by, for, and about women in science, technology, engineering, & math

Posting links from the air conditioned library, as we’re having a heat wave this week…

• I just discovered ScienceWoman at ScienceBlogs; she shares a great blogroll of blogs by/for women in science, and I also found some interesting posts in her archive (Who is your favorite woman scientist? [answer in comments here!], and a discussion of what name to publish under for a woman starting her academic career but also about to change her name upon marriage).

• A post about the expectations of chemistry grad students at CalTech. A bit outdated, but sparks an interesting discussion about unrealistic expectations in academia. Women, of course, are disproportionately affected by these expectations because we’re more likely to have household or childrearing responsibilities that are incompatible with being in a lab 24/7.

• Geek Feminism commenters respond to a question about how to respond to women who think there’s no more oppression in the western world.

• Feministe points out that women haven’t been honored very frequently by the “Google Doodle”, and asks commenters to suggest accomplished women who deserve recognition there.

• There have been a few different posts on Geek Feminism recently about fashion and clothing issues for female geeks — a subject we’ve also discussed here.

Happy Ada Lovelace Day — an international day of blogging about women in science and technology! Some of my technical & scientific heroines are the women of Stemming — below, a few women who agreed to be profiled today.

Emma (Emma Staatz) is studying to be a doctor specializing in public health — after getting degrees in English and theater in college, she took the initiative to take science courses and EMT training on her own in preparation for a medical career (even though, as she says, “there is a sad lack of costumes in science”). She loves learning how things work — “from toasters, to physics, to people’s bodies” — and prepared for a scientific career from an early age by having a lab in her basement as a child. Currently, Emma works in an office, and she enjoys movies, obsessing about Lost, and hanging out with friends.

Jenmyers (Jen Myers) always enjoyed working with computers, and once she discovered the internet, she worked on creating her own websites, which inspired her to change her major to computer science (moving away from her background as an artsy literature geek). She found the transition challenging, but says "I’m a firm believer in erasing all the lines that exist as barriers to tech/science, whether it’s for people who are told they’re only good at “creative” endeavors or whether it’s because they’re of a certain gender or ethnicity." Now Jen works as a web designer and front-end developer. She finds the fast pace of new technology that she has to keep up with both exciting and frustrating, and while she finds some aspects of the typical tech culture frustrating, she’s hopeful that that is changing. Jen is a single mom to a four-year-old daughter, writes for Skepchick.org, and runs a local skeptic group in central Ohio. She also blogs at deliberatepixel.com and tweets as @antiheroine.

Lola (Lola Thompson) is a mathematics PhD student specializing in number theory. She’s loved math and logic since an early age; as a kid, she loved going to math camp, and learning about ideas like fractals and the Fibonacci sequence. Her mathematical career hit a bump when she was turned off by the formulaic qualities of calculus in high school and early college, but once she discovered the possibility of a career in theoretical math, as she says, “once I got a taste of this so-called ‘pure math’, I knew that I had to be a mathematician”. She loves the creativity and flexibility of her job, but wishes there were more women in her field, especially other women who love skirts and heels! When she’s not doing math, Lola dances, cooks, and tries to travel each year to the most interesting place that she can for under $500 (last year: Iceland, this year: Peru). You can also find her online at math.dartmouth.edu/~thompson.

Mamealoney (Mame Maloney) is using her math degree as a programmer and data analyst at an economic consulting firm. She has always excelled at math and science, and enjoyed the satisfaction of pursuing subjects she was good at. She enjoys the day-to-day rhythm of her quantitative job, and likes her colleagues, but regrets that her challenging technical job takes up a great deal of time and pressures her to focus on technical development at the expense of her more sensory and artistic interests, like drawing, painting, and piano. But when she does have free time, Mame reads, rides her bike, drinks beer, shops, and is active in the animal welfare movement. You can find her online at hydrobromic.com.

MorgannaLeFey (Siobhan Perricone) has been interested in computers ever since her father first brought home a VIC-20, and now she works as a web applications and database developer. She loves using her technical skills to help make people’s lives easier, and says “there’s a real rush of pleasure when I finally manage to debug my software” — but she finds it frustrating when people dismiss science and technology as “too hard” for them. She enjoys a variety of games — computer games, online collaborative games, tabletop roleplaying games, board games, and card games — and spends a lot of time reading and watching movies. She also loves to travel; she attends at least one gaming convention a year and looks forward to a trip to the UK to officiate a wedding this summer.

Nora (Nora Friedman) is pursuing a PhD in public health — she studies infectious disease epidemiology. Her job involves a variety of scientific techniques — researching and compiling data, biology, immunology, bio-statistics, coding in SAS, and teaching both scientific theory and epidemiology methods — and she enjoys all these aspects of her work. Nora comes from an academic and scientific family that encouraged her pursuits in these fields; when she’s not working, she bikes around New Orleans, takes care of her house, and volunteers as a parasitologist at an animal shelter. She occasionally blogs at bigshouldersbigeasy.blogspot.com.

And Stemming user Amanda wants to give an Ada Lovelace Day shoutout to her twin sister Michelle — the only woman on the MooTools dev team!

Did you make an Ada Lovelace Day post today? Link it in the comments!

In my grad school department, every student is required to do at least four rotations in different labs. Each rotations lasts 8 weeks and gives you a change to see the research and most importantly, see if the PI will be a good mentor for you both scientifically and career-wise.

When selecting a grad school, I think one of the most important things are rotations. I came to my school with a specific PI in mind. I liked his research, and he was a very laid-back, hands-off mentor (both of which I wanted). I knew I wanted the freedom to design my own experiments and not have someone breathing down my neck. I also am self-motivated so I don’t need my PI to give me time lines.

I ultimately chose to join a relatively new faculty’s lab based on several things: 1. mentoring style 2. interesting project 3. the project had already been started, so I knew it would work and publications would be fast-coming 4. I would get to attend conferences 5. fast graduation time (probably under 5 years) 6. I would get to learn more techniques than some of my other options. I’ve been in my lab for 2.5 years now, with two 3rd author papers, a 1st author paper sitting on my boss’s desk, and a second 1st author paper outlined. Don’t get me wrong, my PI is an excellent scientist, and I have become a better scientist because of him, but in the past few months, I have learned some new things that I wish I had known when selecting a lab.

As graduation approaches I have found several drawbacks to my lab. Because my PI is so new, I will only be the 2nd student to graduate from his lab. While this never seemed like a problem before, as I look at the requirements for postdoc fellowship grants I found that the want your boss to have a graduate record (multiple students with good careers following graduation). Because of this, I need to have a sort of co-signer on fellowship applications of a PI that has a good graduation record and can vouch for my training and abilities. Depressingly, no one on my thesis committee has graduated very many students either even though they are in labs that have been around for >10 years. It looks like I need to add another faculty to my thesis committee to be able to vouch for me, which of course means more paperwork for me and potentially a longer graduation time as the best candidate likes to hold onto students.

Another thing related to postdoc fellowships is lab meetings and journal clubs. My lab only has lab meeting when some one has to practice a talk. And we never do a journal club. I’ve tried to supplement this by going to a joint lab meeting of some other faculty, but it means that I’m only aware of what my colleagues are doing peripherally, and there’s less opportunity to get fresh ideas or suggestions.

My PI is also having funding problems. I don’t think we’ve had a grant get approved while I’ve been here. While I’m guaranteed to be paid a stipend no matter what (I have a 1 year fellowship and my department will pick up the rest). My experiments are also in collaboration with another, very well-funded lab that purchases all of the supplies I need. However, I do fear that it will reach a point when the grad school will say “Adios” to my boss because we’re broke. I don’t know how likely this is as nearly all PIs are very touchy about talking about funding with students.

And finally, my 1st author paper has been sitting on my boss’s desk for longer than I care to admit (>6 months). I’m pretty much the only person in the world working on my project, so I’m not worried about getting scooped. But, I mean, come on, I know writing and reviewing grants is stressful and time consuming; I just need a few hours of his time to read over the damn thing. I’ve even heard of PIs sitting on papers for over a year (which I’m rapidly approaching).

The moral of the story is to ask your potential mentor about these things. In addition to my list above make sure to address the funding situation (will you always be paid?; if funding is poor/non-existent, will the PI be asked to leave?); graduation record; and publication turn around time.

I wish you good luck and good science!