RFS Briefings - June 5, 2020

Dear Colleagues,  

I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on women in science.  

In particular, we are excited to announce the new Rosalind Franklin Medal. The Genome Writers Guild (GWG) and the Rosalind Franklin Society have joined forces to recognize amazing scientists by instituting the Rosalind Franklin Medal. The award will marry together GWG’s core objectives of facilitating genome writing conversation, collaboration, and exposure with RFS’s goals of enabling more women to achieve higher recognition, visibility, appointments and success in industry, academia, or government. The recipient will be an invited speaker at the Genome Writers Guild annual conference this summer and at the 100th Birthday celebration of the Rosalind Franklin Board Meeting and Colloquium in November, to be held at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. We invite the nominations of early-career women working in the fields of genome writing and engineering. To nominate (or self-nominate), send name, CV and/or Biosketch, and a brief statement of support/justification for review context by June 15th to either:   
                               Erin Nolan ([email protected]), or   
                               Shondra Pruitt-Miller ([email protected])  

In addition, we want to remind you of these other prestigious opportunities as well: 

  • The National Academies’ Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education is inviting abstract submissions for presentations on promising and innovative practices to address and prevent sexual harassment in higher education, with a deadline of July 1, 2020. Read more   
  • Applications are being accepted through June 15, 2020 for the annual Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology, an international award of $25,000 that honors young scientists for outstanding contributions to neurobiological research based on methods of molecular and cell biology. Read more.  
  • Applications are being accepted through July 15, 2020 for the Science and SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists, which is presented in four categories: Cell and Molecular Biology; Genomics, Proteomic and Systems Biology Approaches; Ecology and Environment; and Molecular Medicine. Read more
  • The 2021 application period for The Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowships for New Americans, supporting immigrants or children of immigrants who are pursuing graduate studies in the United States, is now openRead more 

See below for more news about women in science

Please continue to share important news and opportunities with us so that we may share it with you, and others who are committed to supporting the careers of exceptional women in science. 

With regards in these trying times,  

Karla Signature
Karla Shepard Rubinger
Executive Director
Rosalind Franklin Society

The New Rosalind Franklin Medal
The Genome Writers Guild (GWG) and the Rosalind Franklin Society have joined forces to recognize amazing scientists by instituting the Rosalind Franklin Medal. The award will marry together GWG’s core objectives of facilitating genome writing conversation, collaboration, and exposure with the Rosalind Franklin Society’s goals of enabling more women to achieve higher recognition, visibility, appointments and success in industry, academia, or government. The recipient of this inaugural award will embody the missions of both organizations. The Rosalind Franklin Medal will not only recognize the outstanding body of research of a woman in the field of genome engineering and nucleic acids research, it also offers a platform to share that work with members and colleagues worldwide of both organizations. The recipient will be an invited speaker at the Genome Writers Guild annual conference this summer and at the 100th Birthday celebration of the Rosalind Franklin Board Meeting and Colloquium in November, to be held at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. We invite the nominations of women working in the fields of genome writing and engineering. The researcher should be in an early stage of their career, including graduate students, post-docs and assistant professors. Nominees from all walks of genomics and nucleic acid research, including academia, industry, and government are welcome. To nominate (or self-nominate): send name, CV and/or Biosketch, and a brief statement of support/justification for review context by June 15th to: Erin Nolan ([email protected]), or Shondra Pruitt-Miller ([email protected]). 

Space X and NASA Complete Historic Launch Successfully
On May 30, 2020, SpaceX and NASA made history with the second attempt to launch two NASA astronauts, Bob Behnken and Doug Hurkey, on a mission to the International Space Station. Crew Dragon is the first crewed spaceflight to take off from U.S. soil in nearly a decade. It also is first time that a privately developed spacecraft launched humans into Earth’s Orbit. Gwynne Shotwell, an American businesswoman and engineer is the President and CEO of SpaceX. In an emotional statement, SpaceX engineer, Lauren Lyons, who frequently hosts SpaceX’s mission webcasts, remarked: “’I can’t believe it with my own eyes, I’m so grateful they’re up there.’” Read more.  

Stanford Science Fellows Program Announces First Cohort
Stanford University has initiated a new postdoctoral program to attract diverse and exceptional international scholars, across scientific disciplines, to encourage new directions in foundational scientific research. Stanford Science Fellows will collaborate with and be overseen by multiple Principal Investigator’s across disciplines in the natural sciences while pursuing their own projects, rather than be assigned to specific labs. The 2020 class of eight Stanford Science Fellows includes four women. Read more.  

2020 Kavali Prize Laureates 
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters announced that seven scientists from five countries were honored with The Kavali Prize for breakthrough discoveries in astrophysics, nanoscience and neuroscience. This year’s Prize recognizes those whose research has transformed our understanding of “the very big, the very small and the very complex.” The Laureates – all of whom are men – will share 1 million USD in each of the fields. First awarded in 2008, The Kavali Prize has honored 54 scientists from 13 countries. Read more.   

Sara Little Turnbull, Who Designed the N95 Mask
Sara Little Turnbull has come to attention as the woman behind the design of the N95 mask. Working as a design consultant with the 3M company in 1958, Ms. Turnbull learned about Shapeen, a non-woven material made of polymers that held its shape. After patterning it into the first-ever pre-made bows for gift wrap, she came up with more than 100 other ideas for its use. Impressed by the scope of potential for this material, 3M asked her to work on a design for a molded bra cup. Taking this task even further, she proposed the idea of using it to make a protective mask for physicians that had a better fit than existing masks, having noticed the need when her family members were under the care of physicians. From a 1961 patent of a mask based on Turnbull’s concept, its design and uses evolved until 1995 when the N95 mask was introduced. Read more.  

NASA Names Dark Energy Telescope for Nancy Grace Roman
One of NASA’s most ambitious upcoming space telescopes will be named for the late Nancy Grace Roman (1925-2018), who pioneered the role of women in the space agency. She joined NASA in 1959 and rose to become its first chief astronomer. Credited with spearheading the development of the Hubble Space Telescope – the world’s most powerful and productive telescope – she became known as “’the mother of Hubble.’” Roman grew up enamored of the stars at a time when women were not encouraged to pursue science. Her persistence led to her becoming “a champion of astronomy in space.” Read more.   

The Shaw Laureates 2020 
The Shaw Prize Foundation announced the Shaw Laureates for 2020, awarded in three categories: Astronomy, Life Science and Medicine, and Mathematical Sciences. All of this year’s recipients are men. Established in 2002, the Prize honors those who have achieved significant breakthroughs in academic and scientific research or applications and whose works have resulted in a positive and profound impact on mankind. Read more.  

Burroughs Wellcome Fund Invests $6.3 million into the Careers of Physician-Scientists
Designed to address the critical shortage of physicians entering the research workforce, the Career Award for Medical Scientists, an initiative of the Burroughs Wellcome Fund, focuses on the transition of physician-scientists from postdocs/fellows into an independent research position. Four of this year’s nine 2020 recipients are women: Julia Catherine Carevale, MD, University of California-San Francisco, “Targeting clonal hematopoiesis using human genetics;” Emily Anne Ferenczi, MB, ChB, PhD, Harvard Medical School, “Direct projections from globus pallidus externa (GPe) to cortex: a novel role in basal ganglia-cortical circuit function;” Anna Nam, MD, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, “Defining the impact of aromatic mutations on human hematopoiesis via single cell multi-omics;” and Xilma Rosa Ortiz-Gonzalez, MD, PhD, University of Pennsylvania, “Looking at neurogenerative disorders through a pediatric lens.” To date, the program has funded 157 physician-scientists for an investment of over $100 million. Read more.  

Phenomenal San Diego Women in Science and Research 
To Mark the 100th year of women’s suffrage in American, The San Diego Union-Tribune and the Women’s Museum of California paid tribute to pioneering female scientists and researchers who “pushed boundaries in exploring our world – and beyond – and helped cultivate new generations of curious thinkers.” The article spotlighted Sally Ride, the first U.S. woman in space, who encouraged girls’ interest in science with her namesake educational program, Sally Ride Science, based at UC San Diego. Eleven other women in science and research are also featured. Read more.   

2020 Action Collaborative Calls for Presentation and Poster Proposals 
The National Academies’ Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education is inviting abstract submissions for presentations on promising and innovative practices to address and prevent sexual harassment in higher education, with a deadline of July 1, 2020. The presentations will take place during the Public Summit on October 19-20, 2020, which may be held virtually. Participation is open to faculty, students, researchers, and other key stakeholders actively working on this topic. Read more. 

Women in Science Are Battling Both Covid-19 and the Patriarchy
Thirty-five women in STEM, working on Covid-19 through research as well as clinical responses, policy and public communication, argue that the pandemic “has worsened longstanding sexist and racist inequalities in science pushing many of us to say ‘I’m done.’” Representing scientists across North America and Europe, their shared experience spans the academic career pipeline from graduate students to senior, tenured faculty. Having overcome the well-documented barriers to careers in STEM, they now fear that “the hard-won progress for women in science will be collateral damage for this crisis.” Their lack of recognition is evidenced by the following: underrepresentation in media coverage of the pandemic, despite the fact that neither epidemiology nor medicine are male-dominated fields; relegation of work focused on operations and supporting decision-makers rather than that of writing scientific papers or grants; and continued inequality related to work-life balance. Read more. 

Lessons from the Crucible of Crisis
Marcia McNutt, former Editor-in-Chief of Science and president of the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, reminds us to use the COVID-19 pandemic as a time to reflect on the “bitter anniversaries” of two U.S. tragedies: its most damaging volcanic eruption on May 18, 1980, Mt. St. Helens in Washington State; and the Deepwater Horizon explosion and oil spill into the Gulf of Mexico which began on April 20, 2010 and lasted 87 days. It is a time, she said, “to ask what lessons in the response to previous catastrophes should not be forgotten.” The earlier events show that the death toll in any region varies with the prior health status of the population, the quality of the health care system, and the early precautions taken in the months and weeks after the first report of the disease to abate its spread. Read more.  

Lois Ann (Bergen) Abbott, 91, Died on May 13, 2020
Dr. Abbott, who received a PhD in mathematical biology from the University of Colorado at Boulder at age 49, taught at the University of California and Colorado University. She married in 1948 and had six children before returning to graduate school in 1971. She published an article in Science magazine about her career (December 2000) as well as a textbook and articles in her field. Read more.   

How Genetic Genealogist CeCe Moore Solved 109 Criminal Cases with DNA: ‘It’s About Families’
CeCe Moore, Chief Genetic Genealogist at Parabon NanoLabs in Virginia, is one of the most sought-after DNA experts in the world. Using her “unique set of sleuthing skills,” she has helped solve 109 of the most notorious murder and rape cases, many decades old. While DNA doesn’t lie, “you have to be careful how you interpret it,” she explains. The premier of an ABC primetime series on May 26, “The Genetic Detective,” follows Moore as she and her team solve crimes using a combination of crime scene DNA, state-of-the-art technology, and her “self-taught tracking skills.” Helping to educate the public is one of the main reasons Moore agreed to do this show. Read more.   

Janet Carr, Clinical Psychologist, Died on March 17 at Age 92
Janet Carr’s 50-year study of Down syndrome transformed attitudes to people with Down syndrome. In 1964, she began to work on a follow-up study of 54 six-week-old babies with Down syndrome at the Maudsley Hospital in London. Though she was initially asked to track the children until age four, follow-up spanned 50 years, making this one of the longest longitudinal studies in the world. The original goal was to establish abilities and development of Down syndrome babies, a new focus in a period when advances in medicine were able to increase their life expectances. Carr also became curious about the effect of having a Down syndrome child on families, so she broadened the study’s scope by comparing families with and without a Down syndrome child, earning a doctoral degree for this work. She became an authority on Down syndrome and wrote prolifically on the subject. Read more.  

Why the 21st Century will Be Defined by Biology
Neuroscientist Susan Hockfield, the 16th president of MIT from 2004-2012, was not only the first women to earn this position but was also the first life scientist to lead the world’s foremost engineering institution. Hockfield’s belief that biology has more in common with engineering than one might expect is addressed in her new book, The Age of Living Machines: How Biology Will Build the Next Technology Revolution. In an interview with OneZero, she spoke about what she calls Convergence 1.0, the convergence between physics and engineering that drove so many of the innovations of the 20th century that are poised to create 21st century innovations, especially related to sustainability and climate change. Dr. Hockfield was a featured speaker at the most recent RFS Colloquium at the Wistar Institute. Read more