L'Oreal-UNESCO USA Fellowships Awarded

The five postdoctoral researchers who were awarded 2009 L'Oreal USA Fellowships for Women in Science were honored at a special ceremony at the American Museum of Natural History on Thursday. Each of the winners will receive a $60,000 grant for scientific research and career development. The awardees:

Dr. Beena Kalisky: Kalisky is a postdoc in the lab of Kathyrn A. Moler in the Department of Applied Stanford University. According to the press release, she is "developing a new system for detection and characterization of individual nanomagnets. The instrument designed will scan over a large number of particles and individually measure their magnetic properties. This will help in the gathering of pertinent information for the exploration of the nanomagnets' possible applications."

Dr. Aster Kammrath: Kammrath is a postdoc in the lab of Frank Keutsch in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. According to the press release her research focuses on "the pathways by which molecules emitted by human activity or natural sources are involved in climate change and pollution problems. This work aims to help set appropriate emissions controls to minimize the production of carbon dioxide, other greenhouse gases and aerosol, which could help reduce respiratory problems."

Kammrath has said that it was her mother who helped her discover science:

"She instilled in me a passion for solving problems and understanding the real-world application of the scientific method," she says.

Dr. Nozomi Nishimura: Nishimura is a postdoc in the lab of Chris B. Schaffer in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Cornell University. Her research involves "testing the role that blood vessel dysfunction plays in triggering Alzheimer's disease. This research will look at how clots or bleeds in the smallest blood vessels in the brain could seed the accumulation of A-beta proteins, an indication of plaque in the brain which often occurs in Alzheimer's patients."

Dr. Tiffany Santos: Santos is a postdoc in the Electronic & Magnetic Materials & Devices division of the Center for Nanoscale Materials at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois. Her research involves "a class of materials called transition metal oxides, with a wide array of properties, that have numerous potential applications. This research aims to uncover new materials, which could potentially help reduce power consumption and increase the energy efficiency of information technologies, such as data storage devices and memory chips."

Dr. Erika Sudderth: Sudderth is a postdoc in the lab of David Ackerly in the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of California at Berkeley (the press release says Brown University, so she may have recently moved). Her research is focused on understanding "the constraints, thresholds and limits of ecological responses to precipitation, which is arguably the most important controller of ecosystem processes. This research aims to understand the mechanisms driving ecosystem responses to climate change."

(I plan to update the post as the various institutions release additional information)

For more information about the awards, see:

• L'Oréal-USA For Women in Science Official Web Site (requires Flash)
• L'Oréal USA For Women in Science on Facebook

Tags: women in science, L'Oreal-UNESCO Fellowships

Rita Levi-Montalcini: Still busy after a century

Times Online has an interesting article about neuroscientist Rita Levi-Montalcini, who tuned 100 on April 22. She has lead - or I should say is leading - a fascinating life.

Levi-Montalcini enrolled in medical school at the University of Turin in 1930 over her father's objections.

The initial obstacle to entering university was not Fascism, but her father. In her autobiography she writes that she and her twin sister Paola (an artist who died in 2000 and whose artworks decorate her office walls) were born to Adamo Levi, “an electrical engineer and gifted mathematician”, and Adele Montalcini, “a talented painter and an exquisite human being”.
[...snip...]
“[My father] loved us dearly and had a great respect for women, but he believed that a professional career would interfere with the duties of a wife and mother. He decided that the three of us - Anna, Paola and I - would not engage in studies which open the way to a professional career, and that we would not enroll in the University.”

She enrolled anyway, earning her degree in medicine and surgery in 1936. She wasn't sure if she wanted to pursue neurology research or focus on medicine, so she chose to enroll in further coursework to specialize in neurology and psychiatry.

Her academic career was cut short, however, when Mussolini issued his Manifesto of Race which barred Jews like Levi-Montalcini from academic and professional careers. Rather than flee the country, she decided to stay in Italy and continue her work on her own:

The two alternatives left then to us were either to emigrate to the United States, or to pursue some activity that needed neither support nor connection with the outside Aryan world where we lived. My family chose this second alternative. I then decided to build a small research unit at home and installed it in my bedroom. My inspiration was a 1934 article by Viktor Hamburger reporting on the effects of limb extirpation in chick embryos. My project had barely started when [Italian histologist] Giuseppe Levi, who had escaped from Belgium invaded by Nazis, returned to Turin and joined me, thus becoming, to my great pride, my first and only assistant.

The heavy bombing of Turin by Anglo-American air forces in 1941 made it imperative to abandon Turin and move to a country cottage where I rebuilt my mini-laboratory and resumed my experiments. In the Fall of 1943, the invasion of Italy by the German army forced us to abandon our now dangerous refuge in Piemonte and flee to Florence, where we lived underground until the end of the war.

When the British and American armed forces forced the Germans out of Florence in 1944 she was hired as a physician to minister to a war refugee camp, which housed Italians who had fled the continued fighting in the North. When the war was over, she and her family returned to Turin where she resumed her academic position at the University.

But her life was to change once again. In 1947 developmental biologist Viktor Hamburger invited Levi-Montalcini to join him in his lab at Washington University in St. Louis. She had intended to stay there for 10 months, but actually ended up remaining there for 30 years. She was hired as an Assistant Professor in 1956, and promoted to Full Professor in 1958.

While she made her home in the US she didn't neglect her Italian roots: in 1962 she established a research unit in Rome, splitting her time between there and St. Louis. And in 1969 she became the Director of the Institute of Cell Biology of the Italian National Council of Research.

It was at Washington University that Levi-Montalcini and Stanley Cohen first isolated Nerve Growth Factor from tumor cells. They received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for that work in 1986. As she told the Times:

Her discovery, she says, was the highlight of her long life. “I immediately understood the importance of this discovery, which is more important today than it was then and which went completely against the dogmas of the time. The recognition in Stockholm gave me great pleasure, but it does not compare with the moment of the discovery itself, when I realised I was opening up a whole new scenario.”

Although she officially retired in 1977, she never actually stopped working as a scientist. Five years ago she founded the European Brain Research Institute (EBRI) in Rome. That is, in fact, where she spent her 100th birthday, attending a conference on "The Brain in Health and Disease" held in her honor.

She also has been working for social change. She (with her sister Paola) also founded the Rita Levi-Montalcini Foundation, which focuses on the education of girls and young women in Africa. In 2001 she was appointed an Italian Senator-for-life, a role she actively serves which she actively serves "unless busy in academic activities around the world"

And what is her secret to such a long and active life? She gets up early in the morning, eats very little, and keeps her brain active. She also supposedly doses herself every day with nerve growth factor eye drops, which may or may not have had a positive effect. She has also seems to have been blessed with general good health.

She has lived an amazing life, and shows little sign of slowing down. We should all be so active when we hit the century mark.

More information:

• Video interview with Rita Levi-Montalcini at Nobelprize.org (Nov. 2008)
  
• Abbott A. "Neuroscience: One hundred years of Rita" Nature 458, 564-567 (2009) (subscription required)
• Nobelprize.org: Rita Levi-Montalcini Autobiography
• New York Times review of Levi-Montalcini's memoir In Praise of Imperfection
• Italian TV special "100 anni di Rita Levi Montalcini" on YouTube (in Italian, natch)
  
• 1983: Louisa Gross Horwitz Prize
• 1986: Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
• 1986: Albert Lasker Award for Basic Biomedical Research
  
• 1987: National Medal of Science
  

Publications:

• Levi-Montalcini R. "Developmental Neurobiology and the Natural History of Nerve Growth Factor" Annu Rev Neuroscience 5:341-362 (1982) (subscription require)
• Rita Levi-Montalcini's Nobel Lecture "The Nerve Growth Factor: Thirty-Five Years Later" (8 Dec 1986)
  
• Cohen S., Levi-Montalcini R. and Hamburger V. "A Nerve Growth-Stimulating Factor Isolated From Sarcomas 37 and 180" Proc Natl Acad Sci 40:1014-1018 (1954)
• Cohen S and Levi-Montalcini R. "A Nerve Growth-Stimulating Factor Isolated From Snake Venom" Proc Natl Acad Sci 42(9): 571-574 (1956)
• Levi-Montalcini R, Cohen S. "In Vitro and In Vivo Effects of a Nerve Growth-Stimulating Agent Isolated From Snake Venom" Proc Natl Acad Sci. 42(9): 695-699 (1956)
• Cohen S and Levi-Montalcini R. "Purification and properties of a nerve growth-promoting factor isolated from mouse sarcoma 180." Cancer Res. 17(1): 15-20 (1957)
  

(via Mind Hacks)

Photo (top): Rita Levi-Montalcini by Jollyroger on Wikipedia (2007)
Photo (bottom): Rita Levi- Montalcini viewing slides by Herb Weitman (1964)
Tags: Rita Levi-Montalcini, neuroscience

Top Women Scientists of 2008

It's the end of the year and all the magazines are publishing their "best of" lists - including the top scientists. Here's a round-up of women scientists who have been profiled:

Anne Wojcicki and Linda Avey, co-founders of biotech startup 23andMe were among Popular Mechanics' "The Internet's Top 10 Most Controversial Figures of 2008"

Discover named Senator Barbara Mikulski, chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, and Science as one of the "10 most influential people in science". No, she's not a scientist herself, but she regularly fights for federal science funding.

Discover named University of Alaska ecologist Katey Walter, Harvard stem cell biology Amy Wagers, UC Berkeley molecular biologist Nicole King, and MIT astrophysicist Sara Seager among the "20 best brains under 40"

Discover named Anastasia Roda, 19, and Isha Jain, 17, both of Pennsylvania, among their "Teen Genius: 5 Promising Scientists under 20"

Seed profiles physicist and systems biologist Aleksandra M. Walczak, virologist Ilaria Capua , geneticist Heejung Kim, user of "astronomical medicine" Michelle Borkin, and materials scientist Neri Oxman, in their feature on 2008's Revolutionary Minds

Popular Science profiled materials scientist Kristi Anseth, neuroscientist Rebecca Saxe, and chemist Melanie Sanford, in their Brilliant 10 Class of 2008

Tags: women in science

Women Scientist win MacArthur "Genius" Fellowships

The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation just named the recipients of the 2008 MacArthur Fellows. Twenty-five winners of the so-called "genius" fellowship will receive $500,000 with no strings attached over the next five years. Among this year's winners are several women scientists:

Andrea Ghez is a Professor of Physics and Astronomy at UCLA who helped provide evidence for the first time that the center of our Milky Way galaxy is an enormous black whole. Since that discovery in 1998, she has continued to study the stars to help understand the evolution of galaxies. She commented on what the award means to her and her research:

"I am really thrilled," Ghez said. "I will be able to take more risks with my research than I could before. The current shortage of federal funding for science can lead scientists to take fewer risks, but my selection as a MacArthur Fellow will allow me to pursue new ideas and take risks."

The mother of two sons -- Evan, 7, and Miles, who will turn 3 in October -- says the MacArthur funding is "particularly exciting" for women in science.

"The MacArthur Foundation funding will allow me to be much more effective and flexible and will definitely help with the balancing act," she said.

Read Ghez's MacArthur Fellow profile.

Plant molecular biologist Kirsten Bomblies is a senior postdoctoral research associate in the laboratory of Detlef Weigel at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, Germany. Her research has focused on how new plant species originate. From her MacArthur Fellow profile:

Her findings provide a surprising molecular genetic mechanism linking developmental and evolutionary biology, and thus may represent a key advance in both disciplines.

Rachel Wilson is a an Assistant Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at Harvard Medical School, who studies how sensory stimuli such as the sense of smell are encoded in the fruit fly brain. She told the Boston Globe:

"We study fruit flies partly because when you sit back and think about it, a little fruit fly is an amazing little creature," she said. "Nobody in the world can build a robot that does everything a fruit fly does."

According to Wilson's MacArthur Fellow profile her research is groundbreaking:

By developing experimental models that integrate electrophysiology, neuropharmacology, molecular genetics, functional anatomy, and behavior, Wilson opens new avenues for exploring a central issue in neurobiology – how neural circuits are organized to sense and react to a complex environment.

Developmental biologist Susan Mango is a Professor in the department of Oncological Sciences at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. Her lab studies the development of the pharynx (or foregut) in the nematode C. elegans in order to better understand the formation and physiology of organs. Her research has also uncovered a relationship between calorie restriction and the regulation of genes that may effect lifespan. According to her Fellow profile her research combines approaches from genetics, genomics, ecology and embryology:

Through her multifaceted exploration of the integrative biology of nematode development, Mango provides critical insights into the complex process of organogenesis.

Finally, Sally Temple is the Scientific Director of the New York Neural Stem Cell Institute in Albany, New York. She studies how embryonic neural progenitor cells develop into the diverse types of neurons that form the adult central nervous system. She told the Albany Times Union that being a mother fit well with her scientific career:

Temple said her best creative ideas come to her unexpectedly, when she's relaxed and immersed in her quotidian routine: watching her kids' sporting events, scrambling to put dinner on the table, walking through her neighborhood.

"Being a scientist is a good career for mothers, because you can work at midnight while feeding babies," she said.

Watch her video interview:

Read Temple's official MacArthur Fellow profile.

Two women physicians also were named fellows:

• Diane Meier is "a geriatrician who is shaping the field of palliative care and making its benefits available to millions of Americans suffering from serious illness.": profile, video
• Regina Benjamin is the founder of the Bayou La Batre Rural Health Clinic. "With a deep, firsthand knowledge of the pressing needs and health disparities afflicting rural, high-poverty communities, Benjamin is ensuring that the most vulnerable among us have access to high-quality care.": profile
  

(hat tip to Steinn Sigurðsson at Dynamics of Cats for noting the awards had been announced)
Tags: MacArthur Fellowships, Andrea Ghez, Kirsten Bomblies, Rachel Wilson, Sally Temple, Susan Mango

Women in Science Link Roundup: July 5 Edition

Some miscellaneous links from the past couple of weeks:

At Feministe: The Ivory Ceiling: How Academia Keeps Women Out

Razib at Gene Expression has a post about the political views of professors, which shows "the majority of professors ascribe the underrepresentation of females in science & engineering not to discrimination".

Writer Leslie Warner describes her experience at the "Frontiers of Brain Science" workshop at MIT and her crush on neurobiologist Rebecca Saxe after hearing her presentation.

RSC Publishing has an interview with Patricia Bassereau, who leads the membranes and cellular functions group in the physical chemistry department at the Curie Institute in Paris.

Leslie Madsen Brooks at BlogHer has 10 tips for visiting museums with girls.

At Why All Things Lead to Chaos there's a post on (Women) Engineers Demystified (via Gena Haskett)

Listen to a segment on Science Friday about "Frequency Hopping" the play about Heddy Lamarr.

ABC News on "Women Dropping Out of Science Careers"

Zuska writes about the use of inclusive language.

Tags: women in science

Yoky Matsuoka: Neurobotics

Yoky Matsuoka is an associate professor of Computer Science and Engineering and director of the Neurorobotics laboratory at the University of Washington. In 2007 the 36-year-old scientist was named a MacArthur Fellow for her cutting-edge research:

Working at the intersection of computer science, biophysics, material science, biomechanics, and psychophysics, Matsuoka creates sophisticated prosthetic devices and designs complementary rehabilitation strategies.

Matsuoka has juggled her scientific career with being a mother of three young children. In a booklet on "Juggling Work and Family" published by the AAAS (pdf), Matsuoka noted that traveling to meetings is a "challenge that especially affects scientist-moms":

With two-year-old twins plus a third child, she says it's only recently that there has been much acceptance about how difficult it is for women with children to go to conferences without extra assistance. Yoky has obtained special permission from her department to spend unrestricted grant funds to enable travel to meetings.

Are there actually any conferences that have a day care option? I would think that would be quite helpful.

More about Matsuoka's research:

• Interview on KUOW Sound Focus (mp3). It sounds like her baby was sitting in on the interview.
  
• Last October she was named one of PopSci's Annual Brilliant Ten.
• Talking Robots podcast: Yoky Matsuoka - Neurobotic Prosthetics
  
• Microsoft Research video: Understanding Human Movements to Enhance HCI Environmements
  
• Wired Science: Making a Better Robotic Hand: It's All in the Palm
• Seattle PI: 2 local scientists win McArthur 'genius' awards
  

Tags: Yoky Matsuoka, robotics, neurobotics, engineering

Vote for the "most celebrated female scientist of all time"

L'Oréal's For Women in Science Program is sponsoring a new UK website where you can vote for the most influential woman scientist. The candidates span more than a thousand years* and a wide range of scientific specialties:

• Mary Anning (1799-1847), paleontologist and "the greatest fossilist the world ever knew"
  
• Hertha Ayrton (1854-1923), mathematician, electrical engineer and suffragette
  
• Jocelyn Bell Burnell (1943- ), astrophysicist who discovered the first radio pulsars
  
• Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910), first woman to graduate from medical school
• Linda Buck (1947-), biologist who helped figure out how the human olfactory (smell) system works
• Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941), astronomer who studied the spectra of the stars
  
• Rachel Carson (1907-1964), biologist who campaigned for the environment
  
• Gerty Cori (1896-1957), biochemist who studied energy metabolism in the human body
  
• Marie Curie (1867-1934), physicist and chemist who studied radioactivity
  
• Ann Dowling, professor of mechanical engineering who works on "boys stuff - aeroplanes, submarines and oil exploration"
• Gertrude Elion (1918-1999), innovative pharmacologist who produced new drugs for leukemia, malaria, and herpes
  
• Dian Fossey (1932-1985), expert of the great apes in Rwanda, who was murdered because by poachers
  
• Rosalind Franklin (1920-1958), X-ray crystallographer whose work was important in determining the structure of DNA
• Elizabeth Garrett Anderson (1836-1917), pioneering physician and campaigner for women's rights
• Sophie Germain (1776-1831), mathematician who was forced to take on the identity of a man
  
• Maria Goeppert Mayer (1906-1977), physicist who studied the structure of the atomic nucleus
  
• Jane Goodall (1934- ), expert on chimpanzee behavior and advocate for wildlife conservation
  
• Alice Hamilton (1969-1970), doctor and social reformer who founded the science of occupational medicine
• Caroline Herschel (1750-1848), astronomer who discovered comets and stars, first woman (along with Mary Somerville) awarded membership in the Royal Society
• Grace Hopper (1906-1992), pioneer computer scientist and Rear Admiral in the US Navy
  
• Dorothy Hodgkin (1910-1994), one of the main founders of protein crystallography
  
• Hypatia of Alexandria (370-415), mathematician and astronomer who was killed by a mob, who "felt threatened by her scholarship and scientific knowledge"
  
• Irene Joliot-Curie (1897-1956), daughter of Pierre and Marie Curie who discovered artificially created radioactivity
  
• Hedy Lamarr (1913-2000), actress and inventor of "frequency hopping" method that is used in modern communication technology
  
• Rita Levi-Montalcini (1909 - ), biologist who first isolated nerve grown factor
• Kathleen Lonsdale (1903-1971), crystallographer and first woman elected a Fellow of the Royal Society
• Ada, Countess Lovelace (1915-1852), founder of scientific computing
• Barbara McClintock (1902-1992), geneticist who discovered "jumping genes"
  
• Anne McLaren (1927-2007), geneticist who "paved the way for development of in vitro fertilisation"
• Lise Meitner (1878-1968), physicist who described nuclear fission
• Maria Mitchell (1818-1889), pioneering astronomer
  
• Christiane Nusslein Volhard (1942 - ), developmental biologist and Director of the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Biology
• Florence Nightingale (1820-1910), nurse and noted statistician, who was the first female member of the Royal Statistical Society
  
• Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979), astronomer who showed the sun is mainly composed of hydrogen
  
• Beatrix Potter (1866-1943), respected mycologist and children's book author
  
• Emily Roebling (1844-1903), "silent engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge"
  
• Nancy Rothwell (1957- ), neuroscientist who studies brain injury
  
• Mary Somerville (1780-1872), "the first popular science writer"
  
• Rosalyn Yalow (1921-), "medical physicist" who "won a Nobel prize for her work developing the radioimmunoassay technique"
  

I think it's hard to compare the Nobel Prize winners (Buck, Cori, Curie, Elion, Goeppert Mayer, Hodgkin, Joliet-Curie, Levi-Montalcini, McClintock, Nusslein Volhard, Yalow), to the 19th and 20th century women who were social activists as well as scientists. You can make your choice at www.womeninscience.co.uk**

* But mostly from the 19th and 20th centuries.

** I can't actually get the "Vote Now" button to work. Maybe the site doesn't like Macs? or maybe you have to be in the UK? I don't know.

(via The Telegraph)
Image: "Miss Mary Anning, the celebrated geologist of Lyme Regis"
Tags: women in science

Additions to the Blogroll

Here are some recent additions to the blogroll in the sidebar. The "highlight post" is one that I found interesting; YMMV as they say on the internets.

As always, if you think your blog is listed in the wrong category or you would rather not be listed in the blogroll, please drop me an email and I'll change it. I'd also appreciate any suggestions for blogs to be added, particularly in the physical sciences and engineering, since my own science blog reading leans more heavily towards biology.

Physical Sciences

Twinkle twinkle YSO: Hannah is a PhD astronomer who blogs about astronomy and women in science.
Highlight post: Impressing Impressionable Girl Scouts

AstroPixie: Amanda Bauer is an astronomer in the middle (end?) of writing her dissertation. She writes about "things and stuff, astronomy and life"
Highlight post: 50 Years of Space Science

i postdoc, therefore i am: Schlupp is "Yet another postdoc in the physical sciences, in condensed matter theory. Originally from My Country / Europe, with a PhD from MyCountry Provincial Tech, I did a two-year postdoc in Germany and have just started another one in the US."
Highlight post: On the Existance of Deadwood

Rising to the Occasion: saxifraga is "a Postdoc in earth science at a research institute in Scandinavia and teach at University above the Arctic Circle. I am also a wife, a daughter, a sister and hopefully still a friend to some awesome people I spend way too little time with. The blog is an outlet for my personal thoughts and a way to engage in discussion with others about academic life and work. I appreciate my readers and your opinions."
Highlight post: When there's more than one side to the story

Life Sciences

Mind the Gap: Jennifer Rohn is "a post-doctoral cell biologist at University College London, having returned last year to science after a four-year sabbatical as a journal editor. In my spare time, I am also a freelance science writer, editor and journalist; novelist; biotechnology consultant and the founder and editor of LabLit.com magazine"
Highlight post: In which I marvel at bureaucratic insanity

rENNISance woman: Cath Ennis of VWXY Not? has a second blog on the Nature Network that is more directly focused on science. Her description: "I blog about current genetics, genomics, virology and evolution research. I'll also include posts about grant writing and any other ideas that take my fancy."
Highlight post: Leaving labs and losing labmates

Missives From the Frontal Lobe: KL Dickson is currently studying neuroscience at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Her blog is about "neuroscience, atheism, philosophy, neurotheology, transhumanism, and lots of things."
Highlight post: On transhumanism

Everything and more: Makita is "a full-time graduate student, carpenter, cleaning lady, gardener, electrician, and probably a few other things that are required to keep my household running." Her blog is about her "adventures in life, and an outlet for my thoughts."
Highlight post: Oral exam .... again (congrats on passing!)

Blue Lab Coats: This blog is written by a "female w/kids balancing academic science & home". "I am a veterinarian and biologist, and I have a tenure track junior faculty position. I come to work every day because there are certain biological questions that I find fascinating and I can’t stop thinking about. I hope that what I do in my job (and in my life) makes a difference for others."
Highlight posts: Unsolicited Advice: Job Search Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Dr. Jekyll and Mrs. Hyde: "I'm a postdoc in the biological sciences. I can't decide if I work too much or not enough. I'm married to Dr. Hyde, a fabulous scientist himself, and we're trying, despite some obstacles, to fulfill our Darwinian mandate by having a child or two. The title and pseudonym? One name at work, another at home."
Highlight post: What's in my name

Candidate Models: Stepwise Girl writes about "-my adventures as a young academic - I guess I'm something along the lines of a tenure-track professor although that's not what I'm called here where I am; -as a subset of that, partly, how being a woman is inflecting the trajectory; -I guess there might be some questions related to the environment"
Highlight post: Déjà vu

Science Sisters: This blog is written by Jena & Mary, who are "both pre-pharmacy students, sisters, best friends." The tone is breezy and I'll admit that I'm not particularly keen on being addressed by "Hey Girls" at the beginning of every post, but that's probably because their target audience is 20 years (or more) my junior. You can't beat their enthusiasm.
Highlight post: Lost In Space

Guadalupe Storm-Petrel: barn owl is a "cancer and developmental neurobiology researcher, medical educator, and frustrated natural historian; long-limbed, long digits, Northern European peasant and barbarian stock, lots of wild hair and prone to intellectual wild hares. Interests wander incessantly. Strong Luddite tendencies. Congenitally incapable of silence and acceptance in the face of social or environmental injustice." Her blog is mostly hard biology, rather than commentary.
Highlight post: Don't You Step on My Blue Sulid Shoes

The Grad Life: A Southern Girl's Affair in Boston: Southern Grad Girl is "a life-long Southern girl who left the South for grad school in the life sciences in Boston. I have a wonderful non-scientist husband who happily (well, sort of happily) followed me across the country. I'm a second-year student, still in the honeymoon stage."
Highlight post: No news is not good news

Still Evolving: Farne is "in my mid-40's in a same-sex relationship, with 2 grown kids, lots of Italian Greyhounds and an interesting job in training with the development side of a pharmaceutical company. And an ex-husband who complicates my life..."
Highlight post: A question for 2008: Where have all the older women gone?

Dirt and Rocks: Brigindo is "a behavioral scientist fascinated by life's daily minutiae. if
it's seemingly inconsequential and repetitive, our girl's on it."
Highlight post: On the Fragility of Students

Mathematics and Computer Science

Keet Blog: Maria Keet is "an Assistant Professor (Ricercatore a Tempo Determinato) at the KRDB Research Centre for Knowledge and Data, Faculty of Computer Science, Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, Italy." She often writes about ontology, bioinfomatics, and science in general.
Highlight post: From the marketing department - or: blogging by science journalists vs. scientists who are blogging?

Engineering

Journeys of an Academic: Academic is "a quirky engineer who actually wants to try making a difference in the world."
Highlight post: Emails that Make our Heart Pound

Candid Engineer in Academia: Candid Engineer is an "engineer-scientist trying to find my way as a postdoctoral researcher at Brilliant University. My new academic home is flush with cash- but the abundance of funding comes with a price: pompous and secretive colleagues. Tune in regularly as I offer my perspective on random academic topics and chronicle my experiences as a researcher at Brilliant U."
Highlight post: Flatter Me Silly

It's not really a new blog, but Alice Pawley, an assistant professor of engineering education at Purdue, has joined ScienceWoman at the newly renamed ScienceWomen blog (formerly "On Being a Scientist and a Woman").

Engineering Education: This new blog has two authors - Alice Pawley and Gina Navoa Svarovsky, who is "finishing up my PhD in Educational Psychology while also being a faculty member at a two-year masters program. My dissertation work focuses on engineering education in the K-12 arena, and in particular, engaging girls in meaningful and empowering engineering activity during their precollege years."

General

Thesis - With Children: AcmeGirl is a "PhD student at an Ivy League University. I'm a woman of color in one of those (white)male-dominated fields. I also have two children and am trying to have some kind of healthy relationship with my long suffering husband. Basically, I'm as close as a single point can come to being a complete data set." (Note: I've filed this under "general" since AcmeGirl doesn't specify if her ology is in the physical or biological sciences.)
Highlight post: Maintaining Decorum

Tags: blogs, women in science, women in engineering

Scientiae Carnival: Fools and Foolishness

So it's time again to round up some of the best posts about women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. I've been looking forward to being a host, especially in light of the recent announcement that this year more women than men will earn advanced degrees in physics, chemistry and electrical engineering for the first time.

"I thought that my LEGO spaceship-building hobby and high scores in World of Warcraft were signs of my natural aptitude for the sciences, but I was just fooling myself," said I. M. Acho, who recently switched his major from physics to women's studies. "It turns out that physical science is really a chick thing. I only hope that I can learn the secret to their success."

On with this month's Carnival!

Fooling Ourselves?

EcoGeoFemme tells a story about her first experience working in a lab in college and her own bias against a woman doing science.

I shudder now to admit those thoughts even crossed my mind! I would never think such a thing now. There’s no job a woman can’t do with the right tools. But knowing that someone like me could have had those thoughts once upon a time makes me realize that lots of people still have them. I think that’s why I’m drawn to women-in-science issues even though I rarely feel bias myself. Hopefully, women doing great work and speaking out about these issues will shown the remaining fools just how foolish they are.

ScienceWoman asks whether she's a fool to think she can take a summer break from daycare for her adorable Minnow. There is a good discussion in the comments about the positives and negatives of making that choice in terms of both her career and her desire to lead a "balanced" life.

Jenny F. Scientist writes about women putting up with harassment and discrimination and accepting extra work as part of "playing the game" to become an academic professor.

If being an academic professor is really more important than anything to these women, then they have the right to make the choices they want. But what happens a lot- what I see- is that they make choices and then they are utterly miserable because they have given up too much. They feel exploited, degraded, used. Because they are. And they're buying into The Crazy.

She points out that the culture of academic science is unlikely to change if people aren't willing to complain. She also has a rant about her experience that working hard is not enough to get ahead since she doesn't "put on a good enough show."


Flicka Mawa writes about her first experience as the only woman in a small class.

I’m not saying that this is a big deal, and certainly in this class I have never witnessed any discrimination, but it does make one think about the subtler aspects of …bias. The part where a person’s mental conversation is occupied with thoughts of how they are different. It makes me think of what it might be like to be part of a smaller minority, and thus feel more…alone.

Her biggest concern was the difficulty of the course material, but she realized that she could indeed handle the course work, something she reminds herself when she has a crisis in confidence. Also check out her post about less traditional options in academic research: having a lab at a small college and doing research part time.

Mad Hatter wonders whether academic scientists have foolish expectations about their own research.

Miss Prism writes about the the issue of sexism in peer review and women not using their first name if it identifies them as female. She suggests that that might actually harm women in the long run:

If a few of us go by our initials, we benefit from sexism rather than doing anything to stop it. If all of us do it, it stops benefiting anyone. Initials will soon be interpreted as female names, and if we all sound or dress less girlie we narrow the range of what’s acceptable, and before we know it we’re wearing false moustaches and the world’s no fairer.

ScienceMama writes about being a senior in college and foolishly spending too little time weighing whether grad school was right for her. It turned out not to be.

We likely all fool ourselves to some extent about the biases we harbor. At Sciencewomen Alice Pawley shares some resources for understanding and working against your own implicit biases.

Playing the Fool

Addy N. writes about foolishly causing herself stress by making overambitious conference plans.

Hannah writes about the conflict between the pressure on women to be humble and meek and not appear too knowledgeable, while at the same time not really wanting to play the fool.

They are impulses I constantly have to fight against in order to succeed. No matter how lofty and noble the study of science may seem to outsiders, landing and keeping a tenure-track position seems to be as much about networking and self-promotion and politicking as much as it is about doing good science. So I need to put myself forward, and stop playing the fool. I need to go out on a limb at times, at the risk of looking like a fool. I am gradually getting better at it both of these things.

As a counterpoint to Hannah's post, check out Alice Pawley's post about playing the fool in academia, both in the role of a jester, or "someone of miniscule rank who asks pointed questions of someone in considerable power in order to goad or trick them into reflecting on the potential truism" and as a buffoon, or someone who is memorable due to their kookiness.

Jenn at Fairer Science writes about feeling and sounding foolish as a non-scientist in the company of scientists.

The Foolishness of Others

Postdoc Dr. Jekyll/Mrs. Hyde writes about grad students who foolishly failed to heed her advice, and found out the hard way about their poor choice in labs.

Liz Henry writes about a sexist story about female tech recruiters making the rounds of a conference.

Because the technical recruiters are female, they are sluts, or "call girls"; definitely sexually available and exploitable. Because they are female, they are assumed in the story to be ignorant of computers, technology, sys adminning, and programming; any knowledge they DO have is "fake" because it is is artificial "training" given to them as a thin veneer just to mask their real goal which is sexual predation on the sys admins, run by mythical "big company" pimps.

She also writes about the sexist framing of a story in SF Magazine about Google engineer Marissa Mayer, who is described as "surprisingly pretty" and "girly".

But the end! The end was the worst! "Does Mayer ever see herself going completely low-tech and focusing (professionally or otherwise) on art, entertaining, baking, or fashion? " You know, what would have to be wrong in an interviewer's head for them to ask that question? What the hell? Why would anyone ask that question of one of the most powerful engineers at an extremely successful company, a person with a couple of degrees in computer science and many years of experience in the industry? "Oh... just wondering... have you ever thought of forgetting about this lil' ol' computer thing and sticking to cupcakes?"

Just ew. She points out that this kind of talk likely discourages women who are interested in programming and engineering from entering those fields.

Female Science Professor has observed women actively hindering the careers of other women and suggests what professors can do to not "pull up the ladder" unintentionally. She also advises women students who are having problems with their advisors:

If you love what you are doing but just hate the environment, don't give up. The academic culture has long selected for the personality type of your advisor, but it need not always be this way. Graduate and get a job and be part of the positive change.

Mind Hacks writes about an article in the new journal Neuroethics, which takes on "'neurosexism', the increasing trend to portray sex differences as 'hard wired' into the brain." In a related post, Podblack Cat writes about the assumptions about gender differences in the brain and education.

Kimm Hannula writes about her experiences as a women in geoscience.

It feels to me like I'm constantly having to disprove the same flawed hypotheses, over and over again. (I'm the first woman professor in any of the small schools in western Colorado - there were others on the Front Range, but in the triangle bounded by Colorado Springs, Albuquerque, and the greater Salt Lake City area, I was the first.) No, I am not the department secretary. Yes, I can identify rocks. Believe me, it gets old after a while.

Those of you who have heard of Vox Day won't be surprised that he believes women are a terrible threat to science. He doesn't think women are even competent to vote, after all. Mark Chu-Carroll has posted his own experiences with women in science that clearly demonstrate what a moronic fool Day is.

Absinthe reports that in the sexual harassment case of Kay Weber, a judge has granted summary judgment to Fermilab, and that the case has had a negative impact on other senior women who are working there. She also gives an address to send Weber letters of condolence or support.

Dr. Shellie writes about a male colleague who admits to being unlikely to admit female students.

Undergrad Katharine Dickson plans to suffer no fools on the internet, at least when it comes to writing about neuroscience. She also has a plea for pharmacy student Tope Awe, who is in danger of being deported to her native Nigeria, despite having lived in the US for 20 years.

Academic at Journeys of an Academic lists the Genres of Fools.

Miscellaneous Foolishness

Cath Ennis writes about a great bio lab April Fools prank - and her commenters add their own suggestions.

Mrs. Whatsit ponders what it actually means to "have the balls" to do something, and rounds up a bunch of suggestions for less masculine substitutes.

At Bioephemera, Jessica Palmer has discovered that she shares the name of DC superhero The Atom, a scientific prodigy who graduated from MIT at the age of 8 and turned to using her skills of manipulating matter towards costumed superheroing at the age of 18. Now that is an alternative science career!

Neatorama posts about an article in New Scientist about James Barry, who served 46 years as a British Army doctor. It was only discovered upon her death in 1865 that Barry was, in fact, a woman.

Daring Tales has a tale about the youthful Liz Claiborne. No, she's not a scientist. But she did dive into a career despite the discouragement of her father, who didn't even think women needed to finish high school. Few women (or men for that matter) are willing to give up everything - including their parents - to pursue their dream job. And I thank Claiborne for her focus on producing clothes meant specifically for professional women.

Podblack Cat writes about experiments that show the eye can be fooled - and how a foolish advertising firm borrowed the work without credit or comment.

No Fooling

Last, but not least, are some women who deserve recognition for their achievements.

Zuska writes about the women on the Mars Exploration Rover tactical operations team.

Abel Pharmboy writes about the accomplishments of Intel Science talent Search winner Shivani Sud.

The Urban Scientist has started a new meme: Can you name 5 women scientists from each scientific discipline? Some responses:

• The Urban Scientist at Science Blog
  
• Steinn Sigurðsson at the Dynamics of Cats
• Chad Orzel at Uncertain Principles
• ReBecca Hunt at Dinochick
• Mark Chu-Carroll at Good Math, Bad Math
• Eric at Eclectic Echoes
• Greg Laden
  

If you know of other posts on this meme, let me know and I'll update the link list.

Thanks everybody for your submissions!

The May Scientiae Carnival will be hosted by Flicka Mawa at A Cat Nap. Learn how you can submit a blog post here.

ETA: I've discovered a couple of posts I neglected to add, so I've added them. Sorry about that.

Tags: Scientiae Carnival, women in science

Added to the Blogroll

I've added a bunch of blogs to the blogroll over on the right-hand column in the past week or so, due to some wild surfing and links in the last scientiae carnival.

Not added to the blogroll, but a neat blog nonetheless, is Endless Forms Most Beautiful, the blog for Elissa Hoffman's AP Biology class at Appleton East High School in Appleton, WI. She and her students will be blogging about biology, but she is also looking for guest bloggers who "have an area of expertise, research- or career-wise, that pertains to biology" and are willing to discuss the post (in the comments) with the students.

Data Not Shown is a new science blog by UK postdoc Karen James (aka nunatak). James is also one half of the bloggers at The HMS Beagle Project, with the following mission:

We aim to celebrate Charles Darwin's 200th birthday by building a sailing replica of HMS Beagle and recreating the Voyage of the Beagle with an international crew of researchers, aspiring scientists and science communicators. The voyage will apply the techniques of 21st century science to Darwin's journey, inspiring a new generation of scientists and promoting the public understanding of evolution and wider science.

Rebecca Hunt works at "Augustana College as a Paleontology Research Assistant and fossil preprator" and blogs at Dinochick Blog.

All in the Mind "life and beyond through the mind's eye", an ABC (that's Australian Broadcasting Company) Radio National Blog by science/health journalist Natasha Mitchell

Make No Bones is the blog of paleontology graduate student Sally Pine.

Bio/Rocks is the blog of Sarah, a graduate student in vertebrate paleontology at UC Berkeley.

Amanda, another student paleontologist blogs at Self-Designed Student

a geocentric view by "mollishka" a graduate student in astronomy (even if she isn't interested in the whole "women in science" discussion)

Theorema Egregium is Brazilian physicist post grad Christine Dantas' "place for personal studies on Physics, Mathematics and Philosophy"

I’m an astrophysicist turned into a software engineer turned into a condensed matter physicist. What I really would like to be: a mathematician, a philosopher, and a writer. But above everything, I am a mother.

Quantum Diaries followed "physicists from around the world as they live the World Year of Physics" - which was 2005. No, they haven't been updated since then, but they do provide a glimpse into the work of some international physicists.

• Sophie Trincaz-Duvoid (IN2P3, in French)
• Maaike Limper (NIKHEF, in Dutch and English)
• Debbie Harris (Fermilab, in English)
• Caolionn O'Connell (SLAC, in English)
• Ursula Bassler (IN2P3, in English)
• Sandra Leone (INFN, in Italian)
• Rosa Alba (INFN, in Italian)
• Claire Gray (Wits University, Jefferson Lab, in English)
• Sarah Phillips (Jefferson Lab, in English)
  

Qulog 2.0 is "Florine Meijer's weblog on science poems, mathematical crocheting and whatever else springs to mind." (in Dutch and English).

Astronomer and Southern Illinois University Edwardsville faculty member Dr. Pamela L. Gay blogs at Star Stryder.

Amanda blogs at A Chemist's Laboratory Notebook

Jes Sherman, aka Ψ*Ψ , blogs at Carbon-Based Curiosities. From her profile:

Ψ*Ψ is the one who inevitably does most of the device posts, not entirely by choice. She’s currently a synthetiker in one lab and an analytical chemist in another and also a ninja. Most of her time is spent making colorful aromatic things, cursing at heterocycles and trying to graduate with her sanity (mostly) intact.

Taitauwai is a Malaysian blogger who writes about Chemistry & Cooking

LouScientist blogs at A scientist's life. The description:

Diary of an ex-postdoctoral scientist, who used to work tirelessly in a lab somewhere. (I might be back in a lab sometime soon though)

Zero Divides is written by "a 24 year old female undergraduate student pursuing a degree in Mathematics"

Unbalanced Reaction is the "Experiences of a female science graduate student (soon-to-be Ph.D.) struggling to reach equilibrium"

ScienceMama is molecular biologist/geneticist trying to balance being a postdoc and a mom. She blogs at Mother of All Scientists.

Cherish Maunders is an electrical engineering graduate student who blogs at the excellently-named Faraday's Cage is where you put Schroedinger's Cat

Dr. Medusa is a science faculty member at a US research university who blogs about diversity in science, math, and engineering.

Young Stellar Objects is the blog of Hannah, an astronomer.

Finally, geologist and pie-lover Green Gabro now blogs at Science Blogs under her own name, Maria Brumm.

Tags: women in scienceblogs

Added to the Blogroll

Women blogging about science who have been recently added to the blog roll:

• The Afro Scientress is a science student in Australia. I especially like this post.
• Kate Seip, PhD student in neuroscience and former blogger at the Anterior Commissure ("The science of sex and mating, gender and attraction, pregnancy and parental behavior.") now blogs at Pure Pedantry
• Julia Heathcote's blog is the The Ethical Paleontologist, which focuses on earth sciences and paleontology.
• Talia Page blogs at Talking Science Abroad ("we're a new non-profit that's dedicated to bringing the latest discoveries, innovations, controversies and cures out of the lab and to the public. Our first stop: India.")
• Anne Marie Helmenstine, PhD, writes about chemistry for About.com at Anne Marie's Chemistry Blog, written for a non-technical audience.
• Kim Hannula is a "forty-something tenure geology professor at a public college in the Rockies" who blogs at "All of My Faults Are Stress Related"

Tags: women in science, blogs

Added to the Blogroll

Here are some of the blogs I've recently added to the blogroll:

• Karina who blogs about her experiences as an Aspiring Ecologist
• Sandra Kiume who blogs neuroscience videos at Channel N
• Rosie Redfield at UBC has two blogs, RRTeaching, about teaching the first year biology course, and RR Research, about the work going on in her microbiology lab. She links to her labs blogs including She Who Dies with the most shoes wins (Sunita Sinha), My Blog (Heather Maughan), USS-R-US (Lindsay Wilson), and 3gggggi3 (Sally Pau).

If you are a woman who blogs about science, mathematics or engineering, please let me know. You either leave a comment or send me an e-mail (peggy.kolm (at) gmail (dot) com).

Tags: women in science, blogs, neuroscience, molecular biology, ecology

Women in Science Friday Link Roundup

First off, Post Doc Carnival #5 is up at On Being a Scientist and a Woman.

On my other blog, I interview Canadian ecologist and science fiction writer Nina Munteanu about science, writing and science fiction.

Mindhacks takes a look at the neuropsychology research that Natalie Herschlag (aka Natalie Portman) published when she took a hiatus from acting to study psychology at Harvard.

The Intel International Science and Engineering Fair blog interviews Hadeel Masoudi of Amman, Jordan about her project on shark antibodies.

This week's "Citation Classic" at The Evilutionary Biologist is the so-called "Blender Experiment" of Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase that demonstrated that DNA (and not protein) is the genetic material.

Skepchick Rebecca has a report from her friend Evelyn who is on a research vessel on the Indian Ocean studying undersea volcanoes.

Zuska posts a report from this year's Women in Engineering Program Advocates Network (WEPAN) conference. She also links to an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education (behind a paywall unfortunately) about Harvey Mudd College president Maria Klawe, who commutes to work via skateboard.

Fortune & CNN Money columnist Anne Fisher responds in her "Ask Annie" column to a young women who asks whether women have a hard time getting promoted in IT. Annie suggests asking about and talking to women at job interviews, and seeking out a mentor.

The Austin American-Statesman writes about Project IT Girl, administered by Girlstart, a program for high school girls that "seeks to correct the low percentages of women in tech-related jobs."

Displaying a self-awareness impressive for her 15 years, Kelley Stidolph said, "I'm weird. I don't like dressing up or makeup or skirts or shopping."

What does she like? Math and science. This astonishes her classmates.

They are sometimes pressured — by teachers, by group projects — to accept her into their fold "even though I'm just so different and not at all like them," Stidolph says. "That pressure may cause them to exaggerate in their minds how different I am."

"I've always been good at math, and science has always just interested me," [Alexi] Ramsey said. "So many of my friends will complain about it, boys and girls. They say, 'Science sucks. When am I gonna use this?' I have to, like, cough and say, 'Uh, every day?' "

The father of one of the girls is a programmer at Symantec who claims to have met only two female engineers in his 20-year career. It sounds like he needs to step away from his computer more often.

stuff.co.nz reports that there is a "Man drought hitting universities" in New Zealand. According to the article woman make up 59.3% of domestic graduates and 55.6% of international graduates. Only 33.2% of masters degrees and 42.4% of doctorates go to men.

Men still dominate in some subject areas with three times more than females in engineering, and maths and information science. However, there are significantly more women in biological sciences, commerce, health, humanities, social and behavioural science at bachelor orhonours degree level.

The Queensland (Australia) Business Review notes that nominations for the Smart Women- Smart State award for women in science, engineering or information technology close on June 29.

"Winning the Award was the highlight of my secondary schooling and clearly helped my application for a place in the competitive sphere of medicine at university," says 2006 Secondary School Students award winner, Zoe Brown.

2006 Research Scientist Award winner Professor Melissa Little agrees.

"Being a professional woman and a mother is a tough juggle but, when you get recognition for your efforts, it all seems worth it," Melissa says.

The Manila Bulletin Online reports on a speech by Dr. Amelia Ancog, "former Department of Science and Technology (DoST) undersecretary and now module director of the National Defense College of the Philippines" at the recent Gender Awareness Seminar for Women in Meteorology. Ancog noted the lack of female meteorologists at the Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical and Astronomical Services Administration (PAGASA), and pointed out that the department used to be dominated by women, most of who either went abroad or were transfered to other departments.

An article in the ThomasNet Industrial Market Trends reports on the "mirage of professional gender equity." It focuses on the pay gap between women and men in technical careers in the United States and Canada.


The Marietta Times reports on the Women in Sciences camp at Marietta college for middle school girls who primarily come from West Virginia and Ohio.

“We’ve already learned about astronomy, microbiology, digital photography and fun with math,” said Rictoria Schaad, 13, an eighth-grader at Marietta Middle School, while working on a chromatography project, learning about chemical separation by solvents. “And it’s really fun to meet all the other girls.”
[. . .]
“I got to see all the constellations I’ve never seen before,” said Elly Nau, an eighth-grader at St. Mary’s School. “I’m excited about everything. Science is one of my favorite subjects. There are always so many fascinating things.”

The Arizona Daily Star writes about the IBM Exploring Interests in Technology and Engineering (EXITE) Camp for middle school girls last week in Tuscon.

""I like technology," said Sara, who is in seventh grade. "It's interesting to see how complicated it is and how many things you can do with it."

Katie Dreeland, 18, was in the first group of students to attend the IBM camp.

"EXITE did change my life," she said. "It introduced me to the world of engineering."

The recent Cienega High School graduate, who attended the camp when she was a student at Old Vail Middle School, will enroll at Arizona State University in the fall and major in molecular biosciences and biotechnology.

The Hamilton Mountain (Ontario) News writes about the McMaster University "All Science Challenge" and "Let's Talk Science" program for local middle school students.

"We wanted to do something interactive to show kids that science is fun," said Diana Dregoesc, the McMaster coordinator for Let's Talk Science.

She is a graduate student in biology who helped organize the event along with 60 other undergraduate and graduate science students. "We also wanted to break the stereotypes that all scientists are grey-haired with a beard. They're men and women of all races. Science
is for everyone."

Tags: gender gap, women in science, science camp, Natalie Portman, Martha Chase, Intel ISEF, stereotypes, women in IT

Women in Bioscience at Stanford

On May 1 Stanford University held a Women in Bioscience Symposium featuring one woman faculty member from each of Stanford's eight bioscience departments.

"In addition to discussing their research, the speakers were asked to describe one challenge they have faced as women scientists and to offer one piece of advice for young scientists."

Now videos of those presentations are available online.

The speakers:

• Julie Theriot, associate professor of biochemistry and microbiology & immunology (representing two departments)
• Judith Frydman, associate professor of biological sciences
• Daria Mochly-Rosen, professor of chemical systems biology
• Anne Villeneuve, associate professor of developmental biology and genetics
• Michele Calos, associate professor of genetics
• Miriam Goodman, assistant professor of molecular and cellular physiology
• Jennifer Raymond, assistant professor of neurobiology

Watch the presentations.

Tags: Stanford, women in science, biology, Julie Theriot, Judith Frydman, Daria Mochly-Rosen, Anne Villeneuve, Michele Calos, Miriam Goodman, Jennifer Raymond, video

Carla Schatz to Head the Stanford Bio-X Program

The May issue of the journal Nature profiles Carla Shatz, one of the world's top neuroscientists.

Carla Shatz has blazed a trail of firsts for women in neuroscience. Along the way, she has mentored a number of female scientists. She thinks that most girls are interested in science, but many simply lose interest under pressure from society.

After receiving a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard, Shatz spent two years on a Marshall Scholarship at University College London learning about biology. After returning to the U.S., she received the first doctorates in neurobiology from Harvard. Since then, her career has been a string of accomplishments:

• first female basic scientist to be granted tenure at Stanford Medical School
• first female chair of the Harvard Department of Neurobiology
• and now she's soon to be back at Stanford as the new head of the Bio-X program, which aims to promote interdisciplinary research in biology and medicine

Former colleagues eagerly await her return. "BioX already has fruit, but Carla will grow that tree and expand its influence," says Susan McConnell, a former graduate student of Shatz, adding that one of her many exceptional talents is facilitating long-lasting communities.

(And in case you were wondering, no, she hasn't won the National Medal of Science.)

Additional Information

• The Shatz Lab at Harvard Medical School
• National Academy of Sciences: Interview with Carla Shatz
• Harvard Magazine (May-June 2002): Brainy Women at the Frontiers of Neuroscience
• Discover Magazine (February 2001): Carla Shatz She Seeks the Brain's Secrets
• Futures in Biotech: Carla Shatz on the Human Brain

Tags: Carla Shatz, neuroscience, Bio-X, Stanford, Harvard