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Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on 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.
Stay safe and sound,
Karla Shepard Rubinger
Executive Director
Rosalind Franklin Society
www.rosalindfranklinsociety.org
She Persisted in Science: An Exclusive Interview with Chelsea Clinton.
The Rosalind Franklin Society (RFS) and Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News (GEN) had the pleasure of co-hosting an interview with Chelsea Clinton—a champion of women who persist and pursue their passions. Her mission currently takes the form of a new children’s book series. The most recent in the series, She Persisted in Science, features 13 women scientists. Read more.
Dr. Mona Fouad receives 2022 Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare.
Dr. Mona Fouad received the 2022 Vilcek-Gold Award for Humanism in Healthcare award for her leadership in health disparities research, and for her career-long commitment to equity in healthcare. Fouad’s work has been foundational in the development of rigorous research and interventions to make healthcare more accessible and equitable to historically underserved populations in the United States. Read more.
Women more likely to win awards that are not named after men.
Some researchers have suggested mechanisms for the possible connection between prizewinners and award names. Unconscious bias could influence award-committee members to select winners who resemble the role model the prize is named after, says Johanna Stadmark, a geologist at Lund University. Read more.
Submit your nomination for the Awards at Biotech Week Boston.
Nominations are now open to honor the top individuals, companies, and organizations that make the life sciences ecosystem vibrant and innovative. Since 2018, the Awards at Biotech Week Boston have been bringing together the faces and names that make the Boston community the beating heart of the biotech world. Read more.
Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology.
The international Eppendorf & Science Prize for Neurobiology is awarded annually to one young scientist who is not older than 35 years for the most outstanding neurobiological research based on methods of molecular and cell biology conducted by him/her during the past three years. Read more.
Winners of 2022 Kavli Prize announced June 3, 2022.
The Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters has announced the 2022 Kavli Prize laureates in the fields of astrophysics, nanoscience, and neuroscience, and laureates in each field will share $1 million. Congratulations to Huda Y. Zoghbi, RFS board member, and the other 2022 Kavli Prize Laureates for their transformative contributions to science and society. Read more.
‘Tackling the Challenges of Our Time Requires All of Us to Be at the Table’
As the world faces challenges such as preparing for future pandemics and the worsening impacts of climate change — our present moment is defined by the urgent need to improve equity, according to Alondra Nelson, acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. “Those grand challenges, those wicked problems from climate crisis to societal inequities, from health disparities to environmental injustice, and more, those answers are not necessarily one size fits all,” said Nelson, the keynote speaker at a recent National Academies event. Read more.
A $25,000 Award for Women in Science Addressing Air Quality and Climate Change.
The Story Exchange, an award-winning nonprofit media organization dedicated to elevating women’s voices, is seeking submissions for its 2nd annual Women In Science Incentive Prize. They will award $5,000 incentive prizes to 5 female scientists working to improve air quality and protect health. Deadline for submissions: July 31. “We know that women in science, particularly early-career women, can feel isolated as they work on novel solutions to pressing climate change issues,” said Sue Williams, executive director of The Story Exchange. “We hope this prize supports them and recognizes their efforts, which often go unseen and unsung.” Read more.
L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science international awards 2022.
In this special Ceremony gathering the laureates from the past three editions, 15 exceptional researchers will receive the L’Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science International Awards in recognition of their outstanding scientific achievements in recent years, along with 30 young female scientists, selected in 2020 and 2022, who will earn the title of International Rising Talents. Read more.
Nominations for the George Washington Carver Award & Rosalind Franklin Award are Now Open.
The two prestigious BIO Impact awards celebrate new pioneers in biotechnology and honor those who came before. Each year these awards for innovation and leadership are presented to individuals who have made a significant contribution to building the biobased economy. Read more.
The Unwritten Laws of Physics for Black Women.
Black women in physics face a lot of exhausting challenges, no matter how talented and brilliant they are. “The problem is not with us. It’s systemic, and it can only begin to change once there are more of us—taking up space, sharing our views, being ourselves,” writes Katrina Miller. Read more. Photo by Akilah Townsend. Left to right: Andrea Bryant, LaNijah Flagg, Katrina Miller, and Ayanna Matthews connected as a group when Flagg arrived in Chicago.
Marianna Limas, Social Media Manager
Nilda Rivera, Partnership and Events Manager
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Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on 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.
Stay safe and sound,
Karla Shepard Rubinger
Executive Director
Rosalind Franklin Society
www.rosalindfranklinsociety.org
Chien-Shiung Wu’s work defied the laws of physics.
Chien-Shiung Wu flouted gender and racial barriers and eventually came to be known as the “first lady of physics.” Despite how frequently she experienced discrimination throughout her career—during which she won every award in the field except the Nobel—Wu didn’t stop researching until her retirement in 1981. Read more.
Why menopause matters in the academic workplace.
Half of the world’s population can expect to experience menopause. Yet, most workplaces don’t see menopause — and the mental and physical changes that accompany it — as something they have to support. And many women are reluctant to speak out for fear it might lead to them being labelled as problematic. Read more. Image: Menopause hit electrical and computer engineer Carlotta Berry “like a steam truck”, and now she counsels younger colleagues experiencing it.Credit: Haley Rose Photography.
New HHMI program pledges $1.5 billion for outstanding early career faculty committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
HHMI, part of our Council of Academic Institutions, has launched a $1.5B program designed to build a more diverse scientific workforce by supporting early-career basic biomedical researchers, including physician-scientists. Over the next 20 years, HHMI expects to hire and support up to 150 early career faculty as Freeman Hrabowski Scholars – appointing 30 Scholars every other year for the next decade. Read more.
The pandemic is our chance to fix the Black women in STEM gap.
Black women are now the most educated group in the United States, but they remain woefully underrepresented in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. The COVID-19 pandemic is our chance to repair this gap. Read more. Image by (WOCinTech Chat / Flickr).
Biochemist Marie Maynard Daly uncovered what makes us tick.
Crack open any high school science textbook, and it’ll likely contain a few basic concepts of human biology. What you likely won’t find is a reference to the American biochemist Marie Maynard Daly, who contributed fundamental research to these ideas throughout her prolific career. The omission is neither a surprise nor an accident. Daly, a Black woman, was underappreciated for much of her professional life, which spanned from the 1940s to 1986. Read more.
Racial and economic barriers kept Carolyn Beatrice Parker from realizing her full potential.
All too often, even in 2022, Black students are interpreted through a deficit model: Academic institutions assume that we’re underprepared and that our families are unfamiliar with such work. Read Carolyn Beatrice Parker’s CV in the context of her family’s achievements, however, and it’s immediately apparent that she represents an example of what’s possible when intellectual success is expected and the resources to achieve it are provided. Read more.
Esther Lederberg changed our understanding of how bacteria breed.
On December 10, 1958, microbiologist Esther Lederberg stood next to her husband. Clad in a pale, floor-length gown, clutching a small purse in gloved hands, she gazed unsmiling into the camera. Joshua Lederberg had just won a Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for his discoveries in bacterial genetics. Read more.
How academic institutions can help to close Wikipedia’s gender gap.
Since 2018, 500 Women Scientists, a grass-roots advocacy organization of which we are all members, has run more than 30 Wikipedia edit-a-thon sessions — workshops in which Wikipedia experts and novices come together for a guided crash course on the website and a few hours of focused editing. Read more. Image: Physician Florence Sabin was a pioneering woman in science.Credit: Granger Historical Picture Archive/Alamy.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell discovered pulsars, but someone else won the Nobel.
Jocelyn Bell Burnell, a doctoral student in astronomy at Cambridge University, was plowing through the massive set of cosmic data from a radio telescope when she spotted something peculiar: a series of spikes in relative brightness. She’d discovered the first known pulsar—a rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its magnetic poles, akin to a lighthouse spinning its beam. Read more. She spoke at our 2020 RFS year-end meeting. Check her out here.
Marilyn Fogel, Biogeochemist and “Isotope Queen,” Dies at 69.
 Photo by Natasha Metzler / Carnegie Institution for Science
“Driven by her deep curiosity about nature, she fearlessly pursued new knowledge by developing novel methods to probe isotopic and geochemical phenomena across a broad range of disciplines,” Eric D. Isaacs, president of the Carnegie Institution for Science, says in an announcement about Fogel’s death. Read more.
Science in Africa: ‘The world needs science and science needs women’
Doreen Anene and Stanley Anigbogu launched separate initiatives to promote science careers to young girls and women in Africa. Anene, a final-year animal-science PhD researcher at the University of Nottingham, UK, says her mother struggled to get a teaching job in Nigeria because she did not have a science background. Her experience inspired her to set up The STEM Belle, a non-profit organization in Nigeria. Anigbogu, a storyteller and technologist, founded STEM4HER after meeting a young girl at a science fair. She told him that her mother thought that careers in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) were for boys, not for her. Read more.
In Her Own Words: Jen Colvin works to diversify STEM pipeline.
The impact of the pandemic on education as well as the disproportionate setbacks to underprivileged students have been well-documented. But even before Covid, Jen Colvin was devoted to bringing equity to education, especially in the areas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Read more.
Gladys West’s mathematical prowess helped make GPS possible.
A retired naval mathematician, West spearheaded a mathematical model of the Earth’s size and shape (a.k.a., a geoid), which is an essential layer underpinning today’s GPS networks. Since their launch in 1978, satellite navigation systems have touched nearly every aspect of both private and public life on Earth—from emergency response and power grid systems to turn-by-turn navigation and stock exchange timing. West’s contributions, however, were unknown to the public for nearly 40 years. Read more.
Marianna Limas, Social Media Manager
Nilda Rivera, Partnership and Events Manager |
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Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on women in science.
We want to highlight the Call for Nominations from the Genome Writers Guild. We are again working with them to award the Rosalind Franklin Medal. You can see details HERE.
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.
Stay safe and sound,
Karla Shepard Rubinger
Executive Director
Rosalind Franklin Society
www.rosalindfranklinsociety.org
An international award recognizing outstanding women in biomedical research.
The Pearl Meister Greengard Prize, awarded annually by Rockefeller University, was established by the late Dr. Paul Greengard, who served as the university’s Vincent Astor Professor, and his wife, the sculptor Ursula von Rydingsvard. Katalin Karikó, whose discovery of how to keep synthetic RNA from activating the innate immune system paved the way for RNA vaccines, including two for SARS-CoV-2, will receive the 2022 Pearl Meister Greengard Prize. Read more. Check out her Women in Science RFS webinar. Image: Katalin Karikó (Credit: Penn Medicine)
NASA climate research scientist awarded World Food prize.
Cynthia Rosenzweig, an agronomist and climatologist, was awarded the $250,000 World Food prize in recognition of her innovative modeling of the impact of climate change on food production. She is a senior research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and serves as adjunct senior research scientist at the Columbia Climate School at Columbia University, both based in New York. Read more.
Gehring discusses new climate change project.
Whitehead Institute Member Mary Gehring was a featured presenter at a recent symposium sponsored by the MIT Climate Grand Challenges initiative. Gehring, who is leading a study on how to make food crop plants more robust in the face of climate change, discussed the flagship project for which she is a key investigator, Revolutionizing Agriculture with Low-emissions, Resilient Crops. Read more.
Scientific collaborations are precarious territory for women.
Female scientists, who, as a whole, are more junior than their male counterparts, often have to decide whether they want to collaborate with a well-resourced scientist, who is more likely to be male, or with a peer of any gender whose stature won’t overshadow them. By collaborating with other women, female scientists can push back against the systemic barriers to female-led team research. Read more. Image: Emmanuelle Charpentier (left) and Jennifer Doudna (right) won the 2020 Nobel Prize in Chemistry — the first all-female team to win a Nobel.Credit: Miguel Riopa/AFP/Getty.
She helped change vaccines forever.
The highly effective mRNA COVID vaccines were essential to end this pandemic and will likely play a critical role in preventing future pandemics. They are the product of decades of painstaking work by researchers. One of those researchers is Dr. Katalin Karikó, a Hungarian biochemist who long ago saw the potential of mRNA to save lives when few others did. Read more.
In situ with Susan Solomon.
Susan Solomon is the Lee and Geraldine Martin Professor of atmospheric chemistry and climate science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, US. She recently spoke with Emma Pewsey about battling the elements in Antarctica and preserving the integrity of science. Read more.
The pandemic is our chance to fix the Black women in STEM gap.
How can companies not only recruit but retain more Black women in STEM? It takes more than making sure there are equal and equitable opportunities for Black women to have access to science and math coursework. Companies also need to implement intentional career interventions that address mental health. STEM careers are important and directly impact and improve the world we live in, but they are also stressful. Read more. Image: Black women are now the most educated group in the United States, but only 2 percent of STEM jobs are held by Black women. (WOCinTech Chat / Flickr)
SWHR announces 2022 honorees in public service, education, and industry for annual awards gala.
The Society for Women’s Health Research (SWHR) will recognize and honor three leaders in health care who have made contributions to advance women’s health at its 2022 Annual Awards Gala on Thursday, April 28, 2022. Read more.
The incredible life of Maria Sibylla Merian | The Royal Society.
Maria Sibylla Merian is considered one of the earliest entomologists and ecologists and has a wide group of admirers, including Sir David Attenborough. Read more.
Childcare crowdfunding campaigns aim to keep mums on the academic track.
 Female scientists are among the most difficult groups to retain in academia. Black and Hispanic women comprise just 5% or less of tenured faculty in the United States, according to a study that Cardel published in 2020. And the pandemic exacerbated the challenges. Read more. Image: For financial support, researcher parents are turning to crowdfunding programmes — some of which target mothers of color specifically. Credit: Getty
Congratulations to the winners of the YIGH Global Health Spark Awards.
The Yale Institute for Global Health (YIGH) has selected Nicky Hawley, associate professor of epidemiology (chronic disease), Yale School of Public Health; Raul Hernandez-Ramirez, associate research scientist in biostatistics at the Yale School of Public Health; and Melanie Sion, assistant professor of surgery, Yale School of Medicine, to receive YIGH Global Health Spark Awards. Read more.
Engineering and medicine combine to save babies: Turning a product into a company.
Entrepreneur Anjelica Gonzalez, Ph.D., and a team of engineering researchers at Yale had a vision to help premature and in-distress babies breathe. They created technology for a respiratory device that warms, oxygenates, and sterilizes delivered air for newborn babies at 1/10th the cost of other devices, making it accessible to populations in lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs). Read more.
Agnes Chase, a grass scientist, showed us what ‘holds the earth together’.
In an era when women were expected to be wives, mothers, and homemakers—and hadn’t yet won the right to vote—Agnes Chase had already built an impressive career as a scientific illustrator at one the US’s premier institutions, co-authored a book, and proved to be so good at her craft that her male supervisor was ready to break the societal norms to take her with him. Read more.
Ursula Bellugi, leading sign language neuroscientist, dies at 91.
Neuroscientist Ursula Bellugi made significant contributions to decreasing the stigma of American Sign Language (ASL) by showing it is a complex language and not a truncated stand-in for spoken language, as some critics had described it. Bellugi died on April 17 at the age of 91. Read more.
How women can identify male allies in the workplace.
Allyship is defined as a strategic mechanism used intentionally by individuals who strive to be collaborators, accomplices, and co conspirators. Allies are deeply invested in challenging and disrupting the status quo, dismantling systemic inequities, and shifting the power structure within an organization. Read more.
Helen Thompson Woolley showed biology does not define gender.
Helen Thompson Woolley’s family encouraged her education, and she, like many others during the so-called Progressive Era, developed a conviction that science could solve social ills. In 1893, thanks to a scholarship, she enrolled at the newly founded University of Chicago, where she gravitated toward the burgeoning field of experimental psychology. Read more.
Marianna Limas, Social Media Manager
Nilda Rivera, Partnership and Events Manager
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Dear Colleagues,
I am pleased to include another issue of RFS Briefings with some timely and encouraging updates on women in science.
In particular, please note the announcement for 2023 Vilcek Prizes for Creative Promise in Biomedical Science:
The Vilcek Foundation will award three Creative Promise Prizes of $50,000 each to young, immigrant biomedical scientists who demonstrate outstanding early achievement. Applications are open through June 10, 2022. Read more.
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.
Stay safe and sound,
Karla Shepard Rubinger
Executive Director
Rosalind Franklin Society
www.rosalindfranklinsociety.org
Five trailblazing women scientists at The Rockefeller University.
“Five Trailblazing Women Scientists at The Rockefeller University”
Florence R. Sabin, Louise Pearce, Rebecca C Lancefield, Gertrude E Perlmann, and Marie M. Daly.
Brenda Zlamany, 81 x 100 1/4 inches, oil on canvas, 2021
In 2019, the University’s Women & Science Initiative and Women in Science at Rockefeller came together in what is now called the Women & Science Portrait Initiative. The purpose of this partnership was to commission the portrait of an historic woman scientist from Rockefeller. It now hangs in Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Lounge. Rockefeller University is an important member of our Council of Academic Institutions. Read more.
At 90, still studying ancient pollen.
Linda Heusser turned 90 years old on April 12, and the only birthday present she really wanted was another sediment core to study. The adjunct researcher at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory analyzes pollen from marine sediments in order to better understand climate trends going back as far as 2.3 million years. She has worked at Lamont on and off for decades. Read more.
Nominate a 2022 STAT Wunderkind.
STAT Wunderkinds is a chance to celebrate early-career researchers who are not yet independent scientists or program leaders. STAT wants to honor postdocs, interns, fellows — people who have terminal degrees in hand, but aren’t running their own research programs yet. Entries are due by July 29, 2022. Read more.
Diverse perspectives empower creative solutions.
Awarded annually, the Vilcek Prizes honor outstanding immigrant professionals in the arts and sciences, and recognize leaders who are champions of immigrant causes. Meet the 2022 Vilcek Foundation Prize winners in the online celebration. Read more.
Kizzmekia Corbett on the pandemic, public service, and her path to becoming a scientist.
The world knows Kizzmekia Corbett as one of the designers of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccines. And in her new job as an assistant professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Corbett plans to work on vaccine design to help the world better handle future pandemics. She was recently named to the inaugural STATUS List, which recognizes standout individuals in health, medicine, and science. Read more.
Why women scientists are rallying around six-year-old bug and frog lover Lyra.
After receiving a heartbreaking email, Dr. Ann Jones goes on a mission to prove that 'girls DO like spiders' on this week's What the Duck podcast. Dr. Jones contacted women scientists around the world to share their stories about their love of bugs, frogs and spiders, and how they broke through barriers and carved out successful careers in science. Photo by Julie Cann. Read more.
Academic medicine’s glass ceiling: Author’s gender in top three medical research journals impacts probability of future publication success.
Women scientists have historically been underrepresented as authors in top medical research journals. Through increased awareness and calls to action, this is changing, but inequality persists. This study demonstrates that not only are women underrepresented as first, second, and last authors in high-impact journals, there is significant variation in the representation of women scientists amongst these journals. Read more.
Ursula Bellugi, pioneer in the world of sign language, dies at 91.
Ursula Bellugi, a researcher at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, made strides in understanding the brain and the origins of language, both spoken and signed. She was among the first to demonstrate that sign language was just as complex, abstract and systematic as spoken language. She died on Sunday in San Diego. She was 91. Read more.
NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins celebrates ‘milestone’ for diversity in space industry.
NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins joined a small yet groundbreaking list as she became the fifth Black woman to go to space and the first Black woman to serve aboard the International Space Station. Watkins’ mission has drawn praise from diversity and inclusion experts, but it shows just how far Black women still have to go in the white, male-dominated profession. Read more.
The scientist who co-created CRISPR isn’t ruling out engineered babies someday.
Jennifer Doudna is the co-discoverer of CRISPR editing, the revolutionary method for engineering genes. In 2020, she shared a Nobel Prize with fellow scientist Emmanuelle Charpentier. The two became the sixth and seventh women to win the award in chemistry. Antonio Regalado recently spoke to Doudna about the formidable power of versatile gene editing as well as the possible downsides of the technology. Read more.
Girls shun physics A-level as they dislike ‘hard maths’, says social mobility head.
Girls do not choose physics A-level because they dislike “hard maths”, the UK government’s social mobility commissioner has claimed, prompting anger from leading scientists. Dr Jess Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London who campaigns for equality in science, said: “I honestly can’t believe we’re still having this conversation. It’s patronizing, it’s infuriating, and it’s closing doors to exciting careers in physics and engineering for generations of young women.” Read more.
How Paxlovid came to be: From the germ of an idea to a vital tool against Covid.
The story of Paxlovid is a reminder that the path from a biological idea to a useable medicine depends on thousands of decisions, any of which can result in the medicine not making it. Read more.
Early Ukrainian Women Scientists.
These early Ukrainian women scientists, all born in the 19th century, came from 5 different physical and natural sciences, studying fossils, the human body, space, and mathematics. Each bio begins with a very short summary, so you can scroll through the pictures and summaries to get a quick impression of their lives and achievements. Read more.
Backlash erupts as N.Y.U. weighs hiring scientist accused of harassment.
Graduate students, faculty and alumni from New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine staged a walkout Wednesday to protest a report that the school may soon hire Dr. David Sabatini, a biologist facing allegations of sexual harassment. Read more.
Diversifying Stem Cell Biobanks: Towards Inclusive Precision Medicine and Health Equity.
Increasing the diversity of stem cell biobanks presents a key opportunity to ensure that disease research captures the full diversity of humanity and benefits all communities in need. Hear from experts Ru Gunawardane, PhD, Ekemini A. U. Riley, PhD, John Greally, PhD, DMed, and Scott Noggle, PhD as they explore this opportunity and call the stem cell community to action. Read more.
Marianna Limas, Social Media Manager
Nilda Rivera, Partnership and Events Manager
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