Phillips, Thomas E. |
*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** Another quantitative measurement would be to look at gender distribution on the editorial boards of microscopy journals. Microscopy Research & Techniques, Microscopy Today, Microscopy & Microanalysis, Microscopy & Analysis, Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry are obvious choices. It can admittedly be sometimes hard to judge gender from the listings but I have made my best effort with 3 of these journals. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am on the "Editorial Staff" of Microscopy Today (an MSA publication) which has 12 member of which 2 are women. Its "Editorial Board" has 3 women and 20 men. The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Microanalysis (An MSA publication) seems to me to have 18 males, 3 females. It has 14 individuals listed as "Editors" in various subcategories and these include 11 males and 3 females. It would be interesting to know the gender distribution of MSA. The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Analysis (A Wiley publication) seems to me to have 11 males, 0 females. I will leave it to someone else to count the MRT and JHC editorial board members. I have changed the title of this tread to de-emphasize the implied flaw in any one meeting or meeting organizer. The point should be that more effort has to be made and if the discussion is never initiated, progress won't happen. Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D Professor of Biological Sciences Director, Molecular Cytology Core 2 Tucker Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211-7400 573-882-4712 (office) 573-882-0123 (fax) [hidden email] http://www.biology.missouri.edu/faculty/phillips.html http://www.biotech.missouri.edu/mcc/ -----Original Message----- From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Alessandro Esposito Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:47 PM To: [hidden email] Subject: Re: Bioimaging in Genoa - Open access - Great Talks, No women ? ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** The microscopy community is a small one, with its members often helping each other to solve issues. It is actually this sense of community that keeps me (hopefully others as well) going also in moments of struggle. Therefore, it saddens me to see this discussion taking the way it has. I have nothing to argue against the original criticism/question submitted by Jeremy Adler. Gender bias is an important issue that the scientific community has to address. WISE estimates that only 13% and 6% of the STEM and engineering workforces is female in the UK. Of course, we should all contribute to remove the causes for this bias at the root. When scientists and engineers are formed we work with the gender imbalance that we get and we should always select the best people irrespective of their gender. We know however from data that there are serious obstacles in the career progression of women in academia. I have no idea about the proportion of women working in microscopy either as developers or expert users; I guess the ratio will change significantly and I believe it will even change between different sub-disciplines. I promise to come back to you with some numbers, but I had a look to the MMC2015 organized by the RMS, event that I believe was not biased overall. You will forgive me if the numbers are not precise as I had to browse through a lot of names in short time, but among the plenary lecturers, moderators and selected speakers, it appears that around 30% of people are females. The proportion of invited speakers (in parallel sessions) were at a smaller proportion of 20% indicating, perhaps, that at least unconscious bias is present among moderators (36% were females) or that the conference programme merely represented a bias in the progression of careers of female scientists (very likely, but of course not very good). However, I find that that programme was rather balanced and I hope you will agree with me. Therefore, I have the impression that in some specialist areas we could have as few as 10% (or less) female scientists working but in microscopy overall a third of all microscopy related workforce may be female. This is somehow consistent with figures published again by WISE stating that less than 10% engineering professionals are female but in science overall, balance between the two genders have been achieved (in the UK). Of course, these numbers will be pushed down or up by countries with better or worst statistics and specific topics. Bottom line, the analysis of specific small events is, in my opinion, very difficult and we should move on to understand what we can do in the microscopy community (and the academic world in general) to remove any conscious or unconscious bias. The debate should be decent and constructive in order to not damage the good cause some of you aimed to support. The latter post of Jeremy Adler could have been avoided; the sarcastic tone and the accusation of using the memory of a departed female colleague and friend to somehow distract from this thread are regrettable and appeared aiming to provoke an emotional response only rather than a useful debate. That I do not endorse. Therefore, could we please discuss about numbers and propose solutions like we can usually do in this community? For instance, it would be interesting if organizations that manage important conferences could adhere to the Athena SWAN Charter, but this is not within the remit of this charter. Do you know of any alternative initiative? Perhaps, such a subscription may help to raise awareness within the panels that select speakers. Also, some links to lists of female speakers have been circulated; some of these links are broken, and lists are anyway not specific to microscopy. Do you think we should organize to curate such a list as a community resource? Suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer to work on raising awareness rather than compiling these lists, but whatever tool is useful is welcome. Cheers, Alessandro |
Wert, Susan (Susan Wert) |
*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** Based on name recognition, approximately 14 females out of 52 total on the editorial board of J Histochem Cytochem. ____________________________________________________________________ Susan E. Wert, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Pediatrics University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics Perinatal Institute Divisions of Neonatology, Perinatal and Pulmonary Biology Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center 3333 Burnet Avenue, MLC7029 Cincinnati, Ohio 45229-3039 TEL: 513-636-4297 (office, voice mail) 513-636-2295 (laboratory) FAX: 513-636-7868 E-mail: [hidden email] Member – Ontology subcommittee, NHLBI Molecular Atlas of Lung Development Program (LungMAP) Consortium. The LungMAP is a cooperative research project tasked with building an integrated, open-access database that will characterize the molecular anatomy of the later stages of lung development in both mice and humans. For more information, go to: www.lungmap.net<http://www.lungmap.net/> . From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> on behalf of "Phillips, Thomas E." <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Reply-To: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 2:17 PM To: "[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>" <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Subject: gender distribution in microscopy ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** Another quantitative measurement would be to look at gender distribution on the editorial boards of microscopy journals. Microscopy Research & Techniques, Microscopy Today, Microscopy & Microanalysis, Microscopy & Analysis, Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry are obvious choices. It can admittedly be sometimes hard to judge gender from the listings but I have made my best effort with 3 of these journals. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am on the "Editorial Staff" of Microscopy Today (an MSA publication) which has 12 member of which 2 are women. Its "Editorial Board" has 3 women and 20 men. The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Microanalysis (An MSA publication) seems to me to have 18 males, 3 females. It has 14 individuals listed as "Editors" in various subcategories and these include 11 males and 3 females. It would be interesting to know the gender distribution of MSA. The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Analysis (A Wiley publication) seems to me to have 11 males, 0 females. I will leave it to someone else to count the MRT and JHC editorial board members. I have changed the title of this tread to de-emphasize the implied flaw in any one meeting or meeting organizer. The point should be that more effort has to be made and if the discussion is never initiated, progress won't happen. Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D Professor of Biological Sciences Director, Molecular Cytology Core 2 Tucker Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211-7400 573-882-4712 (office) 573-882-0123 (fax) [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biology.missouri.edu_faculty_phillips.html&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=9qo4AYMG449Bd_5t8SHjNkUo9yuOJzqVQgYzzdomCIE&e= https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biotech.missouri.edu_mcc_&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=VkHAE1Kj_071TN6uKA_qKbSVT3Fo256jv7zNFmo5kR0&e= -----Original Message----- From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Alessandro Esposito Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:47 PM To: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> Subject: Re: Bioimaging in Genoa - Open access - Great Talks, No women ? ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** The microscopy community is a small one, with its members often helping each other to solve issues. It is actually this sense of community that keeps me (hopefully others as well) going also in moments of struggle. Therefore, it saddens me to see this discussion taking the way it has. I have nothing to argue against the original criticism/question submitted by Jeremy Adler. Gender bias is an important issue that the scientific community has to address. WISE estimates that only 13% and 6% of the STEM and engineering workforces is female in the UK. Of course, we should all contribute to remove the causes for this bias at the root. When scientists and engineers are formed we work with the gender imbalance that we get and we should always select the best people irrespective of their gender. We know however from data that there are serious obstacles in the career progression of women in academia. I have no idea about the proportion of women working in microscopy either as developers or expert users; I guess the ratio will change significantly and I believe it will even change between different sub-disciplines. I promise to come back to you with some numbers, but I had a look to the MMC2015 organized by the RMS, event that I believe was not biased overall. You will forgive me if the numbers are not precise as I had to browse through a lot of names in short time, but among the plenary lecturers, moderators and selected speakers, it appears that around 30% of people are females. The proportion of invited speakers (in parallel sessions) were at a smaller proportion of 20% indicating, perhaps, that at least unconscious bias is present among moderators (36% were females) or that the conference programme merely represented a bias in the progression of careers of female scientists (very likely, but of course not very good). However, I find that that programme was rather balanced and I hope you will agree with me. Therefore, I have the impression that in some specialist areas we could have as few as 10% (or less) female scientists working but in microscopy overall a third of all microscopy related workforce may be female. This is somehow consistent with figures published again by WISE stating that less than 10% engineering professionals are female but in science overall, balance between the two genders have been achieved (in the UK). Of course, these numbers will be pushed down or up by countries with better or worst statistics and specific topics. Bottom line, the analysis of specific small events is, in my opinion, very difficult and we should move on to understand what we can do in the microscopy community (and the academic world in general) to remove any conscious or unconscious bias. The debate should be decent and constructive in order to not damage the good cause some of you aimed to support. The latter post of Jeremy Adler could have been avoided; the sarcastic tone and the accusation of using the memory of a departed female colleague and friend to somehow distract from this thread are regrettable and appeared aiming to provoke an emotional response only rather than a useful debate. That I do not endorse. Therefore, could we please discuss about numbers and propose solutions like we can usually do in this community? For instance, it would be interesting if organizations that manage important conferences could adhere to the Athena SWAN Charter, but this is not within the remit of this charter. Do you know of any alternative initiative? Perhaps, such a subscription may help to raise awareness within the panels that select speakers. Also, some links to lists of female speakers have been circulated; some of these links are broken, and lists are anyway not specific to microscopy. Do you think we should organize to curate such a list as a community resource? Suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer to work on raising awareness rather than compiling these lists, but whatever tool is useful is welcome. Cheers, Alessandro |
Haller, Edward |
*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** I find this discussion interesting. I currently manage an electron microscope Core facility, and did a head count of users. Of the 34 current users, our breakdown is 19 males and 15 females, not quite 50:50. We have users from the Biology Department, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering, so a cross-section of the sciences. Our users are younger, though, mostly graduate students, which may be why we are running closer to an even distribution of genders. Ed Haller Edward Haller, Lab Manager University of South Florida Department of Integrative Biology Electron Microscopy Core SCA 110 4202 East Fowler Avenue Tampa, FL 33620 (813)974-2676 [hidden email] Office: ISA 1046 http://biology.usf.edu/ib/research/facilities/ ________________________________________ From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]> on behalf of Wert, Susan (Susan Wert) <[hidden email]> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 4:08 PM To: [hidden email] Subject: Re: gender distribution in microscopy ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** Based on name recognition, approximately 14 females out of 52 total on the editorial board of J Histochem Cytochem. ____________________________________________________________________ Susan E. Wert, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Pediatrics University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics Perinatal Institute Divisions of Neonatology, Perinatal and Pulmonary Biology Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center 3333 Burnet Avenue, MLC7029 Cincinnati, Ohio 45229-3039 TEL: 513-636-4297 (office, voice mail) 513-636-2295 (laboratory) FAX: 513-636-7868 E-mail: [hidden email] Member – Ontology subcommittee, NHLBI Molecular Atlas of Lung Development Program (LungMAP) Consortium. The LungMAP is a cooperative research project tasked with building an integrated, open-access database that will characterize the molecular anatomy of the later stages of lung development in both mice and humans. For more information, go to: www.lungmap.net<http://www.lungmap.net/> . From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> on behalf of "Phillips, Thomas E." <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Reply-To: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 2:17 PM To: "[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>" <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Subject: gender distribution in microscopy ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** Another quantitative measurement would be to look at gender distribution on the editorial boards of microscopy journals. Microscopy Research & Techniques, Microscopy Today, Microscopy & Microanalysis, Microscopy & Analysis, Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry are obvious choices. It can admittedly be sometimes hard to judge gender from the listings but I have made my best effort with 3 of these journals. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am on the "Editorial Staff" of Microscopy Today (an MSA publication) which has 12 member of which 2 are women. Its "Editorial Board" has 3 women and 20 men. The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Microanalysis (An MSA publication) seems to me to have 18 males, 3 females. It has 14 individuals listed as "Editors" in various subcategories and these include 11 males and 3 females. It would be interesting to know the gender distribution of MSA. The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Analysis (A Wiley publication) seems to me to have 11 males, 0 females. I will leave it to someone else to count the MRT and JHC editorial board members. I have changed the title of this tread to de-emphasize the implied flaw in any one meeting or meeting organizer. The point should be that more effort has to be made and if the discussion is never initiated, progress won't happen. Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D Professor of Biological Sciences Director, Molecular Cytology Core 2 Tucker Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211-7400 573-882-4712 (office) 573-882-0123 (fax) [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biology.missouri.edu_faculty_phillips.html&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=9qo4AYMG449Bd_5t8SHjNkUo9yuOJzqVQgYzzdomCIE&e= https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biotech.missouri.edu_mcc_&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=VkHAE1Kj_071TN6uKA_qKbSVT3Fo256jv7zNFmo5kR0&e= -----Original Message----- From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Alessandro Esposito Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:47 PM To: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> Subject: Re: Bioimaging in Genoa - Open access - Great Talks, No women ? ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** The microscopy community is a small one, with its members often helping each other to solve issues. It is actually this sense of community that keeps me (hopefully others as well) going also in moments of struggle. Therefore, it saddens me to see this discussion taking the way it has. I have nothing to argue against the original criticism/question submitted by Jeremy Adler. Gender bias is an important issue that the scientific community has to address. WISE estimates that only 13% and 6% of the STEM and engineering workforces is female in the UK. Of course, we should all contribute to remove the causes for this bias at the root. When scientists and engineers are formed we work with the gender imbalance that we get and we should always select the best people irrespective of their gender. We know however from data that there are serious obstacles in the career progression of women in academia. I have no idea about the proportion of women working in microscopy either as developers or expert users; I guess the ratio will change significantly and I believe it will even change between different sub-disciplines. I promise to come back to you with some numbers, but I had a look to the MMC2015 organized by the RMS, event that I believe was not biased overall. You will forgive me if the numbers are not precise as I had to browse through a lot of names in short time, but among the plenary lecturers, moderators and selected speakers, it appears that around 30% of people are females. The proportion of invited speakers (in parallel sessions) were at a smaller proportion of 20% indicating, perhaps, that at least unconscious bias is present among moderators (36% were females) or that the conference programme merely represented a bias in the progression of careers of female scientists (very likely, but of course not very good). However, I find that that programme was rather balanced and I hope you will agree with me. Therefore, I have the impression that in some specialist areas we could have as few as 10% (or less) female scientists working but in microscopy overall a third of all microscopy related workforce may be female. This is somehow consistent with figures published again by WISE stating that less than 10% engineering professionals are female but in science overall, balance between the two genders have been achieved (in the UK). Of course, these numbers will be pushed down or up by countries with better or worst statistics and specific topics. Bottom line, the analysis of specific small events is, in my opinion, very difficult and we should move on to understand what we can do in the microscopy community (and the academic world in general) to remove any conscious or unconscious bias. The debate should be decent and constructive in order to not damage the good cause some of you aimed to support. The latter post of Jeremy Adler could have been avoided; the sarcastic tone and the accusation of using the memory of a departed female colleague and friend to somehow distract from this thread are regrettable and appeared aiming to provoke an emotional response only rather than a useful debate. That I do not endorse. Therefore, could we please discuss about numbers and propose solutions like we can usually do in this community? For instance, it would be interesting if organizations that manage important conferences could adhere to the Athena SWAN Charter, but this is not within the remit of this charter. Do you know of any alternative initiative? Perhaps, such a subscription may help to raise awareness within the panels that select speakers. Also, some links to lists of female speakers have been circulated; some of these links are broken, and lists are anyway not specific to microscopy. Do you think we should organize to curate such a list as a community resource? Suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer to work on raising awareness rather than compiling these lists, but whatever tool is useful is welcome. Cheers, Alessandro |
George McNamara |
In reply to this post by Phillips, Thomas E.
*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** Hi Thomas, Great way to move forward forward with this thread. Alby does not need to limit himself to slide carrying women microscopists: there are plenty of excellent women scientists who have used microscopes. Hi Alby for next year: Yes, Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, Claire Waterman, Rebecca Richards-Kortun, Sally Ward and Xiaowei Zhuang come to my mind as easy choices to invite (if Alby can afford the travel). A lot closer (by Texas distances), Melody Swartz, Katrin Willig. I am taking this opportunity to suggest Alby invite to his 2015 meeting Evelin Schrock to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Evelin's (and collaborators) Science paper next year: Multicolor spectral karyotyping of human chromosomes. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8662537> Schröck E, du Manoir S, Veldman T, Schoell B, Wienberg J, Ferguson-Smith MA, Ning Y, Ledbetter DH, Bar-Am I, Soenksen D, Garini Y, *Ried T*. Science. 1996 Jul 26;273(5274):494-7. PMID: 8662537 Evelin is now at: Institut fuer Klinische Genetik, Medizinische Fakultaet Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universitaet Dresden, Dresden, German http://tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/fakultaeten/medizinische_fakultaet/inst/kge/ spectral karyotyping 921 PubMed hits (yes some are reviews) ... 5 fluorophores simultaneously for 19+ years. spectral confocal 1071 PubMed hits ... with a much larger installed base and applications. but very rarely more than four colors. best wishes, George p.s. disclosure: I am a former employee and former customer of Applied Spectral Imaging, the company that codeveloped spectral karyotyping with Evelin Schrock and Thomas Ried and their colleagues. Dresden-Genoa is 1,049 km. Texas 1,332 km (east-west on I-10). On 10/13/2015 1:17 PM, Phillips, Thomas E. wrote: > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > Another quantitative measurement would be to look at gender distribution on the editorial boards of microscopy journals. Microscopy Research& Techniques, Microscopy Today, Microscopy& Microanalysis, Microscopy& Analysis, Journal of Histochemistry& Cytochemistry are obvious choices. It can admittedly be sometimes hard to judge gender from the listings but I have made my best effort with 3 of these journals. > > In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am on the "Editorial Staff" of Microscopy Today (an MSA publication) which has 12 member of which 2 are women. Its "Editorial Board" has 3 women and 20 men. > > The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Microanalysis (An MSA publication) seems to me to have 18 males, 3 females. It has 14 individuals listed as "Editors" in various subcategories and these include 11 males and 3 females. It would be interesting to know the gender distribution of MSA. > > The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Analysis (A Wiley publication) seems to me to have 11 males, 0 females. > > I will leave it to someone else to count the MRT and JHC editorial board members. > > I have changed the title of this tread to de-emphasize the implied flaw in any one meeting or meeting organizer. The point should be that more effort has to be made and if the discussion is never initiated, progress won't happen. > > > > > > Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D > Professor of Biological Sciences > Director, Molecular Cytology Core > 2 Tucker Hall > University of Missouri > Columbia, MO 65211-7400 > 573-882-4712 (office) > 573-882-0123 (fax) > [hidden email] > > http://www.biology.missouri.edu/faculty/phillips.html > http://www.biotech.missouri.edu/mcc/ > > -----Original Message----- > From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Alessandro Esposito > Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:47 PM > To: [hidden email] > Subject: Re: Bioimaging in Genoa - Open access - Great Talks, No women ? > > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > The microscopy community is a small one, with its members often helping each other to solve issues. It is actually this sense of community that keeps me (hopefully others as well) going also in moments of struggle. Therefore, it saddens me to see this discussion taking the way it has. > > I have nothing to argue against the original criticism/question submitted by Jeremy Adler. Gender bias is an important issue that the scientific community has to address. WISE estimates that only 13% and 6% of the STEM and engineering workforces is female in the UK. Of course, we should all contribute to remove the causes for this bias at the root. When scientists and engineers are formed we work with the gender imbalance that we get and we should always select the best people irrespective of their gender. We know however from data that there are serious obstacles in the career progression of women in academia. > > I have no idea about the proportion of women working in microscopy either as developers or expert users; I guess the ratio will change significantly and I believe it will even change between different sub-disciplines. I promise to come back to you with some numbers, but I had a look to the > MMC2015 organized by the RMS, event that I believe was not biased overall. > > You will forgive me if the numbers are not precise as I had to browse through a lot of names in short time, but among the plenary lecturers, moderators and selected speakers, it appears that around 30% of people are females. The proportion of invited speakers (in parallel sessions) were at a smaller proportion of 20% indicating, perhaps, that at least unconscious bias is present among moderators (36% were females) or that the conference programme merely represented a bias in the progression of careers of female scientists (very likely, but of course not very good). > However, I find that that programme was rather balanced and I hope you will agree with me. > > Therefore, I have the impression that in some specialist areas we could have as few as 10% (or less) female scientists working but in microscopy overall a third of all microscopy related workforce may be female. This is somehow consistent with figures published again by WISE stating that less than 10% engineering professionals are female but in science overall, balance between the two genders have been achieved (in the UK). Of course, these numbers will be pushed down or up by countries with better or worst statistics and specific topics. Bottom line, the analysis of specific small events is, in my opinion, very difficult and we should move on to understand what we can do in the microscopy community (and the academic world in general) to remove any conscious or unconscious bias. > The debate should be decent and constructive in order to not damage the good cause some of you aimed to support. > > The latter post of Jeremy Adler could have been avoided; the sarcastic tone and the accusation of using the memory of a departed female colleague and friend to somehow distract from this thread are regrettable and appeared aiming to provoke an emotional response only rather than a useful debate. That I do not endorse. > > Therefore, could we please discuss about numbers and propose solutions like we can usually do in this community? For instance, it would be interesting if organizations that manage important conferences could adhere to the Athena SWAN Charter, but this is not within the remit of this charter. Do you know of any alternative initiative? Perhaps, such a subscription may help to raise awareness within the panels that select speakers. Also, some links to lists of female speakers have been circulated; some of these links are broken, and lists are anyway not specific to microscopy. Do you think we should organize to curate such a list as a community resource? Suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer to work on raising awareness rather than compiling these lists, but whatever tool is useful is welcome. > > Cheers, > > Alessandro > > -- George McNamara, Ph.D. Single Cells Analyst L.J.N. Cooper Lab University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Houston, TX 77054 Tattletales http://works.bepress.com/gmcnamara/42 |
lechristophe |
In reply to this post by Haller, Edward
*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** I just would like to say that I find this discussion very interesting, and consider this mailing list to be a very appropriate place to have it given its subject. People that don't want to discuss gender diversity in the microscopy community can just ignore the replies instead of trying to silence people that want. As regards the community, in the super-resolution subfield we are blessed with many outstanding women scientists: Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz and Xiaowei Zhuang as earlier cited by George, and also Katharina Gaus from Sydney, Melike Lakadamyali from Barcelona, Suliana Manley from Lausanne, Ilaria Testa from Stockholm, Jie Xiao from Baltimore, Julie Biteen from Ann Harbor, Diane Lidke from Albuquerque, Catherine Galbraith from Portland, Katrin Willig from Göttingen (and this is just from a rapid browse of my "SR reviews" folder and surely has overlooked many others to which I apologize). Christophe -- Christophe Leterrier Researcher Axonal Domains Architecture Team CRN2M CNRS UMR 7286 Aix Marseille University, France On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 10:58 PM, Haller, Edward <[hidden email]> wrote: > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > I find this discussion interesting. I currently manage an electron > microscope Core facility, and did a head count of users. Of the 34 current > users, our breakdown is 19 males and 15 females, not quite 50:50. We have > users from the Biology Department, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering, so a > cross-section of the sciences. Our users are younger, though, mostly > graduate students, which may be why we are running closer to an even > distribution of genders. > > Ed Haller > > Edward Haller, Lab Manager > University of South Florida > Department of Integrative Biology > Electron Microscopy Core > SCA 110 > 4202 East Fowler Avenue > Tampa, FL 33620 > (813)974-2676 > [hidden email] > Office: ISA 1046 > http://biology.usf.edu/ib/research/facilities/ > > ________________________________________ > From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]> on > behalf of Wert, Susan (Susan Wert) <[hidden email]> > Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 4:08 PM > To: [hidden email] > Subject: Re: gender distribution in microscopy > > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > Based on name recognition, approximately 14 females out of 52 total on the > editorial board of J Histochem Cytochem. > > ____________________________________________________________________ > > Susan E. Wert, Ph.D. > Associate Professor of Pediatrics > University of Cincinnati College of Medicine > Department of Pediatrics > Perinatal Institute > Divisions of Neonatology, Perinatal and Pulmonary Biology > Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center > 3333 Burnet Avenue, MLC7029 > Cincinnati, Ohio 45229-3039 > TEL: 513-636-4297 (office, voice mail) > 513-636-2295 (laboratory) > FAX: 513-636-7868 > E-mail: [hidden email] > > Member – Ontology subcommittee, NHLBI Molecular Atlas of Lung Development > Program (LungMAP) Consortium. The LungMAP is a cooperative research > project tasked with building an integrated, open-access database that will > characterize the molecular anatomy of the later stages of lung development > in both mice and humans. For more information, go to: www.lungmap.net< > http://www.lungmap.net/> . > > > > From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]<mailto: > [hidden email]>> on behalf of "Phillips, Thomas E." < > [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> > Reply-To: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email] > <mailto:[hidden email]>> > Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 2:17 PM > To: "[hidden email]<mailto: > [hidden email]>" <[hidden email] > <mailto:[hidden email]>> > Subject: gender distribution in microscopy > > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= > Post images on > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= > and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > Another quantitative measurement would be to look at gender distribution > on the editorial boards of microscopy journals. Microscopy Research & > Techniques, Microscopy Today, Microscopy & Microanalysis, Microscopy & > Analysis, Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry are obvious choices. It > can admittedly be sometimes hard to judge gender from the listings but I > have made my best effort with 3 of these journals. > > In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am on the "Editorial > Staff" of Microscopy Today (an MSA publication) which has 12 member of > which 2 are women. Its "Editorial Board" has 3 women and 20 men. > > The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Microanalysis (An MSA publication) > seems to me to have 18 males, 3 females. It has 14 individuals listed as > "Editors" in various subcategories and these include 11 males and 3 > females. It would be interesting to know the gender distribution of MSA. > > The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Analysis (A Wiley publication) seems > to me to have 11 males, 0 females. > > I will leave it to someone else to count the MRT and JHC editorial board > members. > > I have changed the title of this tread to de-emphasize the implied flaw in > any one meeting or meeting organizer. The point should be that more effort > has to be made and if the discussion is never initiated, progress won't > happen. > > > > > > Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D > Professor of Biological Sciences > Director, Molecular Cytology Core > 2 Tucker Hall > University of Missouri > Columbia, MO 65211-7400 > 573-882-4712 (office) > 573-882-0123 (fax) > [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> > > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biology.missouri.edu_faculty_phillips.html&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=9qo4AYMG449Bd_5t8SHjNkUo9yuOJzqVQgYzzdomCIE&e= > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biotech.missouri.edu_mcc_&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=VkHAE1Kj_071TN6uKA_qKbSVT3Fo256jv7zNFmo5kR0&e= > > -----Original Message----- > From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] > On Behalf Of Alessandro Esposito > Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:47 PM > To: [hidden email]<mailto: > [hidden email]> > Subject: Re: Bioimaging in Genoa - Open access - Great Talks, No women ? > > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= > Post images on > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= > and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > The microscopy community is a small one, with its members often helping > each other to solve issues. It is actually this sense of community that > keeps me (hopefully others as well) going also in moments of struggle. > Therefore, it saddens me to see this discussion taking the way it has. > > I have nothing to argue against the original criticism/question submitted > by Jeremy Adler. Gender bias is an important issue that the scientific > community has to address. WISE estimates that only 13% and 6% of the STEM > and engineering workforces is female in the UK. Of course, we should all > contribute to remove the causes for this bias at the root. When scientists > and engineers are formed we work with the gender imbalance that we get and > we should always select the best people irrespective of their gender. We > know however from data that there are serious obstacles in the career > progression of women in academia. > > I have no idea about the proportion of women working in microscopy either > as developers or expert users; I guess the ratio will change significantly > and I believe it will even change between different sub-disciplines. I > promise to come back to you with some numbers, but I had a look to the > MMC2015 organized by the RMS, event that I believe was not biased overall. > > You will forgive me if the numbers are not precise as I had to browse > through a lot of names in short time, but among the plenary lecturers, > moderators and selected speakers, it appears that around 30% of people are > females. The proportion of invited speakers (in parallel sessions) were at > a smaller proportion of 20% indicating, perhaps, that at least unconscious > bias is present among moderators (36% were females) or that the conference > programme merely represented a bias in the progression of careers of female > scientists (very likely, but of course not very good). > However, I find that that programme was rather balanced and I hope you > will agree with me. > > Therefore, I have the impression that in some specialist areas we could > have as few as 10% (or less) female scientists working but in microscopy > overall a third of all microscopy related workforce may be female. This is > somehow consistent with figures published again by WISE stating that less > than 10% engineering professionals are female but in science overall, > balance between the two genders have been achieved (in the UK). Of course, > these numbers will be pushed down or up by countries with better or worst > statistics and specific topics. Bottom line, the analysis of specific small > events is, in my opinion, very difficult and we should move on to > understand what we can do in the microscopy community (and the academic > world in general) to remove any conscious or unconscious bias. > The debate should be decent and constructive in order to not damage the > good cause some of you aimed to support. > > The latter post of Jeremy Adler could have been avoided; the sarcastic > tone and the accusation of using the memory of a departed female colleague > and friend to somehow distract from this thread are regrettable and > appeared aiming to provoke an emotional response only rather than a useful > debate. That I do not endorse. > > Therefore, could we please discuss about numbers and propose solutions > like we can usually do in this community? For instance, it would be > interesting if organizations that manage important conferences could adhere > to the Athena SWAN Charter, but this is not within the remit of this > charter. Do you know of any alternative initiative? Perhaps, such a > subscription may help to raise awareness within the panels that select > speakers. Also, some links to lists of female speakers have been > circulated; some of these links are broken, and lists are anyway not > specific to microscopy. Do you think we should organize to curate such a > list as a community resource? Suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer > to work on raising awareness rather than compiling these lists, but > whatever tool is useful is welcome. > > Cheers, > > Alessandro > |
Andreas Bruckbauer |
*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** Just a few thoughts: There could be an open call for keynote talks at conferences. This way the organisers could see who is available and get a fair picture of the whole field. I understand this is additional work but might be worth trying. Furthermore it would be good to aim for a 50:50 gender ratio on the advisory board which selects the talks. Furthermore aim for representation from all parts of the community which are currently underrepresented. Sponsors could do their bit by increasing sponsorship when a fair representation of women is achieved. Lots of microscopy applications are in biology which has a more equal gender balance, so I don't see why we have to end up with so few women speakers. There is a long way to go, but it is worth it and would solve other problems as well. Men also have childcare responsibilities, so any suggestions are welcome. Best wishes Andreas -----Original Message----- From: "Christophe Leterrier" <[hidden email]> Sent: 14/10/2015 13:23 To: "[hidden email]" <[hidden email]> Subject: Re: gender distribution in microscopy ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** I just would like to say that I find this discussion very interesting, and consider this mailing list to be a very appropriate place to have it given its subject. People that don't want to discuss gender diversity in the microscopy community can just ignore the replies instead of trying to silence people that want. As regards the community, in the super-resolution subfield we are blessed with many outstanding women scientists: Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz and Xiaowei Zhuang as earlier cited by George, and also Katharina Gaus from Sydney, Melike Lakadamyali from Barcelona, Suliana Manley from Lausanne, Ilaria Testa from Stockholm, Jie Xiao from Baltimore, Julie Biteen from Ann Harbor, Diane Lidke from Albuquerque, Catherine Galbraith from Portland, Katrin Willig from Göttingen (and this is just from a rapid browse of my "SR reviews" folder and surely has overlooked many others to which I apologize). Christophe -- Christophe Leterrier Researcher Axonal Domains Architecture Team CRN2M CNRS UMR 7286 Aix Marseille University, France On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 10:58 PM, Haller, Edward <[hidden email]> wrote: > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > I find this discussion interesting. I currently manage an electron > microscope Core facility, and did a head count of users. Of the 34 current > users, our breakdown is 19 males and 15 females, not quite 50:50. We have > users from the Biology Department, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering, so a > cross-section of the sciences. Our users are younger, though, mostly > graduate students, which may be why we are running closer to an even > distribution of genders. > > Ed Haller > > Edward Haller, Lab Manager > University of South Florida > Department of Integrative Biology > Electron Microscopy Core > SCA 110 > 4202 East Fowler Avenue > Tampa, FL 33620 > (813)974-2676 > [hidden email] > Office: ISA 1046 > http://biology.usf.edu/ib/research/facilities/ > > ________________________________________ > From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]> on > behalf of Wert, Susan (Susan Wert) <[hidden email]> > Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 4:08 PM > To: [hidden email] > Subject: Re: gender distribution in microscopy > > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > Based on name recognition, approximately 14 females out of 52 total on the > editorial board of J Histochem Cytochem. > > ____________________________________________________________________ > > Susan E. Wert, Ph.D. > Associate Professor of Pediatrics > University of Cincinnati College of Medicine > Department of Pediatrics > Perinatal Institute > Divisions of Neonatology, Perinatal and Pulmonary Biology > Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center > 3333 Burnet Avenue, MLC7029 > Cincinnati, Ohio 45229-3039 > TEL: 513-636-4297 (office, voice mail) > 513-636-2295 (laboratory) > FAX: 513-636-7868 > E-mail: [hidden email] > > Member – Ontology subcommittee, NHLBI Molecular Atlas of Lung Development > Program (LungMAP) Consortium. The LungMAP is a cooperative research > project tasked with building an integrated, open-access database that will > characterize the molecular anatomy of the later stages of lung development > in both mice and humans. For more information, go to: www.lungmap.net< > http://www.lungmap.net/> . > > > > From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]<mailto: > [hidden email]>> on behalf of "Phillips, Thomas E." < > [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> > Reply-To: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email] > <mailto:[hidden email]>> > Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 2:17 PM > To: "[hidden email]<mailto: > [hidden email]>" <[hidden email] > <mailto:[hidden email]>> > Subject: gender distribution in microscopy > > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= > Post images on > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= > and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > Another quantitative measurement would be to look at gender distribution > on the editorial boards of microscopy journals. Microscopy Research & > Techniques, Microscopy Today, Microscopy & Microanalysis, Microscopy & > Analysis, Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry are obvious choices. It > can admittedly be sometimes hard to judge gender from the listings but I > have made my best effort with 3 of these journals. > > In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am on the "Editorial > Staff" of Microscopy Today (an MSA publication) which has 12 member of > which 2 are women. Its "Editorial Board" has 3 women and 20 men. > > The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Microanalysis (An MSA publication) > seems to me to have 18 males, 3 females. It has 14 individuals listed as > "Editors" in various subcategories and these include 11 males and 3 > females. It would be interesting to know the gender distribution of MSA. > > The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Analysis (A Wiley publication) seems > to me to have 11 males, 0 females. > > I will leave it to someone else to count the MRT and JHC editorial board > members. > > I have changed the title of this tread to de-emphasize the implied flaw in > any one meeting or meeting organizer. The point should be that more effort > has to be made and if the discussion is never initiated, progress won't > happen. > > > > > > Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D > Professor of Biological Sciences > Director, Molecular Cytology Core > 2 Tucker Hall > University of Missouri > Columbia, MO 65211-7400 > 573-882-4712 (office) > 573-882-0123 (fax) > [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> > > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biology.missouri.edu_faculty_phillips.html&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=9qo4AYMG449Bd_5t8SHjNkUo9yuOJzqVQgYzzdomCIE&e= > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biotech.missouri.edu_mcc_&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=VkHAE1Kj_071TN6uKA_qKbSVT3Fo256jv7zNFmo5kR0&e= > > -----Original Message----- > From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] > On Behalf Of Alessandro Esposito > Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:47 PM > To: [hidden email]<mailto: > [hidden email]> > Subject: Re: Bioimaging in Genoa - Open access - Great Talks, No women ? > > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= > Post images on > https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= > and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > The microscopy community is a small one, with its members often helping > each other to solve issues. It is actually this sense of community that > keeps me (hopefully others as well) going also in moments of struggle. > Therefore, it saddens me to see this discussion taking the way it has. > > I have nothing to argue against the original criticism/question submitted > by Jeremy Adler. Gender bias is an important issue that the scientific > community has to address. WISE estimates that only 13% and 6% of the STEM > and engineering workforces is female in the UK. Of course, we should all > contribute to remove the causes for this bias at the root. When scientists > and engineers are formed we work with the gender imbalance that we get and > we should always select the best people irrespective of their gender. We > know however from data that there are serious obstacles in the career > progression of women in academia. > > I have no idea about the proportion of women working in microscopy either > as developers or expert users; I guess the ratio will change significantly > and I believe it will even change between different sub-disciplines. I > promise to come back to you with some numbers, but I had a look to the > MMC2015 organized by the RMS, event that I believe was not biased overall. > > You will forgive me if the numbers are not precise as I had to browse > through a lot of names in short time, but among the plenary lecturers, > moderators and selected speakers, it appears that around 30% of people are > females. The proportion of invited speakers (in parallel sessions) were at > a smaller proportion of 20% indicating, perhaps, that at least unconscious > bias is present among moderators (36% were females) or that the conference > programme merely represented a bias in the progression of careers of female > scientists (very likely, but of course not very good). > However, I find that that programme was rather balanced and I hope you > will agree with me. > > Therefore, I have the impression that in some specialist areas we could > have as few as 10% (or less) female scientists working but in microscopy > overall a third of all microscopy related workforce may be female. This is > somehow consistent with figures published again by WISE stating that less > than 10% engineering professionals are female but in science overall, > balance between the two genders have been achieved (in the UK). Of course, > these numbers will be pushed down or up by countries with better or worst > statistics and specific topics. Bottom line, the analysis of specific small > events is, in my opinion, very difficult and we should move on to > understand what we can do in the microscopy community (and the academic > world in general) to remove any conscious or unconscious bias. > The debate should be decent and constructive in order to not damage the > good cause some of you aimed to support. > > The latter post of Jeremy Adler could have been avoided; the sarcastic > tone and the accusation of using the memory of a departed female colleague > and friend to somehow distract from this thread are regrettable and > appeared aiming to provoke an emotional response only rather than a useful > debate. That I do not endorse. > > Therefore, could we please discuss about numbers and propose solutions > like we can usually do in this community? For instance, it would be > interesting if organizations that manage important conferences could adhere > to the Athena SWAN Charter, but this is not within the remit of this > charter. Do you know of any alternative initiative? Perhaps, such a > subscription may help to raise awareness within the panels that select > speakers. Also, some links to lists of female speakers have been > circulated; some of these links are broken, and lists are anyway not > specific to microscopy. Do you think we should organize to curate such a > list as a community resource? Suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer > to work on raising awareness rather than compiling these lists, but > whatever tool is useful is welcome. > > Cheers, > > Alessandro > |
Masur, Sandra |
What an excellent discussion, valid concerns and good suggestions!
An article I wrote recently focused on resources to identify excellent women speakers with various expertise's including microscopy : "Invisible woman?" S.K.Masur Trends in Cell Biology 25(8) 437–439 (2015) doi:10.1016/j.tcb.2015.06.001<http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tcb.2015.06.001> These are readily available in the downloadable Speakers Referral list from the Women in Cell Biology committee of the ASCB http://ascb.org/wicb-committee/ or the NSF supported Synberc http://www.synberc.org/diversity/speaker-suggestions The article also has a checklist for organizing an outstanding gender-balanced meeting. Best regards, Sandy, Sandra K. Masur, PhD ________________________________ Chair, Women in Cell Biology (WICB) of American Society for Cell Biology Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Director, Office for Women's Careers Professor, Ophthalmology Box 1183, 1 Gustave Levy Place New York NY 10029-6574 telephone: 212-241-0089 fax: 212-289-5945 cell: 646-245-5934 email: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> On Oct 15, 2015, at 3:21 AM, Andreas Bruckbauer wrote: ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=6HsTKubDNZVh5PKlQ_OlY8mVRyNqjU55ET1vxeemlyI&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=VY35ma80l77me8xbpl6LwC-L3lAL-g_SaLySRT3Fies&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** Just a few thoughts: There could be an open call for keynote talks at conferences. This way the organisers could see who is available and get a fair picture of the whole field. I understand this is additional work but might be worth trying. Furthermore it would be good to aim for a 50:50 gender ratio on the advisory board which selects the talks. Furthermore aim for representation from all parts of the community which are currently underrepresented. Sponsors could do their bit by increasing sponsorship when a fair representation of women is achieved. Lots of microscopy applications are in biology which has a more equal gender balance, so I don't see why we have to end up with so few women speakers. There is a long way to go, but it is worth it and would solve other problems as well. Men also have childcare responsibilities, so any suggestions are welcome. Best wishes Andreas -----Original Message----- From: "Christophe Leterrier" <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Sent: 14/10/2015 13:23 To: "[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>" <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Subject: Re: gender distribution in microscopy ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=6HsTKubDNZVh5PKlQ_OlY8mVRyNqjU55ET1vxeemlyI&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=VY35ma80l77me8xbpl6LwC-L3lAL-g_SaLySRT3Fies&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** I just would like to say that I find this discussion very interesting, and consider this mailing list to be a very appropriate place to have it given its subject. People that don't want to discuss gender diversity in the microscopy community can just ignore the replies instead of trying to silence people that want. As regards the community, in the super-resolution subfield we are blessed with many outstanding women scientists: Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz and Xiaowei Zhuang as earlier cited by George, and also Katharina Gaus from Sydney, Melike Lakadamyali from Barcelona, Suliana Manley from Lausanne, Ilaria Testa from Stockholm, Jie Xiao from Baltimore, Julie Biteen from Ann Harbor, Diane Lidke from Albuquerque, Catherine Galbraith from Portland, Katrin Willig from Göttingen (and this is just from a rapid browse of my "SR reviews" folder and surely has overlooked many others to which I apologize). Christophe -- Christophe Leterrier Researcher Axonal Domains Architecture Team CRN2M CNRS UMR 7286 Aix Marseille University, France On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 10:58 PM, Haller, Edward <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote: ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=6HsTKubDNZVh5PKlQ_OlY8mVRyNqjU55ET1vxeemlyI&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=VY35ma80l77me8xbpl6LwC-L3lAL-g_SaLySRT3Fies&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** I find this discussion interesting. I currently manage an electron microscope Core facility, and did a head count of users. Of the 34 current users, our breakdown is 19 males and 15 females, not quite 50:50. We have users from the Biology Department, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering, so a cross-section of the sciences. Our users are younger, though, mostly graduate students, which may be why we are running closer to an even distribution of genders. Ed Haller Edward Haller, Lab Manager University of South Florida Department of Integrative Biology Electron Microscopy Core SCA 110 4202 East Fowler Avenue Tampa, FL 33620 (813)974-2676 [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> Office: ISA 1046 https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__biology.usf.edu_ib_research_facilities_&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=YLQJCp8sBktuYgRE3UOE6PMcsSP7b3xhyi27SRzeULc&e= ________________________________________ From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> on behalf of Wert, Susan (Susan Wert) <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 4:08 PM To: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> Subject: Re: gender distribution in microscopy ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=6HsTKubDNZVh5PKlQ_OlY8mVRyNqjU55ET1vxeemlyI&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=VY35ma80l77me8xbpl6LwC-L3lAL-g_SaLySRT3Fies&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** Based on name recognition, approximately 14 females out of 52 total on the editorial board of J Histochem Cytochem. ____________________________________________________________________ Susan E. Wert, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Pediatrics University of Cincinnati College of Medicine Department of Pediatrics Perinatal Institute Divisions of Neonatology, Perinatal and Pulmonary Biology Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center 3333 Burnet Avenue, MLC7029 Cincinnati, Ohio 45229-3039 TEL: 513-636-4297 (office, voice mail) 513-636-2295 (laboratory) FAX: 513-636-7868 E-mail: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> Member – Ontology subcommittee, NHLBI Molecular Atlas of Lung Development Program (LungMAP) Consortium. The LungMAP is a cooperative research project tasked with building an integrated, open-access database that will characterize the molecular anatomy of the later stages of lung development in both mice and humans. For more information, go to: www.lungmap.net<http://www.lungmap.net>< https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.lungmap.net_&d=AwIFaQ&c=4R1YgkJNMyVWjMjneTwN5tJRn8m8VqTSNCjYLg1wNX4&r=-IxDc1mKyG4s6IOkmHpTKwx5fYsX5uTafOilRcvxO0M&m=0BAZq76dVV2_M5TFTgn8Di6BCJpgxhj6ISKt0qDyNrg&s=WMSj1UTE2LFsSoQ-hS65SkA472Fw3ETFeZrpzf7zDlk&e= > . From: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]><mailto: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>>> on behalf of "Phillips, Thomas E." < [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]><mailto:[hidden email]>> Reply-To: Confocal Microscopy List <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> <mailto:[hidden email]>> Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 2:17 PM To: "[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]><mailto: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>>" <[hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> <mailto:[hidden email]>> Subject: gender distribution in microscopy ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** Another quantitative measurement would be to look at gender distribution on the editorial boards of microscopy journals. Microscopy Research & Techniques, Microscopy Today, Microscopy & Microanalysis, Microscopy & Analysis, Journal of Histochemistry & Cytochemistry are obvious choices. It can admittedly be sometimes hard to judge gender from the listings but I have made my best effort with 3 of these journals. In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am on the "Editorial Staff" of Microscopy Today (an MSA publication) which has 12 member of which 2 are women. Its "Editorial Board" has 3 women and 20 men. The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Microanalysis (An MSA publication) seems to me to have 18 males, 3 females. It has 14 individuals listed as "Editors" in various subcategories and these include 11 males and 3 females. It would be interesting to know the gender distribution of MSA. The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Analysis (A Wiley publication) seems to me to have 11 males, 0 females. I will leave it to someone else to count the MRT and JHC editorial board members. I have changed the title of this tread to de-emphasize the implied flaw in any one meeting or meeting organizer. The point should be that more effort has to be made and if the discussion is never initiated, progress won't happen. Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D Professor of Biological Sciences Director, Molecular Cytology Core 2 Tucker Hall University of Missouri Columbia, MO 65211-7400 573-882-4712 (office) 573-882-0123 (fax) [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]><mailto:[hidden email]> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biology.missouri.edu_faculty_phillips.html&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=9qo4AYMG449Bd_5t8SHjNkUo9yuOJzqVQgYzzdomCIE&e= https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biotech.missouri.edu_mcc_&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=VkHAE1Kj_071TN6uKA_qKbSVT3Fo256jv7zNFmo5kR0&e= -----Original Message----- From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Alessandro Esposito Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:47 PM To: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]><mailto: [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> Subject: Re: Bioimaging in Genoa - Open access - Great Talks, No women ? ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= Post images on https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= and include the link in your posting. ***** The microscopy community is a small one, with its members often helping each other to solve issues. It is actually this sense of community that keeps me (hopefully others as well) going also in moments of struggle. Therefore, it saddens me to see this discussion taking the way it has. I have nothing to argue against the original criticism/question submitted by Jeremy Adler. Gender bias is an important issue that the scientific community has to address. WISE estimates that only 13% and 6% of the STEM and engineering workforces is female in the UK. Of course, we should all contribute to remove the causes for this bias at the root. When scientists and engineers are formed we work with the gender imbalance that we get and we should always select the best people irrespective of their gender. We know however from data that there are serious obstacles in the career progression of women in academia. I have no idea about the proportion of women working in microscopy either as developers or expert users; I guess the ratio will change significantly and I believe it will even change between different sub-disciplines. I promise to come back to you with some numbers, but I had a look to the MMC2015 organized by the RMS, event that I believe was not biased overall. You will forgive me if the numbers are not precise as I had to browse through a lot of names in short time, but among the plenary lecturers, moderators and selected speakers, it appears that around 30% of people are females. The proportion of invited speakers (in parallel sessions) were at a smaller proportion of 20% indicating, perhaps, that at least unconscious bias is present among moderators (36% were females) or that the conference programme merely represented a bias in the progression of careers of female scientists (very likely, but of course not very good). However, I find that that programme was rather balanced and I hope you will agree with me. Therefore, I have the impression that in some specialist areas we could have as few as 10% (or less) female scientists working but in microscopy overall a third of all microscopy related workforce may be female. This is somehow consistent with figures published again by WISE stating that less than 10% engineering professionals are female but in science overall, balance between the two genders have been achieved (in the UK). Of course, these numbers will be pushed down or up by countries with better or worst statistics and specific topics. Bottom line, the analysis of specific small events is, in my opinion, very difficult and we should move on to understand what we can do in the microscopy community (and the academic world in general) to remove any conscious or unconscious bias. The debate should be decent and constructive in order to not damage the good cause some of you aimed to support. The latter post of Jeremy Adler could have been avoided; the sarcastic tone and the accusation of using the memory of a departed female colleague and friend to somehow distract from this thread are regrettable and appeared aiming to provoke an emotional response only rather than a useful debate. That I do not endorse. Therefore, could we please discuss about numbers and propose solutions like we can usually do in this community? For instance, it would be interesting if organizations that manage important conferences could adhere to the Athena SWAN Charter, but this is not within the remit of this charter. Do you know of any alternative initiative? Perhaps, such a subscription may help to raise awareness within the panels that select speakers. Also, some links to lists of female speakers have been circulated; some of these links are broken, and lists are anyway not specific to microscopy. Do you think we should organize to curate such a list as a community resource? Suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer to work on raising awareness rather than compiling these lists, but whatever tool is useful is welcome. Cheers, Alessandro |
George McNamara |
In reply to this post by Andreas Bruckbauer
*****
To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** this recent news story on two JAMA articles, and an editorial (see below) show science gender inequities is not just a challlenge for Alby's meeting: http://www.dddmag.com/articles/2015/10/shocking-jama-studies-offer-key-grasping-science-gender-inequities “Shocking” JAMA Studies Offer Key to Grasping Science Gender Inequities Fri, 10/02/2015 - 10:00am Cynthia Fox, Science Editor Two /JAMA/ studies on female scientists and bias are eliciting stunned reactions. One /JAMA/ <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441254> study, which found women launching labs receive almost three times less funding than men, was “totally shocking” to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) emeritus professor Nancy Hopkins, M.D., she told /Drug Discovery & Development/. Hopkins was uninvolved in that study. The other <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441260> /JAMA/ study, which found females aren’t becoming full professors as fast, or often, as men, took its own investigators aback, lead author Harvard University Medical School health care policy expert Anupam Jena, M.D., Ph.D., told /Drug Discovery & Development/. “The biggest surprise for us was that, despite accounting for a rich set of productivity measures and physician characteristics like age, years of experience, and specialty, we found women were less likely to hold the rank of full professor in U.S. medical schools,” Jena said. “We expected to see lower numbers of publications and National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants, which reflect the known fact that institutional support for women in academic medicine still lags that for men. But we did not expect to see large differences once equal productivity was demonstrated between the sexes.” Said Jena, “I think our study provides strong evidence that discrimination exists.” *One study: bias in startup funds* The first study, by Health Resources in Action’s Medical Foundation, looked at 219 scientists (from 55 Boston-area institutes) seeking start-up aid from the Medical Foundation. The self-reported study found employers gave newly hired male scientists a median of $889,000 to purchase equipment and set up their labs. Women scientists were given only $350,000 for this. More dramatic—so statistically significant—was the gap between applicants with Ph.D.s. Male Ph.D.s received $936,000 to start labs, while female Ph.D.s received $348,000. A full 40 percent of men—versus 12 percent of women—were given over $1 million. Four of the five Boston institutes receiving the most NIH funds were worst of all, the report showed. (The five: Harvard, the University of Massachusetts, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston Children’s Hospital, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital.) ... One more section I felt worth pasting here - Nancy Hopkins was only shocked by start up funding disparity study: Hopkins was less “shocked” by this /JAMA/ study. “Does this result surprise me? No,” she told /Drug Discovery & Development/. “When I was visiting a medical school a few years ago, there were large divisions that had one or two female professors—ever! Female heads of anything were rare. Pediatrics can have female heads—that's about it, it seems.” Hopkins suspects reasons for this, “are the sum of all the things we know, starting with less money out of the gate. We have known for a long, long time that children are not the full explanation.” Women with and without children “experienced the same issues in terms of bias.” ... Please go to the ddd page for the rest of the dddmag news article, http://www.dddmag.com/articles/2015/10/shocking-jama-studies-offer-key-grasping-science-gender-inequities the direct URL's for the JAMA studies are: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441254 Sex Differences in Institutional Support for Junior Biomedical Researchers Robert Sege, MD, PhD^1 ; Linley Nykiel-Bub, BA^1 ; Sabrina Selk, ScD^2 /JAMA. /2015;314(11):1175-1177. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.8517. This study uses application data from 2 US biomedical research programs to analyze institutional funding support for men and women overall, and by scientific focus, terminal degree, and years since receiving terminal degree. Women are underrepresented in the biomedical research workforce. Only 30% of funded investigators are women.^1 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441254#jld150030r1> ^,2 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441254#jld150030r2> Junior faculty women have fewer peer-reviewed publications than men^3 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441254#jld150030r3> ^,4 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441254#jld150030r4> and are more often on clinician-educator (vs traditional) tracks.^5 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441254#jld150030r5> One reason may be differences in early-career institutional support, which to our knowledge has not been previously examined. http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441260 Sex Differences in Academic Rank in US Medical Schools in 2014 Anupam B. Jena, MD, PhD^1,2,3 ; Dhruv Khullar, MD, MPP^4,5 ; Oliver Ho, BA^1 ; Andrew R. Olenski, BA^1 ; Daniel M. Blumenthal, MD, MBA^5,6 /JAMA. /2015;314(11):1149-1158. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.10680. Abstract *Importance* The proportion of women at the rank of full professor in US medical schools has not increased since 1980 and remains below that of men. Whether differences in age, experience, specialty, and research productivity between sexes explain persistent disparities in faculty rank has not been studied. *Objective* To analyze sex differences in faculty rank among US academic physicians. *Design, Setting, and Participants* We analyzed sex differences in faculty rank using a cross-sectional comprehensive database of US physicians with medical school faculty appointments in 2014 (91 073 physicians; 9.1% of all US physicians), linked to information on physician sex, age, years since residency, specialty, authored publications, National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding, and clinical trial investigation. We estimated sex differences in full professorship, as well as a combined outcome of associate or full professorship, adjusting for these factors in a multilevel (hierarchical) model. We also analyzed how sex differences varied with specialty and whether differences were more prevalent at schools ranked highly in research. *Exposures* Physician sex. *Main Outcomes and Measures* Academic faculty rank. *Results* In all, there were 30 464 women who were medical faculty vs 60 609 men. Of those, 3623 women (11.9%) vs 17 354 men (28.6%) had full-professor appointments, for an absolute difference of −16.7% (95% CI, −17.3% to −16.2%). Women faculty were younger and disproportionately represented in internal medicine and pediatrics. The mean total number of publications for women was 11.6 vs 24.8 for men, for a difference of −13.2 (95% CI, −13.6 to −12.7); the mean first- or last-author publications for women was 5.9 vs 13.7 for men, for a difference of −7.8 (95% CI, −8.1 to −7.5). Among 9.1% of medical faculty with an NIH grant, 6.8% (2059 of 30 464) were women and 10.3% (6237 of 60 609) were men, for a difference of −3.5% (95% CI, −3.9% to −3.1%). In all, 6.4% of women vs 8.8% of men had a trial registered on ClinicalTrials.gov, for a difference of −2.4% (95% CI, −2.8% to −2.0%). After multivariable adjustment, women were less likely than men to have achieved full-professor status (absolute adjusted difference in proportion, −3.8%; 95% CI, −4.4% to −3.3%). Sex-differences in full professorship were present across all specialties and did not vary according to whether a physician’s medical school was ranked highly in terms of research funding. *Conclusions and Relevance* Among physicians with faculty appointments at US medical schools, there were sex differences in academic faculty rank, with women substantially less likely than men to be full professors, after accounting for age, experience, specialty, and measures of research productivity. // Editorial http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441243 Addressing Disparities in Academic MedicineMoving Forward Carrie L. Byington, MD^1 ; Vivian Lee, MD, PhD, MBA /JAMA. /2015;314(11):1139-1141. doi:10.1001/jama.2015.10664. The potential of women in medicine and science, like those in many other professions, has not been fully realized.^1 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441243#jed150080r1> When compared with men, women in these fields are paid less,^2 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441243#jed150080r2> ^,3 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441243#jed150080r3> have higher rates of attrition,^4 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441243#jed150080r4> have fewer scientific publications,^5 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441243#jed150080r5> and are less likely to apply for NIH funding and to be principal investigators.^6 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441243#jed150080r6> It is not surprising therefore, that women are less likely to advance to the highest ranks in academic medicine.^7 <http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2441243#jed150080r7> Unfortunately, the authors failed to make the full text open access. See also Nancy Hopkins co-chaired 1999 study at MIT: http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html I encourage Alby to write an (open access, please) editorial in his journal addressing the issue(s). This could also be an opportunity to make use of Andreas' recommendation for an Open Call for Keynote talks to Alby's 2016 meeting (plus free advertising for the meeting). Sincerely, George On 10/15/2015 2:21 AM, Andreas Bruckbauer wrote: > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > Just a few thoughts: There could be an open call for keynote talks at conferences. This way the organisers could see who is available and get a fair picture of the whole field. I understand this is additional work but might be worth trying. Furthermore it would be good to aim for a 50:50 gender ratio on the advisory board which selects the talks. Furthermore aim for representation from all parts of the community which are currently underrepresented. Sponsors could do their bit by increasing sponsorship when a fair representation of women is achieved. Lots of microscopy applications are in biology which has a more equal gender balance, so I don't see why we have to end up with so few women speakers. There is a long way to go, but it is worth it and would solve other problems as well. Men also have childcare responsibilities, so any suggestions are welcome. > > Best wishes > > Andreas > > -----Original Message----- > From: "Christophe Leterrier"<[hidden email]> > Sent: 14/10/2015 13:23 > To: "[hidden email]"<[hidden email]> > Subject: Re: gender distribution in microscopy > > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > I just would like to say that I find this discussion very interesting, and > consider this mailing list to be a very appropriate place to have it given > its subject. People that don't want to discuss gender diversity in the > microscopy community can just ignore the replies instead of trying to > silence people that want. > > As regards the community, in the super-resolution subfield we are blessed > with many outstanding women scientists: Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz and > Xiaowei Zhuang as earlier cited by George, and also Katharina Gaus from > Sydney, Melike Lakadamyali from Barcelona, Suliana Manley from Lausanne, > Ilaria Testa from Stockholm, Jie Xiao from Baltimore, Julie Biteen from Ann > Harbor, Diane Lidke from Albuquerque, Catherine Galbraith from Portland, > Katrin Willig from Göttingen (and this is just from a rapid browse of my > "SR reviews" folder and surely has overlooked many others to which I > apologize). > > Christophe > > -- > Christophe Leterrier > Researcher > Axonal Domains Architecture Team > CRN2M CNRS UMR 7286 > Aix Marseille University, France > > > > On Tue, Oct 13, 2015 at 10:58 PM, Haller, Edward<[hidden email]> > wrote: > > >> ***** >> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: >> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy >> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. >> ***** >> >> I find this discussion interesting. I currently manage an electron >> microscope Core facility, and did a head count of users. Of the 34 current >> users, our breakdown is 19 males and 15 females, not quite 50:50. We have >> users from the Biology Department, Chemistry, Physics and Engineering, so a >> cross-section of the sciences. Our users are younger, though, mostly >> graduate students, which may be why we are running closer to an even >> distribution of genders. >> >> Ed Haller >> >> Edward Haller, Lab Manager >> University of South Florida >> Department of Integrative Biology >> Electron Microscopy Core >> SCA 110 >> 4202 East Fowler Avenue >> Tampa, FL 33620 >> (813)974-2676 >> [hidden email] >> Office: ISA 1046 >> http://biology.usf.edu/ib/research/facilities/ >> >> ________________________________________ >> From: Confocal Microscopy List<[hidden email]> on >> behalf of Wert, Susan (Susan Wert)<[hidden email]> >> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 4:08 PM >> To: [hidden email] >> Subject: Re: gender distribution in microscopy >> >> ***** >> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: >> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy >> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. >> ***** >> >> Based on name recognition, approximately 14 females out of 52 total on the >> editorial board of J Histochem Cytochem. >> >> ____________________________________________________________________ >> >> Susan E. Wert, Ph.D. >> Associate Professor of Pediatrics >> University of Cincinnati College of Medicine >> Department of Pediatrics >> Perinatal Institute >> Divisions of Neonatology, Perinatal and Pulmonary Biology >> Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center >> 3333 Burnet Avenue, MLC7029 >> Cincinnati, Ohio 45229-3039 >> TEL: 513-636-4297 (office, voice mail) >> 513-636-2295 (laboratory) >> FAX: 513-636-7868 >> E-mail: [hidden email] >> >> Member – Ontology subcommittee, NHLBI Molecular Atlas of Lung Development >> Program (LungMAP) Consortium. The LungMAP is a cooperative research >> project tasked with building an integrated, open-access database that will >> characterize the molecular anatomy of the later stages of lung development >> in both mice and humans. For more information, go to: www.lungmap.net< >> http://www.lungmap.net/> . >> >> >> >> From: Confocal Microscopy List<[hidden email]<mailto: >> [hidden email]>> on behalf of "Phillips, Thomas E."< >> [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]>> >> Reply-To: Confocal Microscopy List<[hidden email] >> <mailto:[hidden email]>> >> Date: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 2:17 PM >> To: "[hidden email]<mailto: >> [hidden email]>"<[hidden email] >> <mailto:[hidden email]>> >> Subject: gender distribution in microscopy >> >> ***** >> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: >> >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= >> Post images on >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= >> and include the link in your posting. >> ***** >> >> Another quantitative measurement would be to look at gender distribution >> on the editorial boards of microscopy journals. Microscopy Research& >> Techniques, Microscopy Today, Microscopy& Microanalysis, Microscopy& >> Analysis, Journal of Histochemistry& Cytochemistry are obvious choices. It >> can admittedly be sometimes hard to judge gender from the listings but I >> have made my best effort with 3 of these journals. >> >> In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am on the "Editorial >> Staff" of Microscopy Today (an MSA publication) which has 12 member of >> which 2 are women. Its "Editorial Board" has 3 women and 20 men. >> >> The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Microanalysis (An MSA publication) >> seems to me to have 18 males, 3 females. It has 14 individuals listed as >> "Editors" in various subcategories and these include 11 males and 3 >> females. It would be interesting to know the gender distribution of MSA. >> >> The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Analysis (A Wiley publication) seems >> to me to have 11 males, 0 females. >> >> I will leave it to someone else to count the MRT and JHC editorial board >> members. >> >> I have changed the title of this tread to de-emphasize the implied flaw in >> any one meeting or meeting organizer. The point should be that more effort >> has to be made and if the discussion is never initiated, progress won't >> happen. >> >> >> >> >> >> Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D >> Professor of Biological Sciences >> Director, Molecular Cytology Core >> 2 Tucker Hall >> University of Missouri >> Columbia, MO 65211-7400 >> 573-882-4712 (office) >> 573-882-0123 (fax) >> [hidden email]<mailto:[hidden email]> >> >> >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biology.missouri.edu_faculty_phillips.html&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=9qo4AYMG449Bd_5t8SHjNkUo9yuOJzqVQgYzzdomCIE&e= >> >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.biotech.missouri.edu_mcc_&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=VkHAE1Kj_071TN6uKA_qKbSVT3Fo256jv7zNFmo5kR0&e= >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] >> On Behalf Of Alessandro Esposito >> Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:47 PM >> To: [hidden email]<mailto: >> [hidden email]> >> Subject: Re: Bioimaging in Genoa - Open access - Great Talks, No women ? >> >> ***** >> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: >> >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__lists.umn.edu_cgi-2Dbin_wa-3FA0-3Dconfocalmicroscopy&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=pbKlEBq2PQtd2UMIlnV0YAQSr24aM1WzAped9Fcp-x4&e= >> Post images on >> https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.imgur.com&d=BQIFAg&c=P0c35rBvlN7D8BNx7kSJTg&r=gTiMNnUY_WQ0o1Pm4wF3M9AK1jT9G1jaGrUpHVi23I8&m=cUr_CZSNJhi8el_BLpxlbNqHs16ZGY8jlpd1WUKpaAI&s=Bg0N8dtCCJgZA2wZFc127n3nIb0f3iZEGUaaEBA-wLA&e= >> and include the link in your posting. >> ***** >> >> The microscopy community is a small one, with its members often helping >> each other to solve issues. It is actually this sense of community that >> keeps me (hopefully others as well) going also in moments of struggle. >> Therefore, it saddens me to see this discussion taking the way it has. >> >> I have nothing to argue against the original criticism/question submitted >> by Jeremy Adler. Gender bias is an important issue that the scientific >> community has to address. WISE estimates that only 13% and 6% of the STEM >> and engineering workforces is female in the UK. Of course, we should all >> contribute to remove the causes for this bias at the root. When scientists >> and engineers are formed we work with the gender imbalance that we get and >> we should always select the best people irrespective of their gender. We >> know however from data that there are serious obstacles in the career >> progression of women in academia. >> >> I have no idea about the proportion of women working in microscopy either >> as developers or expert users; I guess the ratio will change significantly >> and I believe it will even change between different sub-disciplines. I >> promise to come back to you with some numbers, but I had a look to the >> MMC2015 organized by the RMS, event that I believe was not biased overall. >> >> You will forgive me if the numbers are not precise as I had to browse >> through a lot of names in short time, but among the plenary lecturers, >> moderators and selected speakers, it appears that around 30% of people are >> females. The proportion of invited speakers (in parallel sessions) were at >> a smaller proportion of 20% indicating, perhaps, that at least unconscious >> bias is present among moderators (36% were females) or that the conference >> programme merely represented a bias in the progression of careers of female >> scientists (very likely, but of course not very good). >> However, I find that that programme was rather balanced and I hope you >> will agree with me. >> >> Therefore, I have the impression that in some specialist areas we could >> have as few as 10% (or less) female scientists working but in microscopy >> overall a third of all microscopy related workforce may be female. This is >> somehow consistent with figures published again by WISE stating that less >> than 10% engineering professionals are female but in science overall, >> balance between the two genders have been achieved (in the UK). Of course, >> these numbers will be pushed down or up by countries with better or worst >> statistics and specific topics. Bottom line, the analysis of specific small >> events is, in my opinion, very difficult and we should move on to >> understand what we can do in the microscopy community (and the academic >> world in general) to remove any conscious or unconscious bias. >> The debate should be decent and constructive in order to not damage the >> good cause some of you aimed to support. >> >> The latter post of Jeremy Adler could have been avoided; the sarcastic >> tone and the accusation of using the memory of a departed female colleague >> and friend to somehow distract from this thread are regrettable and >> appeared aiming to provoke an emotional response only rather than a useful >> debate. That I do not endorse. >> >> Therefore, could we please discuss about numbers and propose solutions >> like we can usually do in this community? For instance, it would be >> interesting if organizations that manage important conferences could adhere >> to the Athena SWAN Charter, but this is not within the remit of this >> charter. Do you know of any alternative initiative? Perhaps, such a >> subscription may help to raise awareness within the panels that select >> speakers. Also, some links to lists of female speakers have been >> circulated; some of these links are broken, and lists are anyway not >> specific to microscopy. Do you think we should organize to curate such a >> list as a community resource? Suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer >> to work on raising awareness rather than compiling these lists, but >> whatever tool is useful is welcome. >> >> Cheers, >> >> Alessandro >> >> > |
In reply to this post by George McNamara
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To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** I say look harder when looking for speakers. I don't want to get involved in identity politics debates, but I do have a problem with lists such as these because I suspect they tend to skew towards a power distribution of exposure. Snowballing. Kind of like tv/film celebrity. Are certain actors the best, or is it that they are the most recognizable and, hence, marketable? And think capital attracts capital regardless of actual production. At least in science all (or most?) of the people who get nominated to lists in the first place are deserving, but the lists may be eliminating people or ideas that really could use exposure and that we would benefit from hearing. ========================================================================= Michael Cammer, Microscopy Core & Skirball Institute, NYU Langone Medical Center Cell: 914-309-3270 ** Office: Skirball 2nd Floor main office, back right ** http://ocs.med.nyu.edu/microscopy & http://microscopynotes.com/ -----Original Message----- From: Confocal Microscopy List [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of George McNamara Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 10:32 PM To: [hidden email] Subject: Re: gender distribution in microscopy ***** To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. ***** Hi Thomas, Great way to move forward forward with this thread. Alby does not need to limit himself to slide carrying women microscopists: there are plenty of excellent women scientists who have used microscopes. Hi Alby for next year: Yes, Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz, Claire Waterman, Rebecca Richards-Kortun, Sally Ward and Xiaowei Zhuang come to my mind as easy choices to invite (if Alby can afford the travel). A lot closer (by Texas distances), Melody Swartz, Katrin Willig. I am taking this opportunity to suggest Alby invite to his 2015 meeting Evelin Schrock to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Evelin's (and collaborators) Science paper next year: Multicolor spectral karyotyping of human chromosomes. <http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8662537> Schröck E, du Manoir S, Veldman T, Schoell B, Wienberg J, Ferguson-Smith MA, Ning Y, Ledbetter DH, Bar-Am I, Soenksen D, Garini Y, *Ried T*. Science. 1996 Jul 26;273(5274):494-7. PMID: 8662537 Evelin is now at: Institut fuer Klinische Genetik, Medizinische Fakultaet Carl Gustav Carus, Technische Universitaet Dresden, Dresden, German http://tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/fakultaeten/medizinische_fakultaet/inst/kge/ spectral karyotyping 921 PubMed hits (yes some are reviews) ... 5 fluorophores simultaneously for 19+ years. spectral confocal 1071 PubMed hits ... with a much larger installed base and applications. but very rarely more than four colors. best wishes, George p.s. disclosure: I am a former employee and former customer of Applied Spectral Imaging, the company that codeveloped spectral karyotyping with Evelin Schrock and Thomas Ried and their colleagues. Dresden-Genoa is 1,049 km. Texas 1,332 km (east-west on I-10). On 10/13/2015 1:17 PM, Phillips, Thomas E. wrote: > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > Another quantitative measurement would be to look at gender distribution on the editorial boards of microscopy journals. Microscopy Research& Techniques, Microscopy Today, Microscopy& Microanalysis, Microscopy& Analysis, Journal of Histochemistry& Cytochemistry are obvious choices. It can admittedly be sometimes hard to judge gender from the listings but I have made my best effort with 3 of these journals. > > In the spirit of full disclosure, I will note that I am on the "Editorial Staff" of Microscopy Today (an MSA publication) which has 12 member of which 2 are women. Its "Editorial Board" has 3 women and 20 men. > > The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Microanalysis (An MSA publication) seems to me to have 18 males, 3 females. It has 14 individuals listed as "Editors" in various subcategories and these include 11 males and 3 females. It would be interesting to know the gender distribution of MSA. > > The Editorial Board of Microscopy and Analysis (A Wiley publication) seems to me to have 11 males, 0 females. > > I will leave it to someone else to count the MRT and JHC editorial board members. > > I have changed the title of this tread to de-emphasize the implied flaw in any one meeting or meeting organizer. The point should be that more effort has to be made and if the discussion is never initiated, progress won't happen. > > > > > > Thomas E. Phillips, Ph.D > Professor of Biological Sciences > Director, Molecular Cytology Core > 2 Tucker Hall > University of Missouri > Columbia, MO 65211-7400 > 573-882-4712 (office) > 573-882-0123 (fax) > [hidden email] > > http://www.biology.missouri.edu/faculty/phillips.html > http://www.biotech.missouri.edu/mcc/ > > -----Original Message----- > From: Confocal Microscopy List > [mailto:[hidden email]] On Behalf Of Alessandro > Esposito > Sent: Tuesday, October 13, 2015 12:47 PM > To: [hidden email] > Subject: Re: Bioimaging in Genoa - Open access - Great Talks, No women ? > > ***** > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to: > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting. > ***** > > The microscopy community is a small one, with its members often helping each other to solve issues. It is actually this sense of community that keeps me (hopefully others as well) going also in moments of struggle. Therefore, it saddens me to see this discussion taking the way it has. > > I have nothing to argue against the original criticism/question submitted by Jeremy Adler. Gender bias is an important issue that the scientific community has to address. WISE estimates that only 13% and 6% of the STEM and engineering workforces is female in the UK. Of course, we should all contribute to remove the causes for this bias at the root. When scientists and engineers are formed we work with the gender imbalance that we get and we should always select the best people irrespective of their gender. We know however from data that there are serious obstacles in the career progression of women in academia. > > I have no idea about the proportion of women working in microscopy > either as developers or expert users; I guess the ratio will change > significantly and I believe it will even change between different > sub-disciplines. I promise to come back to you with some numbers, but > I had a look to the > MMC2015 organized by the RMS, event that I believe was not biased overall. > > You will forgive me if the numbers are not precise as I had to browse through a lot of names in short time, but among the plenary lecturers, moderators and selected speakers, it appears that around 30% of people are females. The proportion of invited speakers (in parallel sessions) were at a smaller proportion of 20% indicating, perhaps, that at least unconscious bias is present among moderators (36% were females) or that the conference programme merely represented a bias in the progression of careers of female scientists (very likely, but of course not very good). > However, I find that that programme was rather balanced and I hope you will agree with me. > > Therefore, I have the impression that in some specialist areas we could have as few as 10% (or less) female scientists working but in microscopy overall a third of all microscopy related workforce may be female. This is somehow consistent with figures published again by WISE stating that less than 10% engineering professionals are female but in science overall, balance between the two genders have been achieved (in the UK). Of course, these numbers will be pushed down or up by countries with better or worst statistics and specific topics. Bottom line, the analysis of specific small events is, in my opinion, very difficult and we should move on to understand what we can do in the microscopy community (and the academic world in general) to remove any conscious or unconscious bias. > The debate should be decent and constructive in order to not damage the good cause some of you aimed to support. > > The latter post of Jeremy Adler could have been avoided; the sarcastic tone and the accusation of using the memory of a departed female colleague and friend to somehow distract from this thread are regrettable and appeared aiming to provoke an emotional response only rather than a useful debate. That I do not endorse. > > Therefore, could we please discuss about numbers and propose solutions like we can usually do in this community? For instance, it would be interesting if organizations that manage important conferences could adhere to the Athena SWAN Charter, but this is not within the remit of this charter. Do you know of any alternative initiative? Perhaps, such a subscription may help to raise awareness within the panels that select speakers. Also, some links to lists of female speakers have been circulated; some of these links are broken, and lists are anyway not specific to microscopy. Do you think we should organize to curate such a list as a community resource? Suggestions are welcome. I personally prefer to work on raising awareness rather than compiling these lists, but whatever tool is useful is welcome. > > Cheers, > > Alessandro > > -- George McNamara, Ph.D. Single Cells Analyst L.J.N. Cooper Lab University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center Houston, TX 77054 Tattletales http://works.bepress.com/gmcnamara/42 ------------------------------------------------------------ This email message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain information that is proprietary, confidential, and exempt from disclosure under applicable law. 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