknowledge the scientific accomplishments of women scientists begins much earlier than at the Nobel prize stage, however. The stark reality of academic gender disparity is visible during tenure and promotion decisions; it permeates through most salutary awards/recognitions in later academic career stages as well.

As a comparison, women Nobel winners in the EPL fields (Figure 1) have outnumbered women Nobel winners in the PCM fields almost by a factor of two (19 versus 10) between 1901-2000. However, that gap between EPL and PCM awards may be decreasing, according to data from the most recent 20 years (12 in PCM versus 16 in EPL).

The gender disparity also shows up in the number of women who receive the award individually compared with those share the award with men. In PCM, 147 men received the Nobel Prize individually, but only 3 women received that sole distinction in the past 120 years: Marie Curie (1911) in Physics, Dorothy Hodgkin (1964) in Chemistry, and Barbara McClintock (1983) in Medicine. Does this mean that standards for judging the quality and merits of female scientists’ research differ from those used to evaluate men in the male dominated PCM disciplines? Our collective objective should be to ensure that gender bias is not the reason for this outcome. We must continue to ask why there are fewer individual women Laureates and why most of these women share the prize with men. 

The Sharing of Nobel Prizes

Each Nobel Prize in PCM is often shared by two or three people, likely due to the rise in complex and collaborative science. Currently, there is a cap on the award being shared by more than three scientists. 

As seen in Figure 2, the number of individual awards has steeply declined from 143 in the 1900s to only 5 individual prizes in the past 20 years (note that in some years, no Nobels were awarded due to World Wars or other unavoidable reasons). Awards shared by two people have also declined in recent history, while awards shared by three people have rapidly increased.

In contrast to the PCM fields, the cumulative EPL Prizes (not shown) are still dominated by sole recipients. The Peace Prize was given to 69 individuals versus 32 shared awards. Literature is almost always awarded to an individual (109) than shared by a group (4). We are likely to see more shared Prizes in EPL, however, largely driven by Economics which has an almost equal split between individual (25) and shared (27) prizes. Like PCM, Economics is more of a quantitative discipline necessitating greater collaboration.
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The Fractional Contribution (FC)

The Nobel prize is not always shared equally between scientists who win a shared award. Fractional contribution refers to the monetary value assigned by the Nobel Committee based on an individual scientist's contribution to the group's work. It is important to consider Fractional Contribution (FC) when evaluating gender disparity in the Nobel Prizes because even though more women may be nominated, they may be recognized for contributing less to the award than their male counterparts. Improving gender disparity among Nobel Winners must involve both nominating women and ensuring that their share of the Nobel is awarded based on merit, and not historical biases.

When taking fractional contributions into account, the numerical ratio of men to women awardees goes from 3.69% to 3.09%. I added up the relative contributions awarded to each male and female scientist in PCM awards shared by both men and women, and translated it into a total cumulative award number. This resulted in 326 awards given to men and 10.4 awards given to women, as shown in Figure 3. The ratio of fractional contributions (326/10.4) is 3.09%, which is 0.6% lower than the ratio of total prize recipients (601/23) at 3.69%. In other words, men receive 54% of the credit on average for each shared Nobel, while women typically receive 45%. While the Nobel Committees quantify the relative scientific contributions of each award recipient when recommending unequal splitting of the prize money, it is important to ensure that this disparity is not unconsciously motivated by historical gender bias. 

Concluding Remarks and Recommendations

The total number of women Nobel recipients in the last 20 years is significant because it exceeds the total number of women Nobel winners in the entire 20th century, suggesting that efforts to close the gender gap are on the right path. This appears to be the case as a result of numerous statements from the Nobel leadership acknowledging the need to improve gender disparity among award winners. The media’s involvement in bringing attention to gender-bias in the Nobel awards has also helped raise awareness about inequality in academia and help accelerate this much-desired cultural shift.

We close with a few final recommendations for next steps to improve equality and diversity among Nobel prize winners:
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• Nominate more women for their exemplary work in all fields of Nobel Prizes. This point has been made by many people, including Hansson who noted, “We realize that the Nobel laureates become role models, and it’s important to have role models who are women and from diverse ethnicities.” He went on to remind us, “the most important changes must take place in schools and universities: women must be encouraged to study sciences and be given equal opportunities throughout their careers in academia.”

• Advocate for more women members joining the respective Nobel Committees, the National Academies, and other high-ranking organizations worldwide. This will meet the societal need of gender equality at large and bring well-rounded perspectives to decision-making groups that affect diverse audiences.

• Include a designated individual on each Nobel committee to ensure that the exemplary achievements of women candidates are duly discussed without historical biases and/or pitting them against deserving men. This independent rapporteur should be tasked with (a) raising questions when any bias (gender, racial, geographical, or in any other form) is perceived and (b) document it for increased transparency in the form of an assurance that fractional contributions are objective and bias-free, within the bounds of the Nobel committees’ confidentiality rules. This may entail removing fractional contributions altogether and ranking all scientists’ work as equal. In my opinion, ranking research contributions at this stage is prone to be very subjective and even questionable due to the lack of expertise among committee members in a particular sub-field. The process will be much more fair if the Nobel Committee deliberations are limited to identifying the top contributors to a discovery, without bringing in the slightest perception of bias.

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• ​Raise the three-person cap on shared awards. Scientific research is becoming more complex, costly, and collaborative. Limiting recipients on a single innovation or discovery to only 3 individuals may unfairly discredit other scientists, both male and female, who have made equal or substantial contributions.

Finally, it is important to note that gender disparity is not the only issue affecting diversity among Nobel prize winners. There is a biased geographical distribution of Nobel Laureates, which may reflect some scientists’ ability and choice to immigrate to countries with greater funding for scientific endeavors. Removing the three-person cap and recognizing the diverse ways in which scientific collaboration occurs today will also help reduce bias against scientists limited by their country’s resources. 

​What does folding paper and designing a space rocket have in common? Quite a lot, according to Allison Redderson-Lear, Staff Engineer at Saratech. “Origami became one of the vectors that drew me to engineering,” says Allison. “Not only is it something that combines art and geometry, but lots of things can fold, not just paper — solar panels on satellites, medical devices, and even proteins.”

When Sophie Hollingsworth was 16 years old, her mother encouraged her to get a job – even though all she wanted to do was travel and explore.

“After a lot of rejections, I got a job as a cleaning lady working on a yacht in Puerto Rico,” Sophie explains. “It was not glamorous by any stretch of the imagination, but I was able to make money and see the world. Slowly, I climbed the ranks from cleaning lady to captain and had the opportunity to sail across oceans and travel all around the Caribbean, Central America and the South Pacific. Those experiences laid the groundwork for everything I do today.”

It would be impossible to pin down Sophie’s interests to a single career– the former ballerina founded AquaAid International, an organization that provides sustainable sources of water for villages in Central America and Sub-Sarahan Africa. At a time when even the most remote parts of the world seem to have been mapped by satellites, Sophie embodies the true meaning of a modern explorer. She was recognized as such with a new award by The Explorers Club in 2017.

What you don’t see on Sophie’s blog (The Sofia Log), or on the social media accounts of other field scientists and explorers, is the planning and funding required for expeditions. Much like exotic vacations, global exploration comes with expenses. When planning her research trip to the remote archipelago of Vanuatu, Sophie sought out support from a variety of organizations. This was her introduction to WINGS WorldQuest, a non-profit that supports and recognizes extraordinary women in science and exploration. Since its founding in 2003, WINGS has provided over $635,000 in research and field funding for over 120 female explorers around the world. With many grant-giving organizations limiting the uses of their funds, WINGS is unique in that its Women of Discovery grants are completely unrestricted. The women who receive these awards are able to direct the funds to support their greatest needs at the time. One of WINGS’ flagship programs is its Flag Carrier program, which provides a grant to field researchers for expeditions. When Sophie and her team carried the WINGS Flag to Vanuatu in 2016 to study and promote advocacy for the country’s few female chiefs, she did not know the impact this organization would have on her accelerating career as a young explorer.  
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Science and Non-profit organizations
WINGS, like many similar organizations, offers more than an arms-length financial relationship with active researchers. The variety of roles required to run a science-based non-profit often leads to a more diverse working group than in traditional scientific disciplines; scientists collaborate with people who hold liberal arts degrees, united by a mutual appreciation for the non-profit’s objective. A sampling of WINGS’ Board of Directors includes a filmmaker, an environmental consultant, a polar explorer, and several artists.

Today, more PhDs are viewing non-profit work as an alternative career path to academia. The non-profit sector is the third largest employer in the U.S. More than half of non-profits are in the healthcare industry – a huge potential landing pad for life science students finishing graduate school. Other scientists use their problem-solving skills to start their own organizations, lend their time and expertise as part-time consultants, or work remotely for online publications.  

In a Naturejobs article, Julie Gould summarizes, “Roles for scientists in the non-profit sector are as diverse as the types of organizations that exist in it. Scientists might, for example, do bench research, manage large-scale community projects, work with disease-advocacy groups or become science communicators at professional societies.”
 
A Fresh Perspective
The number of non-profits is also on the rise, as younger people seem to be joining and initiating organizations as a means of filling a new niche, solving a new problem, or escaping the bureaucracy and stagnancy of more established groups.  

The same year that Sophie became a WINGS Flag carrier, Kimi Goldstein, an NYC-based young professional with a degree in biomedical engineering, attended WINGS’ Women of Discovery Awards Gala and was inspired to help the organization expand. She inquired about starting a Junior Board to supplement the Board of Directors. Her proposal was approved by the Board and only two years later, the Junior Council has grown to include eight women aged 35 and younger who are equally passionate about supporting the mission of WINGS.

“Having led numerous organizations when I was in school, I was eager to find an opportunity outside my job to support a cause that was meaningful to me personally,” says Kimi who currently serves as the council’s Co-Chair. “I’ve been interested in science and exploration my whole life and having faced some of the barriers to entry and success for women in STEM in college, I know how important it is for women scientists and explorers to have support and recognition.”
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The Junior Council works closely with the Board on several of their major initiatives, such as the Women of Discovery Awards and various flash campaigns, but they also seek to bring a different perspective to the organization. The council aims to reach a younger demographic by hosting events and developing communications to help young women learn about careers in the field sciences, leveraging the Fellows and Flag Carriers as role models. “Through fundraising and the growth of the Junior Council, we hope to expand the reach of WINGS and enable more extraordinary women in science and exploration to do their work and make the discoveries they do,” says Kimi.

Skill Building
Fundraising is key to the future growth of WINGS. The organization is supported by donations and grants from individuals and foundations, and raised through a variety of channels, including events such as Explorers’ Talks, campaigns, and the annual Women of Discovery Awards event. WINGS also has an active social media presence and shares content across multiple media platforms: the WINGS blog, newsletters, and Flag Carrier Reports, which document the explorations of the WINGS Flag Carriers.

Scientists interested in pursuing a career in non-profit work may find their grant writing skills to be in extremely high demand in this sector. Previous volunteer work and internships also demonstrate to prospective employers that a scientist is well-rounded and interested in giving back to the community.
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Joanna Stone, a member of the Junior Council, cites three very different experiences that helped prepare her to succeed with WINGS: serving as a Board Member for the March of Dimes Houston Chapter, running her own business, Barre Vida, and creating a new Global Connections program as a graduate student. “As the chair [of Global Connections], I learned how to work with the other departments on campus to hold and sponsor events with a very limited budget,” she said. “All of these experiences have helped me to take initiative on WINGS Junior Council projects that require networking, negotiating, planning, organizing, and leadership skills.”

Non-Profit vs. For-Profit
While working at a non-profit may allow for greater freedom away from the lab bench, it has its own challenges like any business.

Students looking to leave the student lifestyle behind may feel frustrated that many non-profit positions are listed as volunteer or internships only. However, the opportunity may be worth the time investment or a second job for several reasons.

“As a volunteer at a non-profit, there are ample ways to have an impact and make connections,” says WINGS Junior Council Co-Chair Laura Hellman. “There are almost always ways that you can take on responsibility, show you care about the mission of the organization, and are willing to put in effort to help out the rest of the team.”

It may be possible to leverage a volunteer position into employment, even if it’s outside the group. “You should take the opportunity to get to know people throughout the organization as you volunteer or intern - chances are, there are teams looking to grow in number or replace positions somewhere in the organization,” Laura recommends. 

A major critique of non-profits is their vulnerability to economic change and the instability that results from relying on a donation-based business model. While this is true for some organizations, a majority of non-profits raise funds through multiple outlets, such as charging fees for services. 
 
“While work at non-profits get attention for its challenges (typically a lower salary), this not a new problem and does not need to be a gating issue,” says Laura. “The gratification of working every day to drive a mission you’re passionate about could very well more than make up for the incremental loss of salary (and a number of for-profit jobs don’t necessarily offer a meaningfully higher salary, anyways).”

“Beyond this, work in a non-profit vs. for-profit business may be less different than you might think. Every job has responsibilities, involves teamwork and has a full range of roles that need to be filled by hardworking, driven members of the organization,” she says. “In a non-profit, though, you get the added benefit of knowing your organizational goals are more meaningful to your coworkers and to your broader community.”
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Forging Connections
The most rewarding aspects of working in a non-profit that outshine any of the challenges appears to be a sense of purpose and the network and connections forged among the community.

Laura describes her work with WINGS: “I find it very gratifying to be able to meaningfullly support women and encourage their success. Beyond the rewarding aspects of positively impacting women’s achievements in science and exploration, being involved with WINGS, and specifically the Junior Council, allows me to connect with like-minded women and work towards shared goals. There are considerable opportunities to bring ideas to the table and drive the organization forward, which is motivating and exciting!”

Sophie Hollingsworth, who now serves as the Junior Council’s Explorer in Residence, praised the non-profit’s network as being beneficial for the explorers as well. “Being a part of the WINGS community has provided unparalleled camaraderie with a group of women in the science and exploration fields,” she said. “In my everyday work, I rarely come across fellow women in the field and often feel like an alien when I discuss my work with people. That is not the case with WINGS. At WINGS I am normal, I am surrounded by women in similar fields, and we all support each other towards our dreams.”

Whether or not non-profit work is in your future – as a volunteer, employee, sponsor or explorer – the growth of alternative career options presents exciting opportunities that expand available job offerings today.   

“Not everyone has to have a linear career path,” says Sophie. “There is a danger in thinking that we must follow one career track that we choose at the age of 18. Such a single-minded focus leaves us with blinders that limits us from seeing all of the opportunities that life presents.”
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When asked about what her own career goals, Sophie said she would like to use exploration to help achieve a more sustainable and equitable future and to be happy. “Under that plan there are a plethora of tracks that require a lot of pivoting and stepping out of my comfort zone to achieve. But life is too short to do anything less than what you are passionate about.”  

​About the Author
Lauren is the Editor-in-Chief of the Scientista Foundation and a graduate student at Michigan State University studying the behavior and physiology of electric fish. Since obtaining her B.A. in biology from Vanderbilt University, she worked on several wildlife research projects throughout North and South America. She is excited to work with Scientista to increase accessibility to research and expand outreach efforts geared for women in STEM. Her experience in science writing includes an internship with publisher John Wiley & Sons Inc., working as science editor for the Vanderbilt McLaughlin neurology lab, and serving on the staff of her university’s newspaper. In her free time, Lauren enjoys wildlife photography, kayaking, and dance.

If the entirety of life is a journey of learning, then childhood is the first step, building the foundations for a lifetime. Isn’t childhood such a special time for learning, free of responsibilities and pressures, when one could have the freedom to learn what they want through toys? That’s the way it should be, and yet that is not the way it is. Children are socially pressured to play with toys that are branded to be “right” for them. Just walk into any toy store and you can see a clear divergence of toys marketed specifically for girls and boys. The “girl” toy aisle is a case of pink-itis, full of dolls and princesses that can foster empathy and kindness but largely focus on beauty and appearance: 
 

And there is the aisle for meant for boys. Full of construction sets and train tracks and other gizmos that foster a child’s spatial reasoning and tactile abilities.

This division of toys creates cages that toy companies have carefully curated, and can often lead to children not feeling comfortable to explore whatever they want. While young boys may learn empathy from their friend groups, it can feel as if there are not a lot of options geared towards young girls interested in science and technology. They can start to distance themselves from engineering even before having the chance to learn about it. Of course, the toys one plays with at a young age does not dictate what career path they will choose; there are plenty of women in STEM who played with dolls as little girls.  Still, the lack of many toy options can alienate girls from STEM who would otherwise never have engaging exposure to these fields, such as in families with parents from non-STEM backgrounds, where toys can serve as avenues to discover new career possibilities. Boys are able to explore the engineering process in fun exciting ways, and the divergence in the toy market not only limits girls, but builds prejudices of girls being capable of only certain tasks. Why should only half of the next generation’s population be free to explore STEM fields freely, without feeling out of place, when our world is increasingly being impacted by such disciplines?
 
While there isn’t a clear correlation between what one plays with as a child and what one does in their career, we’ve already seen how gendered marketing can play a factor in keeping women out of important fields. It’s important to appreciate that the first computer scientists and engineers were women, like Ada Lovelace, who saw math and science as forms of art, and developed the vision of the modern computer in the 19th century. Or even in the mid to late 1900s, African-American women like Dorothy Vaughan, Mary Jackson, and Katherine Johnson (the Hidden Figures) worked at Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory and were crucial to the US winning the Space Race. In fact, the first computer programmers were women, and the number of women in computer science grew significantly in the 1970s. But then, around the mid-1980s, female computer science majors started to plummet in percentage. There are several nuances to take into consideration for why this happened, but the mid-1980s was also when personal computers started making their way into homes. At first, computers were used predominantly for games, which were marketed towards boys, wherein computer-genius boy characters solved tough challenges, while girl characters were unimportant and petty. These kinds of games alienated girls from computers, and later, from computer science programs. College professors assumed, since personal computers were gaining traction that their students knew how to operate PCs. Female students, who were alienated due to gendered computer marketing at home, were overshadowed by male students in computer classes, since the men had played with computers all their lives.

This was the case among female computer science students at Harvey Mudd College.  Harvey Mudd had to create separate introductory classes for students with no prior experiences at all to get more women into the computer science program. As much as this is a useful remedy now, we should not have to repeat this division in the future just for female students. Society should grow beyond typecasting certain skills to certain demographics, allowing anyone to learn anything at any age. This is imperative to building a world that values merit, and that truly celebrates it, from wherever or whomever it may come from.
 
One company today that is making it easier for young girls to explore engineering, an area girls’ toys have historically stayed away from, is led by Debbie Sterling. Her toy company, GoldieBlox, is changing the conversation from intimidation to inspiration for girls in STEM.
When Sterling was admitted into Stanford, her high school math teacher suggested that she look into engineering. Growing up, Sterling wasn’t aware of the field, and didn’t believe it was for her, but once she gave it a go, she ended up graduating with a degree in mechanical engineering. But all throughout, Debbie Sterling encountered a phenomenon: there were only a few girls in her engineering classes.
 
Tracing the lack of representation back to early childhood and the toy industry, Debbie Sterling launched GoldieBlox, a multimedia company producing toys and content to introduce girls to STEM. Even in the face of skepticism from the toy industry, GoldieBlox has flourished and created a movement to support and encourage girls in STEM. The toy sets come with stories in which a confident and optimistic girl, Goldie, solves challenges by building machines.

Each toy is built around a story which helps to create a more immersive adventure. Characters like Goldie and her many friends solving engineering challenges become role models for children. As Debbie Sterling explains, Goldie is not perfect and  does not use the label genius to describe herself. Instead, she learns from her mistakes and persists through them. For example, in one adventure, Goldie and her friends build a movie projector when the local film festival is having trouble. Children read the story and then can build their own projector, with an app to personalize their projector and bring their creation to life.

GoldieBlox and the Movie Machine
 
More importantly, the stories that serve as backdrops for the projects show how concepts in engineering can be applicable to real-life. Young children can find the joy of building everyday objects like dunk tanks and ziplines and parade floats an element of familiarity that makes engineering more approachable and less intimidating. This friendly approach to engineering has led boys to enjoy GoldieBlox toys as well, and characters like Goldie show them that girls are just as capable of solving problems as they are.
 
GoldieBlox also released a Super Bowl commercial, a social media campaign called #BeLikeHer, and Girl Scout badges for STEM achievements. The brand has become a favorite among girls and boys; thus unifying engineering to something girls and boys can approach and enjoy.

We need to build an environment where any child can walk into a toy store and choose any toy they want as an implement of learning. That said, making toys more open for all children is only one piece of the puzzle of making STEM fields more accepting of more people. Today, only 20% of jobs in technology are held by women. You may have heard of the grueling work-life mix at top tech jobs, how it is an ‘all-boys club’, or how awkward it can be for a woman when she is the only one in the room. The women who have made it are true superheroes, but there is no denying that they have made it despite the culture around STEM, and not because of it. We still need to change the current climate of STEM jobs so once a woman enters the field, she is supported instead of being suppressed or undermined. Our world is going to be increasingly run by computers, and the more voices are heard in STEM fields, the more responsible we will be as a civilization in the use and development of our technology. And freedom in the toy store to empower more voices from the start will help build the ‘blox’ for such a sustainable future.
 
 
References & Further Reading:
 
Gross, Elana Lyn. “How The Founder Of GoldieBlox Is Creating The Next Generation Of Women In STEM.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 28 Nov. 2017, www.forbes.com/sites/elanagross/2017/10/11/how-the-founder-of-goldieblox-is-creating-the-next-generation-of-women-in-stem/#2c9a34a14e13.

Lindzon, Jared. “YouTube Is Shaping Your Child's Career Ambitions More Than You Are.” Fast Company, Fast Company, 12 Jan. 2018, www.fastcompany.com/40515941/youtube-is-shaping-your-childs-career-ambitions-more-than-you-are.

Mason, Heather. “Meet Smart Girl Debbie Sterling, Founder and CEO of GoldieBlox.” Amy Poehler's Smart Girls, Amy Poehler's Smart Girls, 29 June 2017, amysmartgirls.com/meet-smart-girl-debbie-sterling-founder-and-ceo-of-goldieblox-103fc961ae37.

Sterling, Debbie. “How I Moved from Fearing My Dream Career to Jumping for It.” Thrive Global, Thrive Global, 11 Jan. 2018, www.thriveglobal.com/stories/20754-how-i-moved-from-fearing-my-dream-career-to-jumping-for-it.

Sydell, Laura. “Colleges Have Increased Women Computer Science Majors: What Can Google Learn?” NPR, NPR, 10 Aug. 2017, www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2017/08/10/542638758/colleges-have-increased-women-computer-science-majors-what-can-google-learn.

The gender disparity among Nobel Prizes is highlighted by the award announcement’s timing at the start of a month dedicated to celebrating women in science. October 10th is Ada Lovelace Day, an international celebration aimed at supporting women in STEM, and October 11 is the International Day of the girl – a United Nations effort to empower girls around the world, many of whom will become future scientists and engineers. One of the consequences of the continued Nobel gender gap is that there are fewer role models to showcase how far women can excel in a science career.

When Alfred Nobel set the rules for the Prize in the late 1800s, he stated “It is my express wish that when awarding the prizes, no consideration be given to nationality, but that the prize be awarded to the worthiest person, whether or not they are Scandinavian.” Male dominance was inherent to the culture at the time and thus it is perhaps expected that there was no stipulation for gender parity. Nobel would not have been able to predict that the awards would become the “white” men’s refuge, as if women and “non-whites” were not as welcome, even when advancements in gender and racial inequities were made at other levels in the sciences. However, the discussion of racial disparity among the Nobel landscape deserves its own dedicated time and place.

Several questions must be answered in order to identify the root cause and develop a remedy for this situation. Is science itself sexist? Is there a gender bias among the nominators and members of the committees at various steps of selection for the Nobles? Is there a leaky pipeline leading to fewer women studying science and fewer women scientists deserving of the prize? While the gender gap is shrinking, the culture and climate in academia is slow to change. A recent publication by the National Academy of Science highlights the issue in detail. The question we must ask is how we can accelerate the cultural shift to affect a reduced gender gap in the Nobel space. The 21st century world will be better served with women scientists getting due recognition at all levels, including Nobels. Our progress in technology and innovation may be thwarted without an equitable representation of women in STEM.

The Leaky Pipeline: Undoubtedly, we have made gains in attracting more women in STEM, as seen by headlines in 2016 such as, “ Women break barriers in engineering and computer science at some top colleges.” However, the numbers drop at each career stage; fewer women complete their Ph.D. in STEM areas, and still fewer of them are hired as faculty. A recent study titled “The Prestige Gap” suggests that men are overrepresented in elite Ph.D. programs, especially in math heavy fields. It appears that many women self-select themselves out of the equation because of self-assessed ability, the environment within the program being unfriendly or unsupportive, and a culture which leads to many more women than men developing a fear of failure that prevents career advancement. This leads to further reduction of women in STEM at elite institutions, which are known to produce Nobel laureates.

Many male-dominated institutions retain a culture that is a hold-out from before the 21st century, in which women continue to face challenges in being recognized and promoted at the workplace. Talking about the challenges in academia, one must wonder why the newest woman physics Nobel laureate, Strickland (at age 59), remains an associate professor (not yet promoted to full professor) after decades of research and teaching. Male chauvinism is clearly alive and well in a recent statement made by a senior scientist (Alessandro Strumia), “physics was invented and built by men." He went so far as to say that physics was "becoming sexist against men." Damaging beliefs held by people like Strumia only serve to widen the gender gap in STEM disciplines.

The Historical Bias and Madame Curie: Any discussion of why we have so few women Nobel scientists must begin with Madame Curie, the first woman ever to pierce the “diamond” ceiling of the Nobel prize as early as 1903 - although not without hiccups. Today, she is the only person (not just as a woman) to hold the distinction of being awarded two Nobel Prizes; physics in 1903 and chemistry in 1911. While we must celebrate every Nobel Laureate as a great role model, Curie is a mentor par excellence.

In an extraordinary gesture, Curie delayed her own studies to let her sister complete a degree in medicine. Additional sacrifices highlight her dedication to her work and also serve as a testament to how deeply rooted the “bias” against women may have been in the early 1900s. For example, she worked shoulder to shoulder with her husband Pierre Curie, and yet the French Academy of Science (FAS) did not include her name in the initial Nobel nomination in 1902. If Nobel Committee member and mathematician Magnus Goesta Mittag-Leffler did not intervene as an advocate for women scientists, history would have been very different. She informed Pierre about the situation and he, in turn, wrote to the Nobel Committee, “A Nobel Prize for research in radioactivity that failed to acknowledge Marie's pivotal role would be a travesty.”

Unfortunately, the Nobel award did not end all bias against Curie. The FAS later voted against Curie’s induction in FAS (by two votes) for fear of her breaking up their “men’s club.” It took until 1962 for Yvonne Choquet-Bruhat, a former student of Marie Curie, to become the first woman elected to the FAS. Curie’s personal life was also subject to intense scrutiny. A media circus attacked Curie and her daughters at their home when news leaked of her alleged involvement with physicist Paul Langevin, one of her husband’s former students, four years after her husband’s death. The Polish-born Curie was accused of home-wrecking a French family, which fed into xenophobic tensions of the time. There are certainly many situations today that show that this behavior continues; the media lens is often hyper-focused on the women named in the situation, no matter their culpability.

Despite all the odds and turbulence in her personal and professional life at this time, Curie won the second Nobel in Chemistry in 1911. She mentored her daughter Irène Joliot-Curie, who also received the Nobel in Chemistry (alongside her own husband) in 1935. The family dynasty of Curie has the distinction of holding 5 Nobel medals in total. This mother-daughter pair were the only women scientists in the Nobel space until 1947, when the first American, Gerty Theresa Cori, received the Nobel in Medicine.

A woman of extraordinary talent, courage, and perseverance, Curie opened doors for other women because of her many accomplishments. However, the progress since then has been painfully slow and the gender bias is still pervasive.

The Deserving Women Deemed Unworthy of the Nobel: It is hard to quantify the number of women of extraordinary talent that may have been overlooked by the Nobel committee. However, science historians and fellow scientists have made no secret that dozens, if not hundreds, of women contributed to the discoveries and research for the betterment of mankind. Due to a confidentiality agreement in which nomination data is kept secret for 50 years, it will be a long time until we know how many and how frequently women were nominated for the prize. Some scientists, however, have slipped through the cracks and entered the sphere of public knowledge:

a) Physics: The physics community will forever miss people like Mildred Dressehaus (died 2017), rightfully dubbed as the Queen of Carbon. Her research work inspired two other Nobel prizes- 1996 Chemistry and 2010 Physics, but possibly her nominator(s) and/or the Prize awarders were not inspired enough to make her a Laureate. Vera Rubin’s (died 2016) pioneering work on the theory of dark matter was overlooked while the 2011 Nobel Prizes honored three men instead. Likewise, Chien-Shiung Wu’s (died 1997) experimental work led to her exclusion from the 1957 Nobel Prize, awarded to two men. A retired UCLA physicist Nina Byers called Wu’s absence from the 1957 Nobel, “outrageous” and the science historian at Brandeis, Pnina Abir-Am, did not mince words when she suggested that Wu’s ethnicity also played a role. How unfortunate that these extraordinarily talented women are now part of “unrealized” Nobel history.

b) Chemistry: Katherine Blodgett is known to have worked very closely with her mentor Irving Langmuir on single molecule surface layers. However, only Langmuir received the Nobel in 1932 and Blodgett was never nominated for the honor. Their joint surface layer research, commonly known as Langmuir-Blodgett films, is part of this author’s professional history and the key focus of his dissertation. Another notable scientist, Lise Meitner, was nominated 48 times for the Nobel (19 times for chemistry from1924-1948 and 29 times for physics from1937-1965) for her work on nuclear fission of uranium. Ironically, her work was never acknowledged by the committee during all those years, while her collaborator Otto Hahn was awarded the 1944 Nobel in chemistry.

c) Physiology or Medicine: A trailblazer for women scientists, Esther Lederberg closely worked with her husband, Joshua Lederberg, on antibiotic resistance. However, like many, she was not credited for the Nobel in Medicine with her husband in 1958, which he instead shared with two other men. Joshua acknowledged that the 1953 Eli Lilly award in Bacteriology he received should have been shared with his wife, but he chose not to mention her when he accepted the Nobel in 1958 (they remained married until 1966). A final, and well-known example is that of Rosalind Franklin, a British biophysicist who paved the way for our understanding of DNA and RNA. Later, the Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to three male scientists in 1962 but excluded Franklin. It is important to note that although Franklin died in 1958, she could have been nominated posthumously for the Nobel at that time, prior to the changes in Nobel policy in 1974.

The examples above highlight that the collaboration between men and women helped make these scientific achievements possible. Why then were only men awarded and the women unrecognized? Why were all but 4 Nobel Prizes awarded to women scientists shared with men, as if the women were not capable of recognition individually? Some of these instances can be attributed to the “Matilda Effect,” an unethical practice of ascribing women’s accomplishments to men. In other cases, these patterns may be due to plain and simple gender bias, rules that prevent no more than three people from sharing the Prize, and/or the policy that no nominations can be awarded posthumously. In my informed view, the gender bias, perceived or real, cannot be completely ruled out, but going forward it can and must be corrected.

The Student-Supervisor Collaboration: Many noteworthy outcomes in the sciences are offshoots of research conducted by graduate students under the guidance of their thesis supervisor. However, not all thesis work alone, typically limited by university mandated graduation time, leads to seminal discoveries worthy of the Nobel within a student’s tenure at that university. Such collaboration needs a special mention in light of two extraordinary occurrences in the recent weeks.

We focus on two women physicists making history in 2018. The finest example of due recognition of student-supervisor collaboration is Donna Strickland and her supervisor Gerard Mourou. They will equally share one half of the Nobel Prize money (the other half goes to Arthur Ashkin) for their seminal work on the method of generating high-intensity, ultra-short optical pulses.

The tale of British scientist, Dame Susan Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a postgraduate student at the University of Cambridge in 1967, and her supervisor, Antony Hewish, had a very different outcome. It is no secret that both scientists discovered the pulsar through a joint effort, but only Hewish shared the 1974 Nobel Prize in physics (alongside another man). This may have been due to the effects discussed above, or the fact that Burnell was a student when the pulsar was first observed, but none of these factors reduce her role in the discovery. During this time, Burnell spoke graciously and even defended the committee’s decision in earlier years. Fortunately, she did receive well-deserved recognition later in her life. Burnell was awarded the Breakthrough Prize for her crucial pulsar work, as well as her teaching and leadership in her field. Once deemed unworthy of the Nobel, Burnell now stands in the good company of Stephen Hawking, who was awarded the Breakthrough Prize in 2013. These are perhaps signs of times changing for the better.

In a generous gesture, Burnell donated the Prize money ($3 million) to fund women, under-represented ethnic minorities, and refugee students to become physics researchers. In doing so, she said, "Those are the people that tend to be discriminated against through unconscious bias so I think that's maybe one of the reasons why there aren't so many." She also went on to say, “Nobel Prizes rarely go to young people; they more often go to established people and it's at that level that there are fewer women in physics." This reflects her own past experience of being left out of the Nobel in 1974. Even in her diplomacy, she raised the critical issues of our time - the gender bias and age discrimination.
 
The Structural Issues: The continuing gender gap over the last 100 years of Nobel history must be used to learn and move forward, rather than point fingers. First, it must be the responsibility of both men and women to work on this issue, and all of us must embrace and affect structural changes.

Reportedly, Goran Hansson, the permanent secretary of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences (RSAS) admitted, “We are disappointed, looking in a larger perspective, that there aren’t more women who’ve been awarded.” In a somewhat contradictory statement, he insisted that, “there is not any substantial male chauvinism bias in the committees.” We have no reason to doubt his motives. However, reviewing the RSAS website, each Nobel Committee for Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine for 2018 includes 6 members of which 5 are men. Admittedly, having more women on the committee does not guarantee, nor should it, that more women will be awarded the Nobel based on gender alone, but this imbalance is a symptom of larger structural issues.

A recent study surveyed 63 academies around the world and found that they consisted of only 12% women on average. The FAS, which blocked Curie’s membership in 1910, has only ~8% women and RSAS, with over 600 Swedish and foreign members, has only ~13% women. Equally notable is that RSAS members vote to decide the Nobel Prize recipients in physics, chemistry, and economics each October. The U.S. National Academy of Science also only has ~13% women. These numbers beg the question - is this not a clear case of structural and global gender imbalance in the sciences?

The Recommendations: Little may change if we do nothing, but a lot can happen if we make concerted efforts in the nomination process. It is conceivable that at least one woman could receive the Nobel Prize each year in PCM. This is in part because of the increasingtrend in which the science Prizes are shared by three people (meaning a possible 9 winners each year). The recommended action items include:

1. The process of reducing the gender gap must be actively owned and tackled by the scientific community at all levels everywhere, irrespective of individuals’ own gender.

2. While the list of eligible nominators is not easily accessible without due diligence, the most obvious nominators are the current Nobel Laureates in the discipline. Ideally, the respective Nobel Committees must announce the list of eligible nominators each year before the due date for nominations.

3. All scientists must proactively recommend women scientists to Nobel Laureates in the discipline, indicating why they deserve to be nominated for the Nobel. The nominators can nominate more than one individual and a nominee can be nominated by multiple nominators. My belief is that the greater the number of nominations, the better the chance of attracting the committee’s attention. Quality is very critical, but quantity is valuable too.

4. All Nobel committees should include a fair and equitable number of men and women. Likewise, the academies worldwide, with an average of 12% women, must improve the gender ratio of their membership. The RSAS members are eligible nominators too; thus, the science community can submit the names of exemplary women to them for the Nobel Prize.

Concluding Thoughts: Obviously, we cannot reward those “missing” women with the Nobel Prize that they deserved, but together we can create a better Nobel history from now on. It would not be unthinkable, with fair representation based on merit, to recognize ~100 Nobel women scientists by 2100. It will necessitate that we nominate the most deserving scientists, and that the deciders in Sweden judge worthiness without bias.

As we recognize more women scientists, we will also acquire more role models to inspire, attract, and retain women in STEM. Up until this year, the field of physics had no living women Nobel winners and chemistry could claim one, while medicine has a slightly more respectable score of seven Nobel prizes held by women. Thankfully, 2018 has allowed us to make a move in the right direction, although we do need many more.

With numerous gender-based issues raging across media, entertainment, politics, and technology in the United States and elsewhere, the science community needs its own specific “#Me Too” movement. We must bring greater recognition towards the fact that all types of gender bias - the unconscious, unrecognized, unspoken, unwanted, and/or unintended- is totally unwarranted. Collectively, we must resolve that no more women be overlooked in history and lose their right to be duly recognized for breakthroughs that affect all of our lives.

Amidst a flurry of business cards and networking at this year’s Scientista Symposium career fair, researcher Maomao Zhang connected with Calico Labs Head of Talent Matt Valentino and took the first step towards landing a dream job.  

“We really liked her work experience and enthusiasm for what we are doing at Calico and began discussing potential roles with her about one month after the Scientista event,” said Matt. “We are grateful to Scientista for holding these networking events as without them we would not have had the opportunity to meet and get to know Maomao.”
 
Maomao, who is completing a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Cancer Biology and Genetics at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, will begin her new role at Calico this month as a Scientist in the Oncology Division. Calico is a leading research and development company that focuses on the basic biology of aging, as well as discovering and developing interventions aimed at age-related diseases such as cancer and neurodegenerative disorders.
 
Prior to the career fair, Maomao identified Calico as one of her preferred opportunities because of their commitment to high-quality scientific research. “This was further made clear to me when I spoke to Matt Valentino about the culture, resources and goals of the company. For example, Matt mentioned that the Microscopy department just built their own microscope, which I thought was awesome! Moreover, the core values of Calico--Innovation, Integrity, Courage, Accountability, Collaboration and Generosity of Spirit--greatly aligns with the type of scientist and person I strive to be.”
 
From the perspective of Calico, the symposium, which focuses on diversity within a value-driven STEM community, was an ideal pool from which to identify potential researchers with the right experience and passion for science. “Beyond that, we look for researchers who can work in ambiguity as we’re trying to answer some really lofty questions about aging, or creative and unafraid to communicate their ideas, as well as willing to take risks,” said Matt. “While all of our values are important, we look for researchers who thrive in situations where collaboration is necessary, as we believe real breakthroughs occur when great scientists, technologists and engineers collaborate openly and freely. And not just collaborate, but do so with a generosity of spirit, which means that employees strive to be kind and considerate, respecting each other’s individuality and perspectives and graciously share both ideas and credit.”
 
To make the most out of a career fair, Maomao emphasized the importance of researching the visiting companies and building confidence by practicing networking skills at as many networking events and career fairs as possible. “I prepared questions for the representatives—high-quality questions that could not be easily answered just by personal research alone. I then planned out my day and made a game plan for which tables to visit. Preparation ensured that I didn’t get overwhelmed and it gave me ample time to speak to every company I was interested in.”
 
The Scientista Symposium offers a specific opportunity for fellow women in science to network and to highlight their work experience.
 
“I really value the ability to talk to other female scientists that come from different academic and personal backgrounds to see different perspectives and gain insight into how they navigate the male-dominated STEM fields,” said Maomao.

Prospective employers and aspiring researchers will have another chance to meet at the next Scientista Symposium career fair, which will be held in Boston on March 29-31, 2019. 
 

At the 2018 Scientista Symposium, I attended the Careers in Science Communication workshop with unmitigated fascination. I have always been a nature and science film junkie, as well as an avid reader of science articles written for the general public. Growing up, I remember my parents boasting about their connection to Jane Brody, and today I continue to eagerly view programs such as Blue Planet,  SciTech Now, NOVA, and many others for information and entertainment.
 
The symposium panelists discussed the nuts and bolts of the field of science communication and their journey to make science topics accessible. It’s an important area to garner support through public education. I had the opportunity to interview one of the panel members, science filmmaker, producer, and journalist, Harriet Bailey, about how she gained entry into this competitive arena and her current role.

RK: You mentioned at the symposium that you had a background in mathematics. What propelled you to enter the field of science journalism and what was your journey?

HB: I didn’t want to be an accountant! I was coming to the end of a pure mathematics degree with finance and academia looming in my future when I went to a three-day science communication course led by Sir Robert Winston (fertility expert with the friendly moustache) which changed my life. Not to sound ancient, but science content was rarer back then and both scientists and publications were harder to access, so there was invariably a gatekeeper to newsworthy research – embargoes, press briefings, media offices – all of which are around today, but more bypassable. I chased down this media/science overlap into a Science Journalism MA at City University in London and specialized in television.

Staying relevant and on top of the latest news is vitally important in any field, especially in news. Early career freelance journalists don’t have any money (much like late career freelance journalists), so I took any opportunities to get involved in the science journalism world – filming at conferences, writing press releases, research for peoples’ PhDs. I was on the board of the Associations of British Science Writers, presenting at AGM meetings and being in the thick of email threads that gave me insight into the hierarchy and gossip of newsrooms. After graduating and through university contacts, I got a researcher position at Al Jazeera English on their environment series. The next job for a BBC show about logic was through a colleague, working at a members’ bar in Soho, London.

That’s the practical side. The philosophical journey started out by trying to convince friends of the conceptual coolness of maths. Most people think they’re no good at maths, so I would come out with tales of monstrous moonshine and weird physical manifestations of topology. I love science – it keeps me fed – but I’m always cautious to stay skeptical and not become an uncritical champion for science, something I was seeing more of on TV. One thing that is very important to me is on-screen representation. Being one of very few female maths students I was aware early on about the gender divide within science and so I do the best I can with the tools I have – by featuring as many women and scientists of colour as possible in my projects.

RK: Why did you choose film to be your medium of choice to communicate about science issues?

HB: Science, more than most topics, needs analogies and stories to be relatable. Narrative is such a powerful tool – we see it in nature documentaries where footage of animals is edited into this tale that we as humans can empathise with. We have always been storytellers (think epic poetry in preliterate times to transfer information across the ages) and film is the most technologically advanced extension of that history. Images and sounds can convey far more than words alone. It is especially crucial in science, where you’re trying to relate what someone has spent years thinking about. Plus, there are so many fascinating and wonderful visuals in science; it would be an injustice to not show them! I think science also needs film as a measure of perspective as to where it’s headed, to get feedback and impressions from non-scientists, or researchers in other fields.

RK: It seems that you have had many roles in the filmmaking process. Can you describe some of them and discuss your professional aspirations for the future?

HB: Film and TV budgets are so tight you have to know how to do everything. A film project itself starts out as office-based research that progresses to manic shoots, resulting in hours of footage distilled into a sequence in a windowless edit room. Then, there’s distribution, screening and promotion, which is like coming up from underwater and taking a deep breath – oh, this is why we were doing all this work with countless sleepless nights and no social life!

​Right now, I’m a producer, the person who gets things done behind the scenes, all the stuff that you don’t see in the film – research and story development, treatment and grant writing, logistics, permits, hiring crew, budgeting, wrangling footage, finding a last minute interviewee because your first one is ill, mapping out a room-sized circuit for a kid-powered computer, negotiating a dewar of liquid nitrogen. I worked my way up from runner/ production assistant to researcher and am aiming for a director or editor position. I bought my first camera recently and am figuring out what lenses and filters do, whilst getting into editing more. These days you have to be adept at the whole production chain. Being a one-woman show will serve you well.

RK: What has been your favorite project so far?

HB: I love all my children equally! But if I had to choose, the one I’m currently working on about bioacoustics in Borneo. Each project is an extension of the previous one and you bring bizarrely unique skills along with you. I like retracing my employment history and reliving the crazy shoots and experiences it took to complete each show. Mission Pluto for National Geographic was incredible for the access we got to NASA and the scientists and engineers involved.  It was truly inspiring to see what decades of precision calculations can achieve – like hitting a 90 mile square with your spaceship after 3 billion miles in space. And the flyby was some of the most emotional science I’ve witnessed. The Joy of Logic for BBC was a lot of fun to make. The format was witty and playful. We got to experiment with how to visualize some barmy abstract concepts. Filming gibbons in the rainforest this past month is definitely up there though – I have a new-found appreciation for wildlife cinematographers and their infinite patience with an environment that really doesn’t want to be filmed.

RK: Do you have any role models?

HB: I greatly admire the directors and producers I’ve worked with. Watching their professionalism and stoicism in the face of some pretty challenging scenarios really informed the way I tackle projects and even the way I go about my day-to-day life: Problem solving with polite persistence.

RK: What do you enjoy most about your job and what are your greatest challenges?

HB: Telling people about my job is always a joy. Being allowed to delve into a subject and ask questions of people who’ve dedicated their whole lives to it is such a privilege. Every programme and project is a mini-PhD and having the opportunity to call up the principal investigator of the New Horizons mission or spend a day in the rainforest with people collecting the data that informs global policy is unforgettable. You work very closely with these people and want to do them and their story justice. That doesn’t always mean you agree with them or like them, but there is a mutual respect for work and dedication to a cause.

The greatest challenge is finding parking in New York City.

RK: What advice would you give to anyone who wishes to pursue this career path? How much academic preparation and experience is required to enter this field?

HB: Be open to weird projects. Be visible. Meet people. Have ideas to pitch at any time. Special access to a place, a person or event is golden. I studied for a Masters in Journalism, but that’s not necessary to get into film production. It’s a cliché, but all you need is a camera and an idea. If you want to be a presenter or contributor to a science TV programme in this day and age you have to have accessible content. There are so many people out there that do and it’s so easy to record a video and have a website – even just a minute introduction on a bio page – that there’s no excuse not to. When casting for contributors, channels want to see what people are like on camera, just as much as know their qualifications (for some, screen persona is more important than qualifications…) so make it easy to share a link. Practice pitching your ideas. To be a producer and more behind the scenes, again I would start off where you are now – can you create content based on the daily life of a scientist and share it? You may see what you do as routine, but the general public still think of scientists as white coats and white men. We need to change this!

The best thing though is to meet people – go to conferences, there are so many meetups in New York and across the country, science talks, film screenings with Q&As, parties, Tinder dates, you just never know. And bring those ideas!

RK: What was the best advice given to you?

HB: Don’t turn the camera off after an interview. People usually come up with extra phrases of brilliance when they think the pressure is off.