Karla Neugebauer on women in science
"[W]e place faith in our merit-based system of hiring and funding as the means of selecting the best talent to lead science, technology, society, and our economies into the future. But unless something changes, much of our female talent will continue to be permanently lost to science."
- Dr. Karla M. Neugebauer, writing in PLOS Biology
It’s old news that despite roughly equal numbers of men and women being trained in most disciplines of science, the number that ultimately succeeds in grossly skewed towards the men. As the years pass, it is no longer possible to claim that this imbalance will ‘sort itself out’ as older men retire; instead, we know by now that they will just get replaced by younger men.
To help counteract this problem in Europe, Neugebauer, a group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, manages the Database of Expert Women in the Molecular Life Sciences , which was created by the European Life Sciences Organization (ELSO). The database should serve as a tool to help the scientific community work toward gender equality in Europe, whether they are recruiting for positions, giving out grants – or even just looking for keynote speakers at scientific conferences.
You can read the entire open-access article here.