Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Good morning, everyone. My name is Katharine Miller and on behalf of the graduate student
organizing committee I would like to welcome you all to the Science and Gender Equality
Symposium. We're very honored to have with us today five outstanding women of science
from around the world, and are looking forward to hearing about their research, their career
trajectories and their thoughts on gender equality in science. Before we start, I'd
like to say that there were many people involved in making this symposium possible, but we
cannot thank them all right now because otherwise we would never get to the talks. But we would
be truly remiss if we didn't heartily thank the special research group SFB936 Multisite
Communication in the Brain, and the gender equality office of the University Medical
Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, without whose support - financial and otherwise - this symposium
wouldn't be happening, so many many thanks. Last year an important publication received
much attention for highlighting the reality of gender discrimination in science. A group
of researchers from Yale published a scientific article in the Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences that detailed discrimination in hiring found in scientific faculties.
127 different faculty members from several different universities were presented with an identical
CV bearing either the name "John" or "Jennifer". Faculty members were asked to rank these applicants
for competency, hireability, and to provide a starting salary offer. The applicant "John"
was given significantly higher rankings on competency and hireability, and the starting
salary offer was $4000 higher than that offered to "Jennifer". Importantly, and perhaps most
interestingly, these significant differences were seen regardless of whether the faculty
member doing the hiring was male or female. In other words, the work that needs to be
done in order to get rid of gender biases must be done by men and women together. This
is not the only scientific study showing gender inequalities in science. Other studies have
shown that women applying for research grants need to be 2.5 times more productive than
their male counterparts in order to receive comparable grant funding. A report released
by the Massachussetts Institute of Technology showed that women faculty members on average
received less lab space and fewer resources, and that the female to male faculty ratio
in the science and engineering departments was extremely low. It's important to note,
however, that MIT took this report seriously, and has made several changes to their policies
over the past years. Their 2011 report on the status of women faculty showed that the
changes led to a near doubling in the number of female science faculty members in a decade
and to an increase in equity and overall satsifaction. Then-Harvard Professor Nancy Andrews suggested
in her commentary published in the journal Nature that there are four major reasons that
young women cite for why women opt out of medical research careers: difficulty finding
a work/life balance, the belief that women have to outperform male colleagues to be viewed
as equals, a lack of encouragement from mentors and colleagues, and a lack of role models.
Each of these areas can and should be worked on to improve the chances of women in science,
and we hope to hear more about ways to improve these areas today. But the last reason - the
lack of female role models - was one that the organizing committee specifically had
in mind when first planning the SAGE Symposium. And to that end, I am pleased to have the
honor of introducing the first of our five prestigious speakers.
Professor Harriet Wallberg was the president of the Karolinska Institute from 2004 to 2012 and is an active member
of the Karolinska Institute's Nobel Assembly - the group that selects the recipient of
the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. She continues to work as a professor of physiology
and her medical research on clinical physiology and diabetes has led to more than 100 scientific
articles and numerous council appointments, including a position as the secretary general
of the Swedish Research Council's Scientific Council for Medicine and as a member of the
Max Planck Senate. In 2008, Professor Wallberg received the His Majesty the King's Medal
at the highest level for her achievements in medical education and research. As the
first female president of the Karolinska Institute, Professor Wallberg made many significant changes
to the academic environment of the institute regarding gender equality, including through
the Mentor4Equality initiative bringing together students, postdocs, and graduate mentors to
identify and analyze modes of gender inequality in the research community. Professor Wallberg,
we look forward to your talk.