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Stay safe and sound,

Karla Shepard Rubinger
Executive Director
Rosalind Franklin Society
www.rosalindfranklinsociety.org

For the first time, women make up 50% of Caltech's incoming undergraduate class.
In a historic milestone for Caltech, the incoming undergraduate class will comprise 50% women. The class of 2028 is the first to reach gender parity since the Institute began admitting female undergraduates in 1970, and includes 113 women and 109 men, according to admissions data. Read more.

Celebrating women's participation in STEM: Breaking barriers and building futures.

To encourage women's participation in STEM fields from an early age, NSF funds innovative projects, such as Rural Girls in STEM, SciGirls and Sci Girls Code. Image: The Emmy Award-winning television show "SciGirls," produced by Twin Cities Public Television and supported by the U.S. National Science Foundation, is the only PBS series built on best practices for engaging girls ages 9-13 in STEM. The show features real girls that viewers can relate to. Credit: SciGirls, Twin Cities Public Television. Read more. 

Checking in on Pandemic Impact on Women in Science.
Before the pandemic, less than 30% of the world’s STEM researchers were women. When the lockdowns started, it didn’t take long for warning signs about women’s ability to get their work done to emerge, including in science. Now that it’s been a few years, Hilda Bastian checked in to see how gender diversity seems to be faring. Read more.

Immunotherapy pioneer inspires audience as UTSW’s first Mendelson Visiting Professor.
Every year, the Women in Science and Medicine Advisory Committee (WISMAC) selects an influential researcher for the Distinguished Visiting Professor Keynote Lecture. Dr. Bollard’s decades of work on cellular therapy made her an ideal choice for the 2024 WISMAC event. Read more.

How moms may be affecting STEM gender gap.

Women have been underrepresented in science and technology fields, and new research suggests a somewhat surprising possible contributing factor: the influence of moms. “Mothers have the strongest effect on their daughters in pushing them away from STEM fields and into humanistic fields,” said Michela Carlana, Harvard Kennedy School assistant professor of public policy. Read more. Photo courtesy of Michela Carlana.

STEM Girl Summer Shows High School Students a Future of Possibilities.
Even today, women remain underrepresented in STEM careers, especially in male-dominated fields like physics, engineering and mathematics. University of California San Diego graduate student Robin Glefke hopes to change that with STEM Girl Summer. Read more.

A final story that celebrates a woman’s ideas and achievements.
Obituaries of scientists are much more often about men than women. Communications Earth & Environment is initiating a series of articles highlighting the lives and work of women scientists, aiming to inspire the next generation with their stories and career paths. Read more.

Anneke Levelt Sengers: An international authority in the thermodynamics of fluids and a passionate advocate for women in science.

Johanna Maria Henrica (Anneke) Levelt Sengers, a Dutch American physicist, an international authority in the thermodynamics of fluids and fluid mixtures, especially near critical points, and a passionate advocate for women in science, passed away at Asbury Methodist Village in Gaithersburg, Maryland on February 28, 2024, a few days shy of her 95th birthday. Image Credit: The National Institute of Standards and Technology Digital Collections. Read more.

Review: How a Group of Women Launched Modern Cosmology.
A new biography of astronomer Henrietta Leavitt celebrates the meaning of making in science. Fans of Hidden Figures and The Glass Universe will appreciate Anna Von Mertens’s captivating portrait of Henrietta Leavitt and the Harvard Computers, who laid the foundation for modern cosmology at the turn of the 20th century. Read more.

Summer Interns Help Illuminate Impact of Disease on Marine Life.
The Quantitative Marine Disease Ecology Lab hosted three interns this summer. As a team they made strides in understanding the health and climate impacts of marine diseases and advancing the tools scientists use to study them. Read more.

Isabella Weber, associate professor of economics, has been awarded the 2024 Ellen Meiksins Wood Prize. 

The prize, established by Ed Broadbent and the Broadbent Institute in 2017 in honor of distinguished author and academic Professor Ellen Meiksins Wood, recognizes outstanding academic contributions in political theory, social or economic history, human rights and sociology. Image: Isabella Weber and Jen Hassum, executive director of Broadbent Institute. Photo by Jack McClelland, Broadbent Institute. Read more.