Eugenie Scott: Battling for Science Education

Sometimes I get tired. I have a bunch of half-finished posts that all seem like variations on the same negative themes: women are falling behind, left behind, and dropping out. It's the same reports and same arguments over and over again. I just haven't been that inspired. But I realized that what I needed was something positive to write about. Fortunately, Eugenie Scott has provided me an inspiring subject.

Eugenie Scott can remember well when she first became interested in anthropology:

I must have been around nine or 10 years old when my older sister brought home a college-level textbook in anthropology. I was something of a compulsive reader even then, and I casually picked up one of my sister’s books and flipped through the pages.

In the middle of the book was a set of plates showing primitive-looking people with big brows, prow-like noses and receding chins. They were kind of like her boyfriend of the time actually, an observation that was not appreciated. But I was gobsmacked by the reconstructions of these early fossil humans – Cro-Magnons, Neanderthals, Peking Man and the like.

This is where we started. These were the great-great-great-umpty-ump-great grandfathers of us all. It was stunning to a 10-year-old. The title of the book was Anthropology. I decided then that I wanted to be an anthropologist when I grew up.

She wasn't actually taught anything about evolution in her science classes until she got to college, but she never lost interest in anthropology. After getting her bachelor and masters degrees from the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee she headed to graduate school at the University of Missouri.

It was as a graduate student in physical anthropology that Scott first became aware of oxymoronically-named "creation science" in 1971. It may not have seemed significant at the time, but that started her on a path towards her current position as the Executive Director of the Oakland, California-based National Center for Science Education (NCSE), which works to keep evolution in public school science education. Over the years Scott collected creationist literature, at first as a mostly academic curiosity. It was while teaching at the University of Kentucky that she became involved in a fight to keep creationism out of the Lexington public schools. From that effort the NCSE was formed in 1981, and Scott was made Executive Director of the organization in 1987.

While she has accumulated a number of awards and honors over the years, it's not too surprising that her efforts have come under fire. As Chris Mooney has pointed out, she has has to fend off criticism from both creationists and science advocates:

As this evidence suggests, Scott is regularly under fire from the culture war combatants on both sides. Not only does NCSE have to monitor the endless permutations of the creationists, who are constantly coming up with new ploys for attacking evolution. It also has to deal with the pugilistic evolutionists who want to make this battle about the truth or falsehood of religious belief, rather than the truth or falsehood of what science discovers about the world. In this gauntlet, Scott has remained an eloquent defender of the view that people of science and people of religion can and must work together to solve conflicts—and indeed, this is the best and only way forward.

Her position seems reasonable to me, and the NCSE's efforts seem to have been effective. I'm thankful that Scott has devoted so much of her career to fighting this fight. Quality science education from elementary through high school is necessary to cultivate the upcoming generations of American scientists.

More information about Eugenie Scott:

• Wikipedia: Eugenie Scott
  
• 1999: Bruce Alberts Award for Excellence in Science Education from the American Society for Cell Biology
• 2001-2003: President of the American Association of Physical Anthropologists
  
• 2002: Outstanding Service Award from the American Institute of Biological Sciences
  
• 2006: Anthropology in the Media Award from the American Anthropological Association
  
• 2009 Scientific American 10: Guiding Science for Humanity
  

  Eugenie Scott has emerged as one of the most prominent advocates for keeping evolution an integral part of the curriculum in public schools in her role as head of the nonprofit National Center for Science Education (NCSE).

• 2009: awarded the very first Stephen J. Gould Prize bu the Society for the Study of Evolution.

Dr. Scott is a gifted communicator and public intellectual. She is a frequent guest on radio and television shows, and an eloquent spokeswoman for science. Her writings have illuminated the process of science to thousands, and her books have exposed the efforts of many groups in our society to hobble and undermine the teaching of science to our younger generation. The organization she helped create far transcends the considerable reach of her own voice, vastly amplifying her impact on public understanding.

(If you are interested in helping defend the teaching of evolution, download "Voices for Evolution" and check out the NCSE's resource page.)

Tags: women in science, Eugenie Scott, NCSE

Blog roll update: supplemental

Thanks to everyone who sent me blog suggestions!

As always, if you'd rather your blog not be listed, drop me a note and I'll remove it from the list. And if you have another suggestion, let me know!

General and Miscellaneous

The Third World Organization for Women in Science (TWOWS) has news about meetings and fellowships.

The Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology (CWiST) blog has news about Canadian women in, well, you know . . .

Physical Sciences

Christie at the Cape teaches in the geology department at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. She says "I am pretty new here. This blog is about settling in."

Mel at Ripples in the Sand is "a graduate student in the Rocky Mountain region. My interests include sedimentology, stratigraphy, and diagenesis - with an emphasis on deserts."

Alessia Maggi is a research seismologist in Strasbourg, France who blogs at Sismordia - Seismology at Concordia.

Ordinary High Water Mark is written by Coconino, "a woman geoscientist and I primarily work on conducting wetland/waters jurisdictional determinations in the greater southwest."

Dr. Lisa is an astrophysicist who blogs at Things I Find Important. "I'm a scientist and an educator. And occasionally, I want to say things that I shouldn't say in front of the students. So, here I am."

Louise Riofrio blogs at A Babe in the Universe. She's a "Full-time researcher in cosmology. Before graduating I learned that the speed of light is slowing down and came up with the GM=tc^3 equation, which most physicists still can't explain. More recent work seeks Black Holes in some very unexpected places. I enjoy exploring a strange world and unusual forms of life."

Marni Dee Sheppeard is a physics and astronomy postgrad in New Zealand. Her blog, "Arcadian Functor" has "occasional meanderings in physics' brave new world."


Wayward Elf is an "American expat in Switzerland who, to the horror of everyone she meets, shipped over a spinning wheel and ten (small and liftable) boxes of books. And a lot of knitting needles. All padded with my yarn and fiber stash." She just successfully defended her thesis - congrats Dr. Elf!

Life Sciences

Rock Doctor writes at Life v. 3.0 . She says: "After many bumps, twists, and turns in the life of a military spouse, I have finally reclaimed my own space and place. I am for myself and all the world, a geobiologist."

Adopt a Microbe is the blog of Emma Lurie, a student in Perth, Australia. Each post is a portrait of a bacterium, virus, or other microbe, with a description and cute original illustration. I never thought I'd want to give herpes a hug!

Alethea of Humans in Science suggested several French women science bloggers:

Ingénieur Bioinformaticienne is written by "Evelyne, is a research engineer in bioinformatics and has been actively writing for the last year on her career."

Dr. Caroline Legrand, anthropologist, "has a diverse blog covering her academic specialty, genealogy, searching for origins, and her view of French academic politics."

Dr. Sophie Pène "has been keeping a blog about her research in networking on her university site"

Mathematics and Computer Science

Ivory Tower Tales blogger Science Cog is "a newly appointed tenure-track assistant professor in the mathematical sciences at a large research university in the United States. Cast of characters on this blog include the cog family consisting of spouse with demanding job and several kids."

Jessika at Middle Raged Punk is "a 30-something punk/geek chick living in Oklahoma. I am married with one Baby Grrl, and am still struggling with working full time, doing the home stuff, and rebelling against the system while trying to find time to satisfy the geek in me by playing video and other games." She asks "Where'd all the women in IT go?"

The Women and Mathematics EMS Committee blog has the following description:

The idea to try and provide European women mathematicians with a meeting point between the two EWM meetings, was born at the EWM Cambridge meeting. The European Mathematical Society Committee Women and Mathematics launched the blog on September 12, 2007, with a wish to put this idea into work.

We are doing our best to publish the materials as regularly as possible. Of course, people are more than welcome to leave their comments. (Unfortunately, this opportunity has not been very much exploited.) So far we have published various materials : statistical data, reports on past activities of the Committee, materials about EWM; we have also started a gallery of portraits of living women mathematicians, each of whom is introduced by one of her women colleagues.

Engineering

Hot Chicks Dig Smart Men is written by Janiece Murphy, "a Hot Chick living in Parker, CO with my Smart Man, my family and my Giant Schnauzer. I'm a 17 year veteran of the United States Navy, and I currently work as a Systems Engineer at a major manufacturer of Telecommunications equipment. I'm an amateur skeptic and a fan-girl of science, and I think Neil deGrasse Tyson knows the secret of the Universe. I'm unashamedly liberal. I attend the University of Denver, knit cold weather accessories for various charities, and I'm learning to play bass guitar in an effort to stave off the Mad Cow."

Tags: women in science, blogs

Pardis Sabeti, Cool Super Scientist

Sometimes you read about someone who has so many accomplishments it's hard to figure when they have time to sleep. Pardis Sabeti is one of those people. The profile of the 32-year old biological anthropologist in the April 25 issue of Science was pretty amazing:

• one of the first recipients of a L'Oreal Women in Science fellowship award
  
• developed a "novel test for natural selection in the human genome" which is being used in research on the evolution of resistance to malaria and Lassa fever
• as a postdoc had more than $600,000 of her own grant money, and is currently a co-investigator on a $2 million Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant
• named a Trailblazer by Science Spectrum magazine as one of the "top minorities in science" (read the interview)
  
• named by the London Daily Telegraph as one of the "top 100 living geniuses"
• panelist at this year's World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland
• received a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award in Biomedical Sciences
• recently hired as an assistant professor at the Harvard FAS Center for Systems Biology
  

In some ways she is the stereotypical driven genius scientist. She attended top schools: undergrad at MIT, Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University, graduation from Harvard Medical School with summa cum laude honors (presented to the "single most deserving student among a graduating class and is not automatically awarded every year"). Her research on the evolution of resistance to tropical diseases in affected human populations may eventually result in better vaccines and therapies. She is a nerd at heart. As she told Science:

"Even though I am gregarious, I interact more with [scientific] papers than with people. Deep down, I am just a math geek."

Sabeti, who moved to Florida with her family from Iran in 1979, attributes her academic success to her mother:

"My mother crated a summer camp in our house, where she would teach the children and make us do book reports. And my sister, who is 2 years older than me, would teach me and my cousin what she had learned in school."

But she also has a creative side. When she has time she writes music and performs with her band, Thousand Days. And she is making videos:

With support from the MIT Council for the Arts and a women-in-science program sponsored by L’Oreal, Dr. Sabeti is planning a series of music videos featuring Boston-based science luminaries such as Dr. Lander and artificial intelligence expert Marvin Minsky.
[. . .]
The videos, which Dr. Sabeti would like to distribute online, will use pop culture to show that science is cool. Her hope is that young viewers will want to learn more about the people in the videos.

You can see one of them when she is profiled on NOVA, scheduled to air in July.

For more about her research and her thoughts on women in science, check out the video below of her talk at Seed Magazine's Inspiration Festival in 2006:


She starts talking about women in science - particularly the L'Oreal Women in Science program - at about 14:44.

And the sleep thing? When Science spoke to Sabeti she was managing "only 2 hours of sleep each night, most of them inside a crumpled blue sleeping bag she keeps under a desk . . ."

Tags: Pardis Sabeti, biology, human genetics, women in science

Sixteen Women Elected to National Academy of Sciences - Chronicle.com

On April 29, the National Academy of Science announced their newly elected members, and 16 of the 72 inductees were women. The Chronicle of Higher Education points out that this is a significant increase over last year, when only nine women were elected, but still lower than the 2005, when 19 women were elected. The women who were honored:

• Frances H. Arnold: Dick and Barbara Dickinson Professor of Chemical Engineering and Biochemistry, department of chemistry and chemical engineering, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
• Emily A. Carter: Arthur W. Marks '19 Professor, department of mechanical and aerospace engineering, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J.
• Maureen L. Cropper: professor of economics, University of Maryland, College Park
• Margaret T. Fuller:Reed-Hodgson Professor in Human Biology and professor of genetics, department of developmental biology, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, Calif.

• Jane I. Guyer: professor of anthropology, department of anthropology, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore
• Evelyn L. Hu: professor, electrical and computer engineering department, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Nancy A. Jenkins: deputy director and principal investigator, cell cycle control, Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, Proteos, Singapore
• Jennifer Lippincott-Schwartz: chief, section on organelle biology, cell biology and metabolism branch, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Md.

• Gail Mandel: investigator, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and senior scientist, Vollum Institute, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland
• Claire E. Max: professor, astronomer, and director, center for adaptive optics, University of California, Santa Cruz
• Carol L. Prives: DaCosta Professor of Biology, department of biological sciences, Columbia University, New York City
• Lisa J. Randall: professor of theoretical physics, department of physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.

• Anjana Rao: professor of pathology and senior investigator, Immune Disease Institute, Harvard Medical School, Boston
• Johanna Schmitt: Stephen T. Olney Professor of Natural History, department of ecology and evolutionary biology, Brown University, Providence, R.I.
• Theda Skocpol: Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass.
• Elizabeth A. Thompson: professor, department of statistics, University of Washington, Seattle
  

Five of the 18 elected foreign associates were women:

• Anny Cazenave: senior scientist, Laboratoire d'Etudes en Géophysique et Océanographie Spatiales, Centre National d'Etudes Spatiales (CNES), Toulouse, France (France)
• Anne E. Cutler: professor, Institute for Cognition and Information, University of Nijmegen, and director, Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Heilig Landstichting, Netherlands (Australia)
• Caroline Dean: associate research director, John Innes Centre, Norwich, United Kingdom (United Kingdom)
• B. Rosemary Grant: research scholar, department of ecology and evolutionary biology, Princeton University, Princeton, N.J. (United Kingdom)
• Janet Rossant: chief of research and senior scientist, Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario (Canada and United Kingdom)

While it's great to see talented female scientists gaining recognition, it's still appears that women are underrepresented. As Zuska points out, there are a number of arguments that keep getting trotted out in support of the status quo.

One of the favorite arguments seems to be that the percentage of women elected to the Academy is commensurate with the percentage of female science faculty members, so there must not be any discrimination. While it might seem reasonable, my biggest problem with that argument is that it assumes that if the percentage of women scientists elected to the Academy are representative this year, the numbers elected have always been representative. That simply hasn't been the case. According to the Membership Directory, in 1980 only a single women was elected, in 1985 there were only four, and in 1990 and 1995 only five*. In fact less than 10 years ago, in 2000, only 6% of the National Academy's members were women. Some of the recently elected women almost certainly were overlooked for membership in previous years. At the rate they are adding new members, they may never catch up.

* 1980: Eloise Giblett; 1985: Mary-Dell Chilton, Mildred Dresselhaus, Sandra Faber, Martha Vaughan; 1990: Gertrude Elion, Esther Conwell, Nina Federoff, Sarah Hrdy, Cathleen Morawetz, 1995: Clara Franzini-Armstrong, Lily Jan, Judith Kimble, Anne Krueger, Carla Shatz

Tags: women in science, National Academy of Sciences

Priscilla Reining, ~1923-2007

The Washington Post writes about the life and research of anthropologist Priscilla Reining who died on July 19 at the age of 84.

She was a distinguished scientist who held three degrees in anthropology from the University of Chicago, but she was also, according to those who knew her, a courageous and groundbreaking example to other women.

In 1953, she moved to Tanzania with her infant son, the first of her three children, and lived near a Haya village for two years. At the same time, her husband, Conrad C. Reining, was conducting research in Sudan.

They fled a Sudanese uprising in 1955.

"We were lucky to escape," Robert Reining said. "My father knew a back road out of Sudan into Congo. He led a whole convoy of people, and they escaped."

In the 1970s, Reining spearheaded an African satellite mapping project.

Robert Reining took a year off from college in the mid-1970s to help his mother on an early satellite mapping project. Whole regions of Africa suddenly came into view. Scientists could measure the advance of the Sahara Desert, and governments and lending agencies could plan drought and famine relief.

"These were the first images available to anyone outside the intelligence community," said her son. "For the first time, we could count the villages. You had what was effectively the first reliable population estimate of this area."

Reining is best known for her analysis of patterns of HIV infection in different African populations which found that uncircumcised African men were 86% more likely to get infected with the AIDS virus. Not surprisingly, her results were met with skepticism, but subsequent studies have confirmed the correlation.

But finally, at an international AIDS conference in Sydney last week, Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, declared, "We've had one important breakthrough this year, with understanding the role of circumcision in prevention."

Tags: Priscilla Reining, anthropology, AIDS

Women in Science Friday Link Roundup

Articles and posts from the past week I didn't get around to blogging:

Harvard physicist Lisa Randall "enters the Seed Salon to discuss shape, magic tricks, and the definition of "see" with architect/designer" Chuck Hoberman.

Voice of America broadcast a program on the "Mercury 13." You can download the MP3 or read the transcript.

Afarensis links to a video interview with Dr. Louise Leakey on the Archaeology Channel about human evolution.

So Sioux Me explains how the Discovery Channel's Mythbusters is "a fantastic way to empower girls." Who says girls don't enjoy blowing stuff up?

Cybernoon.com of Bombay, India writes about three young women "from very economically disadvantaged backgrounds" who are pursuing engineering degrees, supported by the L'Oréal India Scholarship for Young Women in Science.

These are all the first ever engineers in their respective families! And they hope others follow in their footsteps. As [Scholarship recipient] Devika wisely says, “I have learnt from my own life that you can make it even without the finances, provided you develop your talents and have a goal you are aspiring toward. Parents must support their girls to study further, and not worry about where the money will come from because where there is a will, there is a way.”

Voice of America profiles two of Burkina Faso's professional women: government mediator Amina Ouedraogo, and Alice Tiendrebeogo, a founder and vice president of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). They are exceptions in a country where only one quarter of the girls complete primary school, and 80% never learn to read.

[Tiendrebeogo] recounts an experience at a summer science camp for teenage girls, which featured evening talks with women with successful careers in science.

"At the beginning of the camp, we asked the girls what they wanted to be when they grew up, and all their ideas were of traditional female professions, like primary school teachers or typists," she recalled. "By the end of the camp, the girls were more forward-thinking, Tiendrebeogo says. They said they wanted to be engineers, university professors, doctors.

Cary Tennis tackles the issue of the "two body problem" at Salon.com when a graduate student in analytical chemistry writes that his girlfriend is heading to Berkeley, while he is still finishing up grad school and just received an offer from a lab in Toronto. Tennis doesn't think it's so complicated:

Whose career has priority right now? I think hers does, since she has already accepted a position. Hers also does for her personally, since she is trying to reverse a gender-based legacy. That can be touchy for couples. Duh. Plus, this whole reversing a gender-based legacy thing is not foolproof: We find in reversing the mistakes of our parents that we make equal and opposite mistakes. But since she's made the first move, yours is, for now, the subordinate position. So deal with it.

The Boston Globe reports on the dilemma of Sophie Currier, who needs to pass National Board of Medical Examiners by August to start her medical residence. The problem? She is breastfeeding her 7-month-old daughter, but is unable to get extra break time during the 9 hour exam to express milk, since that is not considered a disability covered by the American with Disabilities Act. She is also not allowed to use the breast pump inside the testing room, and the whole situation is complicated by the fact that Currier is already being allowed extra time to take the exam for a disability.

Tara Bishop writes about "Dr. Mom: The Truth about the Mommy Track" for MIT Alumni News.

I wasn't completely comfortable quitting my job, so I told people that I was "taking a break." In fact, I was embarrassed to be wasting an undergraduate degree from MIT in chemical engineering and a medical degree from Cornell. Before my son was born, I read the "Opt-Out Revolution" in the New York Times and saw a Sixty Minutes segment about highly educated and successful women who gave up their work to be home with their kids. At the time, I vowed never to sacrifice my career.

Five years later, I found myself doing exactly that. The first few weeks at home were a series of adjustments. I went to the playground and tried to become friends with other stay-at-home moms. I beamed as my son played his mini guitar better than all the other kids in his music class. I loved that I once again had time to read novels.

But I was also very, very bored.

Bishop ultimately decided she made the right choice. She is planning to go back to work when her sons are in preschool.

IT Pro reports on the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology seminar last week.

Dr Wendy Faulkner of the University of Edinburgh told attendees that women workers are turned away from the sector because of poor work-life balance and a male dominated culture. "The sector is more comfortable to men than women," she said.

The LaCrosse (Wisconsin) Tribune takes a look at the some myths in the battle of the sexes, including "Women aren’t as good at science and math".

“(Women) don’t have good role models,” Sudhakaran said. “I see girls when I teach general education courses who are so talented, so smart, and I always ask them why they didn’t go for science and engineering because they’re so good at it. They say, �my parents told me that science is not for girls.’

Articles about summer science programs for girls:

NASA Ames Research Center in California is collaborating with the Girl Scouts of the San Francisco Bay Area for the "Launch into Technology Program." Fifty high school-aged Girl Scouts will have two week-long programs, one on robotics, and one on aeronautics. ABC7 News has a video segment on the program.

The University of St. Thomas in Minnesota has a program after which "seventh-grade girls from throughout Minnesota will have built and flown their own radio-controlled model airplanes." The airplanes are built completely from scratch, based on information the girls learn in classes on plastics, electricity, machining, computer-aided design, assembly, Web design, chemistry, physics, engineering and robotics. There are four one-week sessions of the STEPS program in July.

The Bridgwater (UK) Mercury writes about the WISE (Women Into Science and Engineering) project at Robert Blake Science College that "gave girls from four Somerset schools the chance to release their inner Einsteins." The girls each constructed a "fully functioning perfume emitting, aromatherapy fan," which seem like a bizarre choice of engineering projects to me. Hopefully the girls enjoyed it.

Tags: women in science, women in engineering, Lisa Randall, Mercury 13, Louise Leakey, Mythbusters, India Scholarship for Young Women in Science, Alice Tiendrebeogo, two-body problem, mommy track, summer camp, science for girls

Interview with Jane Goodall

The latest issue of Discover magazine has an interview with primatologist Jane Goodall. She reminisces about her decades-long study of chimpanzee behavior which started with a passion for studying animals.

When you arrived in Africa, did you imagine you’d be spending 47 years involved with chimpanzees?

No [laughs]. How could I have back then? One year there seemed enormous at the time. I was only 23. I was invited to Africa by a school friend whose parents had moved to Kenya. One of their friends said, “If you’re interested in animals, you should meet Dr. Louis Leakey.” So I went to see him at the Coryndon Museum [where Leakey was director], and he ended up offering me a job as his secretary. During the time I worked for him, I had the opportunity to go out on the Serengeti with him. He knew I didn’t care about clothes and hair, dresses and parties, and that I really, really, really wanted to live with animals in the bush. And that I didn’t care about a degree—I just wanted to learn.

She also talks about her work to preserve the chimp habitat in Tanzania's Gombe National park.

You can learn more about the Goodall Institute's current chimpanzee research on the Gombe Chimpanzee blog, which cleverly integrates observations of chimp behavior with Google Earth locations.

Tags: Jane Goodall

Women's Adventures in Science

The National Academies has put together a website, I Was Wondering, which is "a curious look at Women's Adventures in Science".

The Web site iWASwondering.org is a project of the National Academy of Sciences intended to showcase the accomplishments of contemporary women in science and to highlight for young people the varied and intriguing careers of some of today's most prominent scientists. The site draws from and accompanies the publication of a ten-volume series of biographies entitled Women's Adventures in Science, co-published by the Joseph Henry Press (an imprint of the National Academies Press) and Scholastic Library Publishing.

There is a "home page for each of "10 cool scientists", with videos, interactive comic books, games and science labs for kids.

The profilees:

• Cynthia Breazeal, who "Created a robot that responds to a person's mood"
• Diane France, who studied the skull of Jesse James and the bones of the assassinated Russian Royal family.
• Inez Fung, who "uses superfast computers to predict climate change"
• Heidi Hammel who studies comets and the outer planets.
• Shirley Ann Jackson, who studies subatomic particles.
• Mimi Kohl, who studies how lobsters smell.
• Adriana Ocampo, a geologist for NASA.
• Marta Tienda, who "rose from poverty to study the poor and disadvantaged"
• Amy Vedder, who studies gorillas in the wild.
• Nancy Wexler who studies "the genes that cause hereditary diseases"

It looks like a fun site for curious kids.

Tags: women in science

Field Museum's Women in Science

The Field Natural History Museum in Chicago has interviews with thirteen women scientists in their employ, who work in fields ranging from the biological sciences to geology. They share their thoughts on both their own research and their experiences as women in science.

The site also profiles two pioneers from the museum's past, explorer Delia Akeley (1875-1970) who discovered new African animal species, and botanist Margery Carlson (1892-1985) who collected plant samples in South America and Europe and was a professor of botany at Northwestern. They both had their share of adventures.

From the Field Museum profile of Delia Akeley, on collecting an elephant specimen:

"Scarcely breathing, and with legs trembling so I could hardly stand, I waited for the elephant to move forward," she wrote in her book "All True!" "Dimly through the mist the dark shape came slowly from behind the bush, exposing a splendid pair of tusks and a great flapping ear which was my target. With nerves keyed to the point of action I fired, and the first elephant I shot at fell lifeless among the dew-wet ferns . . . He was a splendid elephant, standing ten feet ten inches tall at the shoulders and carrying 180 pounds of ivory. In his back was a great festering wound caused by a poisonous spear. The iron blade had worked its way into his flesh to his rib and he must have suffered agonies."

I'm not particularly fond of this method of "collecting" animals, but there is no doubt Akeley did her job well.

From the GWIS profile of Margery Carlson:

An energetic and adventurous woman, Dr. Carlson’s primary interaction with Field Museum was through her plant collecting program in Mexico and Central America in the late 1940s and early 1950s. Using a station wagon or truck-camper as both vehicle and motel, Margery, together with her companion Kate Staley, was able to reach remote areas in southern Mexico, El Salvador, Honduras, and Costa Rica. Each expedition took several months and came close to or exceeded 10,000 miles of travel.

What was especially remarkable about Margery’s field trips was that both she and her companion were gray-haired ladies embarking on trips that would challenge someone half their age. The trips were not without adventures and minor mishaps. One expedition ended with the truck smashed at the bottom of a canyon but with the two women only slightly injured. Another adventure Margery loved to recount was the time she and Kate were eating lunch along the side of the road in northern Mexico, when they found themselves face-to-face with two men brandishing machetes and demanding money. Sizing up the situation quickly (these were two poor farmers and not dangerous bandits), Margery proceeded to admonish them in Spanish: "Don’t you realize you could have scared us to death? And if that had happened you could never go to heaven!", whereupon she invited them to have some lunch — which they did.

Two amazing women!

Tags: Field Museum, Delia Akeley, Margery Carlson

Four Thousand Years of Women in Science

4000 Years of Women in Science is a database of women scientists from ancient Egypt, Greece, China and India to the 20th Century. You can browse by date, name or field of study.

The biographies are very brief, but would make great jumping-off point for further research.

Illustration: Merit Ptah, Egyptian physician, ~2700 BCE (image from Wikipedia_.

Tags: history, women in science