Author Archives 
Leslie is a graduate student in Josh Akey's lab. She studies genetic variation in human populations, especially on the X chromosome. She's been heavily involved in WiGS since 2009. Her favorite aspect of participating in WiGS is having the opportunity to invite and host her favorite female scientists for seminars.
-
WiGS founding member Joanna Kelley receives L’Oreal Women in Science fellowship
Dr. Joanna Kelley, a genome sciences alumna who contributed to the formation of Women in Genome Sciences, is one of five early career scientists to earn the 2012 L’Oreal Women in Science Fellowship. Since finishing her Ph.D. work in Willie Swanson’s lab, Joanna has done postdoctoral work with Molly Przeworski at University of Chicago and [...]
-
May 2, 2012 minutes
Here are the meeting minutes: 2012-05-02
-
Equal Pay Day summary
The seminar WiGS hosted in honor of Equal Pay Day just finished less than an hour ago and it really got me thinking. Our speaker was Dr. Laura Meyers, a recent doctoral graduate from the UW’s College of Education. She discussed her dissertation research on the contributing factors to the gender pay gap in faculty salaries. If [...]
-
Get involved in science fairs!
Elyse has gathered information for us about volunteering to judge, mentor, or otherwise support local science fairs: In middle school and high school, I was a science fair kid. Not only did participating in science fairs expose me to independent research, it gave me opportunities to meet older students and professionals in my field and [...]
-
December 7, 2011 minutes
Here are the meeting minutes: 2011-12-07
-
Poster presentation resources
If you missed Maitreya’s informative talk about effective poster presentations, don’t despair. You can still take a look at the handouts she provided to get some helpful advice. MaitreyaPosterNotes 10PosterRules Dos&Don’ts
-
What’s wrong with making hot scientist lists?
The July AWIS newsletter highlights a list posted online of the 11 Hottest Female Professors in the Country (no link provided because I don’t want to encourage anyone to go there). The list is particularly maddening because it’s being provided by a website called HerCampus: A Collegeiette’s Guide to Life, that is supposed to be [...]
-
unique challenges face women of color in STEM
The Harvard Educational Review presents an entire issue addressing the unique challenges faced by scientists at the intersection of race and gender inequality. The symposium issue, Unraveling the Double Bind: Women of Color in STEM, celebrates the 35th anniversary of a momentous meeting of 30 minority female scientists. The issue also reflects on the progress [...]
-
Females sweep the science fair awards
Three young women have swept all categories of the first annual Google Science Fair with biomedical research projects. Here’s a brief summary of the prize winning projects: Lauren Hodge (13 – 14 age group) studied the effect of marinades on levels of harmful carcinogens in grilled chicken. Naomi Shah (15 – 16 age group) studied [...]
-
What are your implicit biases?
Project Implicit is a research project at Harvard that has been examining implicit biases since 1998. By going to the project’s website, you can view a demonstration of the tests they use to determine if you have an implicit bias. Here are the most important findings of the project so far: Implicit biases are pervasive. [...]
-
The pipeline is still leaky
The Economix blog at The New York Times summarizes a study on science’s “leaky pipeline”. Unsurprisingly, the study found that women are more likely to leave science due to the pressures of family life. Here are some of the most disturbing statistics from the summary: married women with young children are 35% less likely to [...]
-
Math anxiety learned from adults?
This enlightening article at The Washington Post summarizes recent research showing that math anxiety in elementary school teachers has a profound impact on their students. Disturbingly, by the end of only one school year, “girls taught by a teacher with high math anxiety started to score lower than boys in math.”
-
Get it in writing
Those of you who attended Bob Waterston’s talk on negotiating salaries and start-up packages already know that the most important part of negotiating an offer is to get it in writing. This is a bit of advice that University of Texas San Antonio’s Kelly Suter must wish that she had followed. Dr. Suter worked hard [...]
-
Mary-Claire participates in roundtable on female scientists
The New York Times presents a partial transcript of a rountable discussion on women in science in which our own Mary-Claire King participated, along with three other prominent female scientists from various disciplines. Here’s my favorite MC quote, on promoting other female scientists: …women can help each other out a lot in this way because [...]
-
Justice for pregnant student
In a recent scandal, a UC Davis veterinary school professor distributed a poll to his students asking them to vote on whether he would make accommodations for a student missing part of his class to give birth. The situation is described in more detail in this article in Inside Higher Ed. Unlike many similar outrageous [...]
-
Pay gap for faculty
Inside Higher Ed presents an article on recent research into the persistent gender pay gap in higher education faculty. The story describes a study by Laura Meyers, a doctoral candidate at our own University of Washington. Some highlights from the article: The gender gap in faculty pay cannot be explained completely by the long careers [...]