'It'll upset a few fellows': Royal Society adds Jocelyn Bell Burnell portrait. Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a British astrophysicist who made one of the most significant scientific discoveries of the 20th century, has joined the male-dominated portrait collection of the Royal Society. In 1967, she discovered a new type of star later called a pulsar, but the Nobel prize for physics in 1974 went not to her, but to her male PhD supervisor. She has since been a trailblazing promoter for women and the marginalized in science and was the first woman to be president of the Institute of Physics, according to The Guardian. 

Gitanjali Rao: Time magazine names teenage inventor its first ‘kid of the year’. A 15-year-old scientist and inventor has been named as Time magazine’s first “kid of the year”. In an interview with actor and humanitarian Angelina Jolie, Gitanjali said: “I don’t look like your typical scientist. Everything I see on TV is that it’s an older, usually white, man as a scientist.

Gitanjali Rao, Time magazine’s inaugural kid of the year, has used technology to address contaminated drinking water, opioid addiction and cyber-bullying. Photograph: Time/PA, via The Guardian.

How mRNA went from a scientific backwater to a pandemic crusher. For years, Katalin Karikó's work into mRNA therapeutics was overlooked by her colleagues. Now it's at the heart of two leading coronavirus vaccines. Karikó has been at the helm of BioNTech’s Covid-19 vaccine development since 2013, when she accepted an offer to become Senior Vice President at BioNTech. 

Kate Marvel: “With science plus action, things can get better.” “We can shape the future that we want.” Kate is the latest member of the Inverse Future 50, a group of 50 people who will be forces of good in the 2020s, and her message is that we can still fight off the worst of climate change. 

Asifa Akhtar is a sign of new things to come at the Max Planck Society. In July, the Pakistan-born molecular biologist became the first international woman to be named vice-president of the Max Planck Society’s Biology and Medicine Section. According to an article in Nature, a key focus for Akhtar in her new position is ensuring a more diverse cohort of young researchers sits at the forefront of German research. “I’m aware of the responsibility on my shoulders and I take it very seriously,” she says. “I want to show that there are role models who can push things forward.” 

Special Reports 2020's Fiercest Women in Life Sciences. 2020 has seen women make tremendous gains at the top, with Kamala Harris becoming the first female vice president-elect and, on the biopharma side, Reshma Kewalramani ascending to the CEO spot at Vertex Pharmaceuticals, according to Fierce Pharma.

Leena Tripathi uses CRISPR gene-editing technology to protect bananas and other staple crops across Africa against killer pathogens. For more than two decades, Leena Tripathi has been working to improve several staple food crops in Africa, including bananas, plantains, cassavas and yams. As principal scientist and a plant biotechnologist at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Nairobi, she aims to develop varieties that are resistant to pests and diseases such as bacterial wilt, Fusarium wilt, and banana streak virus.

Teen Vogue’s 21 Under 21, 2020: The Girls and Femmes Building a Better Future. Meet Anika Chebrolu, a 14-year old Texan and a scientist. Earlier this year, she won the 3M Young Scientist Challenge for creating a possible cure for COVID-19. "To all other young girls who want to make a difference, I hope you all understand how important you are to this world! Do not let society’s standards hold you back from reaching your full potential,” she says.

STEM superstars call for more gender and cultural diversity. Associate Professor Kim-Anh Le Cao, astrophysicist Clare Kenyon, Dr. Kylie Soanes, Dr. Maria del Mar Quiroga and Priyanka Pillai have been named Australia's official Superstars of STEM by Science and Technology Australia. "My mission is to get people excited about urban nature," said conservationist biologist Kylie Soanes. "I have always loved sharing stories about science and nature with people. My research has enormous potential to engage broad audiences in science and nature conservation and I'm willing to step up and advocate for issues that are important."

UWA scientists named among Australia's superstars of STEM. A biotechnologist from The University of Western Australia who maps genomes of threatened animals to support Australian biodiversity and conservation has been named a superstar of STEM by Science & Technology Australia.

Ideas

According to the article “Women Physicians and Promotion in Academic Medicine,” over a 35-year period, women physicians in academic medical centers were less likely than men to be promoted to the rank of associate or full professor or to be appointed to department chair, and there was no apparent narrowing in the gap over time.

The Curie Society aims to broaden perceptions of STEM female protagonists. “The Curie Society is a teen spy thriller centred around a team of brilliant women scientists. Our base mythology envisions a society founded by Marie Curie with her Nobel Prize winnings, with a mission of supporting the most brilliant female minds in the world. But due to the politics of her time, she kept the society underground so it couldn’t be corrupted by the same scientific patriarchy that she constantly had to deal with. In the modern day, the society has grown to have secret chapters at universities all over the world, and its members are always on the lookout for the best and brightest students to join their ranks,” says Heather Einhorn, founder of Einhorn Epic Productions.

The researcher fighting to embed analysis of sex and gender into science. Accounting for sex and gender differences should be mandatory in all research areas. "It's not about women — it’s about getting the research right," says Londa Schiebinger. Recalled drugs, unsafe products and even environmental chaos are just some of the consequences of research that doesn’t consider sex and gender, she says.

Perceptions of stereotypes applied to women who publicly communicate their STEM work. According to a study, systematic cultural and institutional change is needed in STEM fields to address the underlying bias and negative stereotypes facing women. However, it should be ensured that the intended solutions to facilitate this change are not compounding the problem.

The stress of being a young, female scientific expert during Covid-19.“It is hard enough to be on the public stage trying to explain your complicated scientific expertise to the general public when some of them don’t even believe the information, but is an added burden when you are a woman and that comes with death threats and harassment.”