International Day of Women & Girls in Science 2019

Kirsten (Kiki) Sanford obtained a PhD in 2007 for studies in avian neurophysiology.

We’ve come a long way, baby… but, we still have a long way to go.

It’s International Day of women and girls in science. One might ask why, now that women are starting to outnumber men in scientific disciplines at the collegiate level, such a day is still important. But, the reality is that historically and globally women have faced (and continue to face) discrimination that 1) has directly impacted their ability to live fulfilling lives with careers of their choosing, and 2) muted the potential for economic development in many countries. Is it really that surprising that removing half of the possible brain-trust of a country from the equation has negative consequences on economic outcomes?

Nevertheless, we have a responsibility to publicize the best strategies for interesting girls in the sciences and the specific influences of women on the scientific endeavor in the hope that it will eventually lead to equality.  

I never faced out-right discrimination growing up. There was never a question that I could do whatever I chose. I watched my mother go to women’s groups, get involved in politics, and vocally promote feminism; not understanding until much later that she was part of a movement that would make my life easier. Not understanding that movement had begun long before my mother was born. It was also lost on me that the work of reminding the world that women are every bit as capable at contributing to progress as men would fall next on my shoulders.

My life of relative privilege is directly attributable to the efforts of women like my mother. But, I now realize that there is no opportunity for rest, as all of their hard-earned gains can be so easily lost. I see it everyday in the comments on social media platforms and websites, and in the news.

Also, there is still room for improvement.

Where can we improve?

Although women now enter scientific studies at greater numbers than men, we still get fewer management-level jobs and at lower salaries. In the hallowed halls of academia, women also experience harassment and more subtle forms of discrimination through lack of social inclusion that limit their ability to thrive.

But, the number of women in science is on the rise, and the ecosystem will continue to improve as the number of female scientists increases. Increasing diversity in the scientific workplace will push inclusion forward. More women having a say in how things are done will inevitably change procedures. And, seeing more female scientists will give young girls something to strive for. But, how we get there is important and in no way certain.

A study out this past week found that young girls respond more positively to “doing science” than “being a scientist”.  The opposite was true for boys. Unsurprisingly, a survey in the UK found that girls’ attitudes about different subjects directly correlated to their performance in those subjects. I think this hints at an underlying difference between the genders that should be attended to in how we teach and excite kids about future careers in science. It is also indicative of educators and media failing to present female scientist role models that allow young girls to even begin to imagine themselves in that role.

When I was young, I never once thought about being a scientist when I grew up. I always liked science, and was good at it. But, scientist was never a career that seemed like an option. It was only after I started graduate school that I figured out that a scientist is what I had become.

Did you grow up wanting to be a scientist? Do you have a daughter or son who wants to? Let me know!

Breast Cancer Awareness for You and Me!

This past month I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Kristi Funk, founder of the Pink Lotus Foundation, breast surgeon, and author of the book, “Breasts: An Owner’s Manual”.

🎙️This #BreastCancerAwarenessMonth, @drkristifunk, Breast Cancer Surgeon and author of "Breasts: The Owner’s Manual", joins our podcast. Dr. Funk talks about everyday choices to improve breast health and lower overall cancer risk. Tune in: https://t.co/A1NH83HSNc pic.twitter.com/2xQLU2X0LD

— Color (@Color) October 8, 2018

It was inspiring to hear her personal story of how she came to be a breast surgeon, and how she wants to help women maintain their best breast health.

I was fascinated to hear how the majority of breast cancer is NOT the result of genetics (at least, not specific mutations, that we know of), and that lifestyle choices play a major role in this disease. Isn’t it true for so much illness these days? It seems the “Mad Men” lifestyle is not sustainable or even suggested. Too bad, although I don’t really feel so great after a three martini lunch anyway…

Dr. Funk recommends the usual suspects to stay healthy and avoid breast cancer: exercise, sleep, reduce stress, and diet. All of these are great ideas generally. And, from all that I have read, making these adjustments reduces inflammation in the body, which has been implicated in the development of many health disorders.

Now, while taking steps to lifestyle change can reduce inflammation and improve health, it is not a silver bullet. Some people have propensity to cancers, and that’s just the way it is. We still don’t know enough to say who will get it and who won’t. It’s a game of risk reduction and probabilities.

So, even though I appreciate the advice from Dr. Funk that the best way to reduce breast cancer risk is to become vegan, that is not a dietary choice that works for me, personally. I don’t eat a lot of meat (only chicken and fish, and not regularly), and because of lactose intolerance don’t eat much cheese. I love grains and fruits and vegetables… meals made from foods that people call “whole”. But, I’m going to continue to eat eggs, and the occasional slice of pizza (who am I kidding? The occasional half a pizza) because that works for me.

I want to be healthy, but I’m not going to make myself crazy trying to manage every aspect of my and my family’s diets. Life, for me, is a balance. And, I don’t think the stress of vegan meal-planning is worth the slim percentage of cancer risk reduction that diet might provide.

My favorite advice from Dr. Funk, that I will definitely make a concerted effort to follow, is to spend time with people you love. And even though they may be a source of stress for some, friends and family are a support network. They are a release valve for built-up tensions. They are people who love you in return. And, that in itself, is something to invest in.

The Pivot

I’ve hit a moment in my life where I think it is time to make a change. I look around at the science communications landscape, and it is FULL of amazing people communicating science. The YouTube space is now overflowing with intelligent, energetic young women explaining science. And… I feel aged out.

I’m not old, but I’m not young anymore either. It’s hard to believe that I could be a mom or even grandmother to most YouTube viewers. So, why do I keep doing the same things – producing content that is now being produced by younger voices and faces?

Like I mentioned in my last post, I’ve started a small video production company, and that is part of my pivot. I can use my experience to help others tell their stories. I don’t need to be the face in front of the camera any more.

However, I like to talk with people. I like to use my voice. So, I’m considering working on new shows beyond the weekly science news of TWIS. I want to produce shows that have personal value to me, and that set me apart from the pack of youngsters I no longer fit into. I’d love your feedback on my thoughts and experiments, so that I can really figure out what works and what doesn’t.

First, I’d like to interview more people – scientists, primarily, but I’m also thinking about a focus on women and the various issues that crop up as we age. My concern here is that although this is something that I am very personally interested in, it is a HUGE shift from what I have done historically, and away from the audience that I have built up over many years. Not that it’s a bad thing to do that. It’s just fear-inducing to consider something so different.

And, second, I’d like to do something with my son. I think it would be extremely rewarding to spend time creating a science-based show with him. This would also be targeted at a different audience, but the same amount of fear isn’t there because this show wouldn’t be about me as much as something to experience with my son. He has expressed interest, but seems to like the idea of a gaming channel more than science at the moment. So, we’ll see whether this idea gets any traction.

Finally, as far as helping other scientists tell their stories goes, I’ve also been thinking about putting some videos together about story-telling and video production for science. Maybe a weekly or monthly video workshop would be helpful for people…

Anyway, it’s time to pivot. I have ideas. I just need to start moving forward on execution. And, like I said, I’d love your feedback on what you think will be both useful and enjoyable.

Dr. Kiki’s Science Hour – Celebrating Women

A few weeks ago, I wrote about Ada Lovelace, and the challenges and successes of women in science. On Ada Lovelace Day, I spoke with … from the Association for Women in Science about, yes, you guessed it… women in science.

It was a fabulous conversation, and I do believe that we did, indeed, celebrate the women in the field. And, really, I think that is the key to continued success these days. People are not responsive to whining about problems. People want to feel hopeful, to see positive role-models, be given next steps they can take themselves, and to know that their actions can make a difference.

If you are a female success in science or technology, get out there! Tell people about yourself, and don’t be afraid to do it. People want to know how you got to where you are.

Be a model for future generations of women in science by living successfully yourself.

Anyway, here is the show. Check it out:

Thoughts On Ada Lovelace Day

Ada Lovelace was an intellectual woman in an age when women weren’t pushed to be intellectual. Her mother made sure she was trained in mathematics rather than literature so that she wouldn’t follow in her father’s (the poet Lord Byron’s) footsteps.

This training as well as her place in society put her in a position to meet and work with an academic named Charles Babbage who hired her to help on his “Analytical Engine.” Ada took the project and ran with it, elaborating on the idea in notes that contain the first computer algorithm. She is now considered the world’s first computer programmer.

There are many things that made the story of Ada Lovelace possible: her noble birth and marriage, her mother’s reactionary nature, her training, the people she met in life, etc. But, central to the story is the passion that Ada had for her academic endeavors.

Had she simply been a translator, that’s all she would have done for Charles Babbage… translated an article from Italian that he could then use in developing his ideas. Instead, she dug into the ideas and came up with ideas of her own. She wasn’t afraid to write those ideas down and share them.

And, now we celebrate her and what she helped make possible.

Women today have it fairly easy compared to the women of the past (I’m referring to women in first world nations here… I know there are many women around the world who still struggle). We can do what ever we set our minds to. We can take on the historically female held roles of mother, teacher, nurse, secretary, or we can be doctors, lawyers, astronauts… it’s up to us.

The doors are open like they never have been. All we have to do is walk through them.

By finding and following our passions, we create new opportunities for the women who will follow. We make it easier for them to do what they dream of doing.

I am lucky in that as a young scientist, I was able to find wonderful female mentors to learn from. I saw that it is possible to be a successful woman in science. I saw that it is possible to have a family at the same time. I saw that I could do it too if I wanted.

Unfortunately, there aren’t enough female role models in the sciences. The number of women in academics is growing, but it is still not equal to the number of men. It’s not because women don’t like science, or aren’t studying science. The numbers just drop between graduate school and getting jobs.

That means that most women entering graduate school aren’t seeing other women in those positions of  responsibility.

And, if seeing is believing, then we still have work to do.

But, that will come with time, and in the meantime, I’d like to thank all the women, like Ada, who toiled in the science or technology that inspired their questions.

Thank you for creating a world where I can ask questions, too.

What’s Your Story?

I’ve been invited by the Center for STEM Excellence at Scramento State University to give the Keynote talk at their Expanding Your Horizons conference this October. As a result, I’ve been thinking about all sorts of topics for my talk. Do I talk about science in general, specific areas of STEM, my personal experiences?

In my thinking and searching I came to realize that as the Keynote speaker it is my job not to inform, but to be inspirational and motivational… to get the girls at the conference fired up and excited about both the day ahead and their own futures. But, how to do that when I have my own struggles with inspiration and motivation on a daily basis?

I think I’ve come to an answer; lead by example. How do I get past those daily hurdles, and keep moving? How did I find a career that I love? How did you?

I want to hear the stories of real women from real women, especially if you are working in a STEM related career. I want to share our stories.

• What do you do as a career?
• How did you wind up in your career (did you choose it or did it choose you)?
• Do you love what you do?
• What do you love most about what you do?
• How do you stay motivated (are your motivations internal or external)?
• What is your measure of success?

I’ll take your answers as comments here, emails (kirsten at this week in science dot com), video comments on youtube or seesmic, however you see fit to send them.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to use these stories to motivate not only the girls at the conference, but everywhere, and of all ages.

Science Doesn’t Start Wars

Nina Fedoroff is my new favorite scientist ever. This interview makes me happy.

Amazing Female Scientist

I just read a profile of an amazing female scientist, named Susan Greenfield. She’s a professor of pharmacology at Oxford University, and the director of the Royal Institution in London. She, being a woman and having reached such a place of distinction within academia, is a rarity in science.

According to statistics from the Association for Women in Science, in 2001 women made up 20.6 percent of those people employed in tenured academic positions for more than 10 years. Career longevity for women in the sciences appears to be something that’s lacking.

A more recent report suggests that the reason for the attrition rate (52% of women in sciences leave with the greatest rate being approximately 10 years into the career path, which coincides with the average woman’s thirties) may be due in part to hostile work environments that fail to take the female role as mother into account.

A brief look at Susan Greenfield’s life suggests that she continues to contend with the male dominated scientific environment, and may have made some compromises to her personal life in order to be so successful.

“It’s unfair. I publish three or four papers a year in peer-reviewed journals,” she says. She fits it all in by “not doing what other people do: gardening, watching television, sleeping in late. I wake up between four and five. If it’s a London day, I get the 6.30 train from central Oxford, where I live. I’ll have a working breakfast here with my second in command, then a day of meetings or interviews. In the evening, I may chair an event or go to a reception.”

On Oxford days she wears T-shirt and jeans, but is still in the lab by 7.30am, planning experiments, applying for grants, analysing and writing papers. She plays squash three times a week. With a trainer. “He pushes me to improve my skills.” At weekends? “I write, read, prepare talks.”

Her marriage to Oxford professor of physical chemistry Peter Atkins ended in 2005. Is all this activity a way to escape loneliness? “You can be lonely when you’re with someone,” she says quickly, “as much as when you’re by yourself.”

It is somewhat of a chicken and egg question, however. Is it only driven personalities, male or female, who are able to succeed so outstandingly? Or, is it the environment that engenders the sink-or-swim behaviors; people learning, and thus believing that if they do not work 16 hour days they’ll never get anywhere, and only those who do so being rewarded. It puts most women in a position of having to choose between family and career.

Usually, family will win.

Yet, I’m among a growing number of women who have put off starting a family in order to pursue my career. Is this a wise choice? I will certainly find out sometime down the road. It’s certainly both a blessing and a hazard to be a woman in this century.