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July 15 , 2006
Compiled by Whitney Laemmli
Contributor: Mithra Beikmohamadi , Andrea Stith , and Kaethe Sandman
Comments may be sent to washwire@awis.org
Government
AWM Petition Regarding the National Mathematics Advisory Panel
Once an Enemy, Health Industry Warms to Clinton
Careers
Does Gender Matter?
Education
Don’t Be So Sure He’s the Expert
At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust
Let the Guys Win One
Science and Health
FDA Backs AIDS Pill to Be Taken Once a Day
A Tale of Two Drugs Hints at Promise for Genetic Testing
Is Global Warming Causing More, Larger Wildfires?
Women With Damaged ATM Gene More Likely to Develop Cancer
International
Australian Computer Society Drops “Goddess Dates”
Female Science Researchers Get €4.8 Million
National Office Updates
Chapter
Events
Opportunities
Contact Us
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Government
AWM Petition Regarding the National Mathematics Advisory Panel
On April 18, President Bush created the National Mathematics Advisory Panel , a group designed to advise the President and the Secretary of Education on research relating to mathematical pedagogy. As vice-chair of the panel, Bush has appointed Camilla Benbow, a scientist known for her hypothesis that there is an intrinsic disparity between men and women at the highest levels of mathematical achievement. The Association for Women in Mathematics (AWM) has approved a petition citing concern that Dr. Benbow's presence “signals – in perception or reality – a bias against women and girls” and urging her removal from the panel. To find background information on Dr. Benbow's research, criticism of her work, and the AWM's case, visit:
http://www.awm-math.org/benbow_petition/background.html .
Once an Enemy, Health Industry Warms to Clinton
When Hillary Rodham Clinton attempted to overhaul the nation's health care system in the early 1990s, she was faced with formidable resistance from the health care industry, whose fervent opposition helped to ensure the eventual death of her reform plan. Currently, however, Clinton is the No. 2 recipient of funds from the very industry that had once so vehemently opposed her and is working closely with industry leaders to develop new policy. Why? Experts speculate that the new relationship may be both a result of Clinton 's more moderate positions and of the widespread belief that Clinton is a likely 2008 Democratic presidential nominee. As Kenneth Raske, president of the Greater New York Hospital Association and a Clinton fundraiser, notes, “I think right now the issue of health insurance and the worries of the American public about losing insurance are a political gold vein waiting to be tapped. You have to think health care is going to be a major issue in '08.” To read the full article*, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/12/nyregion/12donate.html
Careers
Does Gender Matter?
In the latest issue of Nature, Ben Barres, a Stanford University neurobiologist, counters claims (such as those propagated by Harvard University president Larry Summers) that women lag behind in scientific achievement because of innate ability. He criticizes the lack of a hard scientific basis for such assertions and places the true blame on prejudice and institutional barriers to women's advancement. Among other things, Barres cites the lack of mentors for female scientists, the under-representation of women on judging panels for major awards and fellowships, and lack of resources for scientists with children as significant obstacles that need to be addressed if women are to succeed. As a female-to-male transgender individual who has firsthand experience in the disparate treatment of men and women, Barres also presents his unique perspective on innate sex differences and discrimination. To read the Nature * article, visit: www.nature.com/nm/ journal/v11/n9/full/nm0905-916.html . Related articles also appear in The Washington Post and in Forbes . Also, see AWIS President Donna Dean's comments in Newsday .
Education
Don’t Be So Sure He’s the Expert
A study appearing in the June issue of Social Science Quarterly reveals that how people perceive their technological proficiency is significantly influenced by their gender. The study, conducted in 2001 and 2002 by Northwestern University sociologist Eszter Hargittai, asked 100 subjects to complete a test of online computer proficiency and then to rate their skill at navigating the Internet. But while men and women performed at roughly the same level, Hargittai found that women consistently rated their skill lower than did men. She elaborates, “Not a single woman among all our female study subjects called herself an ‘expert' user, while not a single male ranked himself as a complete novice or ‘not at all skilled.'” Moreover, when Hargittai re-tested and interviewed about half of the original participants earlier this year, she found that five additional years of Internet use had not altered the gender disparity in skill perception. As Melissa Hines, a professor of psychology at City University London, comments, the study's findings mirror women's self-assessment of their mathematical proficiency. Furthermore, as such negative self-perceptions can subtly affect and limit girls' choices regarding their education and careers, “the mythology about sex differences in cognitive abilities is not benign.” For the full article, visit: http://www.latimes.com/features/health/la-he-computers10jul10,1,6350397.story?ctrack=1&cset=true .
At Colleges, Women Are Leaving Men in the Dust
In the first part of a series on gender, The New York Times explored recent reports that college women are outdoing their male counterparts in terms of academic achievement. Regardless of race or socioeconomic group, men generally earn lower grades than women, are less likely to get bachelor's degrees, and are less likely to complete those degrees in four or five years. This is not to say that men are in an overall decline – more than ever are attending and graduating from college. Still, some worry that this focus on a ‘boy crisis' obscures the fact that men still dominate mathematical and scientific fields, hold more positions of power, and are higher-paid than women. As Sara Mead, author of a recent report for Education Sector, notes, “The idea that girls could be ahead is so shocking that they think it must be a crisis for boys. I'm troubled by this tone of crisis.” This achievement gap is tentatively attributed to a variety of factors, including cultural expectations regarding male behavior, a latent sense of male entitlement, and the new opportunities afforded to girls by the women's movement. The author also discusses the steps that some universities are taking to remedy the gender imbalance in enrollment. To read the full article*, visit:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/09/education/09college.html?ex=
1152849600&en=af6201311a62cea6&ei=5087%0A .
Let the Guys Win One
A recent New York Times op-ed by John Tierney argues that, in the light of the progress made by college women in recent years, the Title IX legislation ensuring their equal access to sports has become obsolete. Tierney says, “When Title IX was enacted in 1972, women were a minority on college campuses, and it sounded reasonable to fight any discrimination against them. But now men are the underachieving minority on campus…[s]o why is it so important to cling to the myth behind Title IX: that women need sports as much as men do?” He then alleges that intrinsic gender differences account for lower participation of women in team sports as well as the “sparse audiences” at women's games. Providing more opportunities for male athletes (at the expense of their female colleagues) would also attract more men to college and, purportedly, provide them with more academic support. Tierney concludes by asserting that because female students are now the majority at many academic institutions, when it comes to athletics, “[t]his playing field doesn't need to be leveled.” Read and respond to the entire op-ed* at: http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists
/johntierney/index.html?inline=nyt-per&inline=nyt-per.
Science and Health
FDA Backs AIDS Pill to Be Taken Once a Day
On July 12th, the FDA approved the first drug capable of treating AIDS with only one pill a day. A combination of three pre-existing once-a-day drugs, health officials hope that Atripla will greatly simplify AIDS treatment and improve patient compliance. The drug will be co-marketed by Gilead Sciences and Bristol-Myers Squibb, whose component drugs make up Atripla, and will cost approximately $1,150 a month. The simplified treatment regimen will be particularly useful in poor countries where compliance notoriously lags and access to health care is limited. Still, the specific plan for overseas discounts and distribution has not yet been formalized. To read the full article*, see: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/business/13drug.html .
A Tale of Two Drugs Hints at Promise for Genetic Testing
While scientists have long known that genetic testing holds the potential to revolutionize how drugs are prescribed, clinical implementation of the science has occurred more slowly than originally anticipated. Still, as evidenced by recent successes in establishing genetic determinants for the efficacy of drugs for heart failure and breast cancer, more useful research may be forthcoming. As Dr. David Flockhart, a professor at Indiana University , notes, “We are sitting here on the edge of a very significant improvement [in drug therapy]. It involves no new drugs, no massive drug development program. It involves exploiting natural human variation to protect people from therapy when it will be useless.” Flockhart also lauds the increasing frequency with which genetic data is collected in clinical trials and regrets that prior trials did not investigate genetic variables. For the full article*, visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/11/health/11pros.html
Is Global Warming Causing More, Larger Wildfires?
A key research paper in the July 6 th edition of Science Express suggests that global warming-induced climate change has significantly increased both the intensity and the duration of wildfires in the western United States . Science 's related “Perspective” reports that “[s]ince 1986, longer, warmer summers have resulted in a fourfold increase of major wildfires and a six fold increase in the area of forest burned, compared to the period from 1970 to 1986.” The authors of the paper also found that the length of the active wildfire season had increased by 78 days and that the average burn duration of individual large fires had increased from 7.5 to 37.1 days. Furthermore, this increase seems to be due to the warming climate. The snowpacks that keep fire risk low by mitigating dry, arid conditions now melt 1 to 4 weeks earlier than they did 50 years ago, prolonging and intensifying the dangerous fire season. For the original article, visit: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1128834v1.pdf . For a “Perspective” discussing the findings, see: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/rapidpdf/1130370v1.pdf .
Women With Damaged ATM Gene More Likely to Develop Cancer
Nature Genetics recently published a study conducted by the Institute of Cancer Research that suggests that women who inherit faulty ATM genes are more than twice as likely to develop breast cancer. The ATM gene, the damaged version of which is found in between 0.5% and 1% of the population, is, like BRCA1 and BRCA2, a DNA-repair gene. Women with a faulty ATM gene often cannot repair damaged DNA correctly, sometimes leading to uncontrollable cell growth and cancer. The study also found that women with a family history of the disease are particularly vulnerable, and efforts will likely be made to routinely screen for the gene and allow women to consider preventative measures when it is present. To read the full article, see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/genes/article/0,,1816741,00.html .
International
Australian Computer Society Drops “Goddess Dates”
Controversy surrounds the Australian Computer Society's (ACS) decision to pull out of sponsoring a calendar designed to promote women in IT. The calendar, the proceeds from which are intended to encourage girls to study technology, features photos of female IT workers in spoof poses from famous movies. It is the cover image – a quasi-nude photo of a Brisbane web designer in the rose petal scene from American Beauty – that is the root of ACS's dismay and withdrawal. ACS president Phillip Argy expressed concern that the cover was selected to increase sales to young men, arguing that such a strategy represents “crass exploitation and it is totally inconsistent with the objectives of the calendar.” The calendar's makers', however, deny such allegations, cite the models' autonomy, and point out that the calendar was designed to portray the diversity of women in the industry and attempt to dispel negative stereotypes of IT “geekiness”. In Australia , only about 19% of university IT students are female and the percentage in the workforce is similarly low. For the full story, see: http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,7204,19747557%5E15306%5E%5Enbv%5E,00.html .
Female Science Researchers Get €4.8 Million
Science Foundation Ireland recently announced that it would devote €4.8 million to female science and engineering researchers. The majority of the funding will go to the SFI Principal Investigator Career Advancement Award (PICA), a program intended to assist academics returning to research after maternity, adoptive, career, or parental leave. PICA will provide €4.3 million to a total of 10 researchers over a three-year period. The remainder of the money will be allocated to three Irish universities to be used to encourage women's participation in science and engineering research through the creation of long-term sustainable initiatives. “We want to increase the number of women conducting internationally competitive research. The returns on this investment will include world-class research, positive role models and increased female participation in Irish science and engineering research,” said Minister for Trade and Commerce Michael Ahern. For more information, see: http://www.siliconrepublic.com/news/news.nv?storyid=single6733 .
National Office Updates
Janet Koster Begins Work as AWIS Executive Director
On July 5 th , the AWIS National Office welcomed Janet Bandows Koster as its new Executive Director. Koster has been busy getting further acquainted with the organization and meeting many of the AWIS supporters in the DC area. She looks forward to working to further support women in science.
Chapter
Events
San Diego Chapter
The AWIS-SD Family Picnic!!!
Date: Saturday, July 22, 2006
Time: 10am -2pm
Location: Cottonwood Park in Encinitas.
Bring your family and friends for food, fun, and a chance to socialize at For the kids, there will be face painting, balloon animals, water balloons, games, and prizes. A basketball court, tennis court, and rock climbing wall will also be available.
“Senomyx: Behind the Scenes at a Unique Flavor Company"
Date: Wednesday, July 26, 2006 :
Time: 5:30PM -5:45PM Networking
5:45PM-8:00PM Speaker Panel, Q&A Session, Tour
Location: Senomyx
For more information and to register visit www.AWISSD.org
Note: There is a limit of 40 people. Senomyx is using a unique approach to develop new flavor ingredients intended to improve the nutritional profile of foods and beverages. The company has collaborations with Kraft Foods, Campbell Soup, The Coca-Cola Company, and many other well-known companies.
August Strategy Session: Healthy Living
Date: Monday, August 7, 2006
Time: 6:00PM-6:30PM Networking
6:30PM-8:30PM Workshop
Location: Salk Institute, Trustees Room
Are you looking for ways to improve your productivity? Is your hectic schedule keeping you from feeling energetic? Throughout the year the Strategy Sessions workshops have focused on improving professional skills required for career growth and advancement. While these skills are important, we also need to learn and practice strategies for taking care of ourselves. Join us for a refreshing ,
stimulating workshop led by Jon Belanger of Jonny Pilates, who will offer us
strategies for improving our physical and mental well being through physical
activity and proper nutrition. Register for this event through the calendar on the AWIS San Diego website: http://awis.npaci/edu/calendar/index.php
Writing Workshop
Date: July 27, 2006
Time: 6:00PM-9:00PM
Location: Neurocrine Biosciences
Are you interested in writing for the AWIS newsletter? If so, we'd
like to invite you to attend the upcoming AWIS newsletter writing workshop.
AWIS Fellow and science writer Lynne Friedmann will be leading the workshop
and she'll focus on how to write good story leads, how to interview speakers
and members and how to get the best quotes for your article. There will be a
$10 charge to attend and dinner is included. Attendees have an opportunity
to submit a writing sample to Lynne ahead of time for critique. We currently
only have 5 slots open for this workshop so if you are interested in
attending, please RSVP to janice_payne@hotmail.com by July 17.
Massachusetts Chapter
Rock On! GWIS visits Garden in the Woods
Date: Sunday, July 30, 2006
Time: 12:45PM-2:00PM Lunch
2:00PM Guided tour
Location: Garden in the Woods; meet in the picnic area
For more information, see http://www.newfs.org/ROCKON/ . RSVP appreciated at beuning@mit.edu . Families and friends welcome!
Opportunities
24th Annual Symposium on Nonhuman Primate Models for AIDS
Hosted by the Yerkes National Primate Research Center, Emory University
October 4-7, 2006
The Omni Hotel at CNN Center
Atlanta, Georgia
All scientists interested in HIV/AIDS and related research are invited to participate, and the Center is particularly actively seeking the attendance of female HIV/AIDS researchers. Travel grants are available.
For more information visit: www.yerkes.emory.edu/NHPM2006
Phone: 404-727-7732 Fax: 404-727-3108
2006 AAAS Mentor Awards
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is seeking nominations for its 2006 Mentor Awards. These awards are given in two categories: Lifetime Mentor Award for the individual who has served as a mentor for 25 or more years and Mentor Award for the individual who has served less than 25 years.
Both awards recognize an individual who has mentored and guided significant numbers of students from underrepresented groups to the completion of doctoral studies or who has impacted the climate of a department, college, or institution to significantly increase the diversity of students pursuing and completing doctoral studies. Underrepresented groups include: women of all racial or ethnic groups; African American, Native American, and Hispanic men; and people with disabilities. Students mentored must be U.S. Citizens are Permanent Residents
A new and required feature of the nomination packet includes the completion of a chart with information about the students mentored to the PhD - including race/ethnicity, gender, citizenship, and the year a student received their PhD.
Both award category recipients receive A $5,000 monetary prize, a commemorative plaque, complimentary registration, and reimbursement for reasonable travel and hotel expenses to attend the AAAS Annual Meeting.
The award application deadline has been set on August 31 . Please be sure that we receive all nomination materials by this date at the latest to be considered for judging.
More information about the AAAS Mentor Awards can be found at http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/awards/mentor/index.shtml .
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