The Dearth of Female Academic Scientists

MIT isn’t the only institution with a dearth of female scientists. According to an article in The Scientist, none of the 23 tenure-track faculty members in neighboring Harvard University’s cell-biology and biochemistry/ molecular-pharmacology departments in 2006 were female (though two women have been hired since then).

In fact, nearly “half of the top 10 National Institutes of Health-funded academic health centers had no women among their junior tenure-track faculty in their biochemistry and cell-biology departments,” while a paltry 20 percent of the senior scientists at NIH are female, the article’s author, Phoebe Leboy, notes. Ms. Leboy, who is a professor of biochemistry emerita at the University of Pennsylvania and president of the Association for Women in Science, goes on to explain why that is — hint: it’s not because they’re all opting out to have children — and what can be done to reverse that trend. Read the whole article.