While female faculty earn service and teaching awards in proportion to their representation in science, they are still severely underrepresented in the presentation of scholarly awards. This piece at Nature discusses some of the contributing factors to this phenomenon. If you are involved in a selection committee, you can take several steps to reduce any possible gender bias in the committee’s decision. First of all, make sure that there is adequate representation of women on the committee. This is a simple step that is taken far too infrequently, but that can go a long way towards alleviating gender biases. The most important measure to take, however, is to define objective and concrete selection criteria for the committee’s decision. This way little leeway is available for covert biases to affect the committee’s decision.
