YSM Issue 87.4

FOCUS
women
DR.
VIVIAN
IRISH
Dr. Vivian Irish, developmental
geneticist in the Molecular,
Cellular, and Developmental
Biology Department at Yale.
PHOTO BY KAT LIN
DR.
JOAN
STEITZ
Dr. Joan Steitz, researcher
at the Yale School of Medicine
and Molecular Biochemistry
and Biophysics Department.
IMAGE COURTESY OF YALE MEDICINE
whether she had been deterred from retiring
by the lack of any other female professors to
take over for her. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “I
just felt so awful that my department, which
I think the world of, wasn’t setting itself up
to be as optimal as possible to train young
women.”
By Women, For Women
As the years have gone by, women have
improved the climate at Yale by building
groups that offer support and provide
resources to women scientists. These
communities have recognized the problem
of the early withdrawal of many young
women from the sciences, and are working to
keep their interest alive. These groups have
also advocated for higher representation of
women on the faculty.
While female faculty members are
constantly reminded of the unequal gender
ratios in their departments, the administration
may not be as overtly conscious of the
problem. The Women Faculty Forum (WFF)
works to change this. Established in 2001 to
recognize the presence of women at Yale,
WFF organizes a variety of workshops and
programs and reports annually on the status
of women at Yale. “They let Yale know
whether progress is actually being made,”
said Steitz.
There are increasing numbers of female
scientists at Yale, but progress has been slow.
According to the WFF report, from 1982 to
2012 the percentage of female term faculty
members in the physical sciences rose from
8 percent to 33 percent. In the biological
sciences, the increase over the same thirtyyear
period was from 17 percent to 37
percent. Irish has witnessed these changes
during her 21-year-long time with the MCDB
department. “Slowly, we’re increasing the
number of women,” she says, “but it’s really
not at a rapid rate. Certainly not 50-50.”
While WFF promotes the interests of
female faculty members, other groups
advocate for the aspiring female scientists
among us. Women in Science at Yale (WISAY)
focuses on community-building, networking,
career development, and mentoring.
Established by three female graduate
students in 1999, the group has grown to
encompass hundreds of women across the
scientific disciplines, from freshmen to postdocs
to professors. UWISAY, Undergraduate
Women in Science at Yale, was founded in
2009 as a sister organization to provide a
community specifically for undergraduates.
WISAY and UWISAY organize dinners,
speakers, panels, ice cream socials, and
conferences throughout the year, and work
to build mentorship bonds between women
at different stages in their scientific careers.
“At least once a year I talk to those groups,”
said Steitz. “And they’re good! They provide
networking opportunities for women who
feel lonesome otherwise in the sciences.”
The feeling of being lonesome or lacking
solidarity has been a major problem for
women in science. Although many women
at Yale are not directly involved in groups
like WISAY and UWISAY, the mere
existence of these organizations helps to
combat the feeling of isolation that many
women in the sciences still experience. Ivy
Wanta, a sophomore physics major who did
research at CERN last summer, is the Co-
Chair of Mentoring for UWISAY. She only
really started getting involved this year, but
somehow she felt like a part of it all along.
“Even when I wasn’t involved, I felt better
knowing that this group exists,” she said.
“That concept in itself was helpful to me.”
Cultivating Early Interest
Besides providing awareness, organizations
like WISAY are actively employing strategies
to keep girls in the sciences. As Wanta noted,
the number of girls intending to major in
physics drops off very early: a large number
of women decide to drop the science after
just one semester in college, or even after
shopping period. “That’s one of the good
things about the mentoring program, is
that you’re immediately reaching freshmen,
which I think is really important,” she said.
Another way to encourage young
freshman women in science is by providing
more female role models in the introductory
science courses. Of the seven professors I
have had in my introductory STEM courses,
Irish is the first woman. Her motivation to
teach the “Genes and Development” module
of the Introductory Biology sequence
was not to improve the representation of
IMAGE COURTESY OF SCILOGS
Rosie the Riveter, the symbol of the
WWII integration of women into the labor
force, framed on a technologically-oriented
background.
20 Yale Scientific Magazine October 2014 www.yalescientific.org