International Day of the Girl: Why science and math programs matter

From the Berkley Blog: International Day of the Girl: Why science and math programs matter

Late last year, the United Nations declared Oct. 11 the International Day of the Girl. Celebrated for the first time this month, the occasion aims to highlight the challenges girls face around the world to gain access to education and other basic rights, and empower them to advocate on their own behalf. Despite recent publications declaring the “end of men,” evidence shows that continued investment in education for girls (and equality for women) is needed, right, and smart.

Studies indicate that increased education for girls leads to lower poverty rates and better health outcomes for the whole family. But gaps in access to primary education are common in developing countries, especially where families must pay fees for their children to attend. Literacy rates among girls often suffer; for example, in Afghanistan, 18 percent of girls age 15-24 are literate compared to 50 percent of boys.

In more developed countries with the capacity (or mandate) to provide basic educational equality, girls still lag behind boys, especially in their achievement in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). A 2009 study by the American Society of Engineering Education notes that undergraduate degrees from engineering schools awarded to women hit a 15-year-low. As Stephanie Coontz highlighted in a recent New York Times article, “the percentage of female electrical engineers doubled in each decade in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. But in the two decades since 1990 it has increased by only a single percentage point, leaving women at just 10 percent of the total.”

Universities and industry leaders are taking measures to make the field more welcoming for young women. Most college engineering programs have diversity and outreach programs that aim to increase enrollment of women and under-represented minorities. And a recently announced pilot program, WitsOn (Women in Technology Sharing Online), matches mentors from corporations and top-ranked universities (including nearly all the UC campuses) with female students in STEM fields.

But reaching young women by the time they enter college is not soon enough. In order to increase female representation in STEM majors and graduate programs, it is essential to engage girls in related activities at K-12 levels. A few organizations have recognized this gap and created programs to address it. Microsoft’s DigiGirlz Hi-Tech Camp offers workshops and presentations for high-school girls. Black Girls Code and the NSF-funded National Girls Collaborative Project support STEM programs for underserved communities.

Efforts to increase women’s participation in these fields may be found not only in the United States but also internationally, even in countries that struggle to provide equality in basic education. Girls in Tech, with chapters in the United States and around the world, promotes women’s innovations in technology. AkiraChix, a Nairobi-based network of mentors, aims to inspire and sustain interest in technology fields among young African women. Indeed, Africa is home to many female rising stars in technology, as a recent article noted with an allusion to Yahoo’s new CEO: Who are Africa’s Marissa Mayers? And multilateral programs like USAID’s Women and Girls Lead Global and UN Foundation’s Girl Up have been launched recently to boost girls’ empowerment and access to education overall.

In my role as director of the Data and Democracy Initiative at the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), I want to encourage efforts to bring greater gender-parity to science and engineering fields. Not just because studies show that greater participation of women raises the level of collective intelligence in business teams, but because democracies deserve full participation of all their citizens. Few efforts could better serve the “interests of society” than strengthening programs for girls to explore the full range of subjects available to them. On the International Day of the Girl, consider supporting local initiatives or international organizations devoted to bolstering access to education and basic human rights for girls. Both data and democracy will improve when girls are prepared to participate fully in governance, leadership, and innovation.

Cross-posted from the Huffington Post.

Physicist turned artist enjoys science of painting

From Ottawa South:  Physicist turned artist enjoys science of painting

EMC entertainment - When the high-tech bubble burst in 2001, it came as a natural career crossroads for France Tremblay.

For nearly a decade, the Kanata Lakes woman had worked as a scientist, first studying quantum mechanics at the prestigious Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge in England, then later developing radar systems for the Department of Defence.

From 1996 to 2001, Tremblay managed teams of scientists developing the next generation of telecommunication technology at Nortel Networks.

But always in the back of her mind, she carried with her the dream of becoming a full-time artist, a seismic career switch for a woman who had spent the past 20 years developing impressive academic and professional credentials in the fields of physics and telecommunications.

The change in careers came a little earlier than originally planned with the fall of Nortel.

"I'm now a full-time artist with science as a hobby," said Tremblay.

SCIENCE

Science was Tremblay's first passion in life.

"I loved it since I was a kid," she said.

Tremblay, who grew up in Quebec City, was interested in studying the physical world, with math simply providing the paintbrush to bring her observations to life.

"The maths are an essential tool to describe the world we live in," she said.

Tremblay earned a bachelor's degree in physics at Lavalle University, in Quebec City, a master's degree in physics at the University of Toronto and finally a PhD degree in physics at Cambridge.

"Physics is the best way to do a lot of maths while linking it to the physical world, so I found that exciting," said Tremblay. "Physics means you study something that's real."

During her off time while studying in England, Tremblay toured art museums throughout Europe, and developed a second passion in life.

"I was having a natural interest in art," Tremblay said.

The fledgling artist visited many of the great museums in France, such as the Louvre and the Musée d'Orsay, as well as some of the smaller venues devoted to only one artist, such as Picasso and Rodin.

"They're still jewels," she said.

Those tours allowed Tremblay to begin learning the tools she would need to prepare for a career in art.

"A seed was planted in my heart in Europe," she said. "I had a decade to prepare."

When she started working as a scientist, Tremblay used her off hours to learn the fundamentals of painting, such as drawing techniques and the proper way to mix paint.

"This is a life-long learning curve," Tremblay said. "You need to have a lot of tools in your toolbox."

Since 2002, Tremblay has become a full-time artist and part-time scientist - she works as a professor in the electrical engineering department at the University of Ottawa.

She has entered high-profile exhibitions in the United States, including the Paint the Parks Top 11 in 2007, 2011 and 2012 as well as The Art of Conservation, an international annual event presented at various prestigious museums and the Society of Animal Artists exhibition from 2010-12.

She won the grand prize in the Paint the Park Top 100 in 2008 and was selected a finalist in the landscapes category and wildlife art category of the Artist's Magazine Annual Art Competition, which draws entries from nearly 15,000 artists every year.

Every year, Tremblay opens her home to the public, participating in the annual Kanata Artists Studio Tour.

Tremblay paints landscapes, still life and wildlife pieces using acrylic paint as well as drawing using coloured pencils, graphite and carbon.

She lists some of her influences as Canadian wildlife artist Robert Bateman, as well as painters Patricia Pepin and John Banovich.

In 2002, Tremblay founded an art school that she runs out of her home in Kanata Lakes.

RESEARCH

Tremblay's eye for precision influenced her taste in art.

She said she approaches her paintings from the perspective of a scientist and that her work is the result of careful planning and analysis.

"A lot of my work is so realistic to the extreme," she said. "That means I have to do a lot of research on the subject."

Every year, Tremblay plans one to two trips to remote areas to "research" her paintings.

"Every painting you see (on my wall) is the result of my research in the field," she said. "I'm climbing mountains, I'm walking in the deserts - for me that's the exciting part of the process."

Her research trips have included visits to Death Valley in eastern California, the Rocky Mountains in Alberta as well as the Florida Keys.

Her research provides an intense study of her paintings' subjects.

For instance, Tremblay spent countless hours in Andrew Haydon Park in Nepean, observing, sketching and studying a specific great blue heron, the subject of her acrylic painting, The Sovereign.

"I can tell you that specific bird has lived in Andrew Haydon Park for two years," she said. "I'm not looking at the bird species. I'm looking at the bird - this isn't a bird, it's a specific blue heron."

From start to finish, a painting can take between 80 to 200 hours for Tremblay to produce.

Tremblay said her future goal remains the same every year - improve as an artist, learn better technique and design.

"I just want to do the best painting I can."

 

12-Year-Old Schoolgirl Recently Discovered to Have a Higher IQ Than Einstein and Hawking

From Medical Daily:  12-Year-Old Schoolgirl Recently Discovered to Have a Higher IQ Than Einstein and Hawking

A 12-year-old girl has recently been accepted to Mensa, the largest and oldest high IQ society in the world, after she was discovered as having a higher IQ than both Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

Olivia Manning, from Liverpool, scored a whopping 162 points on the IQ test, 62 points higher than the average score of 100. Manning's score was not only two points higher than renowned German genius Einstein and physicist Hawking, it also places her in the top 1 percent of intelligent people in the world.
She will now have the honor of being welcomed into Mensa, meaning that she will join the network of the brightest brains from across the globe. Not only is Olivia a confirmed genius, the pre-teen schoolgirl is also very popular at her school in the North Liverpool Academy in Everton.
"A lot more people are coming up to me asking for help with their homework. I just like challenges and making my mind think," she said, according to the Daily Mail. Olivia admits that she can quickly absorb and remember new information, but she said that she was "speechless" when she discovered her incredibly high score.
She revealed that she learned her lines for a school Macbeth production within 24 hours. However, Olivia, who is a member of her school's Mensa after-school problem-solving club, will have plenty of work cut out for her. "We have given her extra work to do and will now want to know why she's not getting As in everything," Teacher and club organizer Stacey Meighen said, according to Daily Mail.

UK: Girls who love physics

From the Guardian:  Girls who love physics

A report from the Institute of Physics this week revealed that nearly half of schools didn't send a single girl on to A level physics last year. Two girls shortlisted for this year's L'Oreal Young Scientist of the Year competition explain why they've bucked the trend and chosen physics

Alexandra Carroll, St Paul's Girls School

Photograph: Ri When it came to picking my A levels, the decision was easy: physics, biology, chemistry and maths. For me, the sciences – in particular physics – are fundamental to understanding how everything around us functions.
So it came as a surprise to me that most girls in my school who are interested in science opted for two rather than three of the sciences, almost always dropping physics – a trend repeated across the whole of the UK. Physics seems to be an unpopular science, possibly as it is often considered the most difficult and tedious. Concepts of physics such as the mechanism behind electric motors are often taken for granted.
However, a few weeks ago I was afforded the opportunity to look beyond the syllabus to the true intricacy of physics. This opportunity came in the form of the L'Oreal Young Scientist of the Year competition for which the essay to enter this year was entitled "a timeline of electricity".
I was eager to enter, but in hindsight I realise I had no real idea of the enterprise I was undertaking. My timeline grew into a six-page essay as I retraced the path of electromagnetism from the creation of very first motor by Michael Faraday, to further back to a time when the discovery that lightning was actually made of electricity came as a shock (no pun intended).
The landscape of physics changed with each new discovery, such as realising that Thomas Edison did not invent the first electric bulb but an improved carbon filament that allowed the light to burn for longer.
I was delighted to be chosen as one of the final 16 to take part in a workshop at the Royal Institution on Tuesday. Even more excitingly, I discovered that we would get a unique chance to see Faraday's first motor up close – a landmark in the history of electricity. It was incredible to see the motor and its complexities in person and we also got to see his notebooks firsthand. I was looking at objects that changed industry completely.
Doing science at A level has expanded my interest in physics, with intricate concepts becoming obvious and the realisation that even the most complicated equations originate from the same basic principles, and finally the links between all three are becoming clear. But my favourite thing about physics and all sciences is that there is always more to discover. Science is infinite.

Fola Afolabi, Sydenham School

Photograph: Ri Faraday is one of the most influential scientists in history and I am still overwhelmed to have been given a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see his electric motor in action, especially since I'm fascinated by electromagnetism.
I believe that physics is a vital subject and from it you can develop transferable skills such as: observation, problem solving and analytical thinking. It also gives us a profound understanding into the world we live in.
I believe having it as a qualification is a real asset, especially within our modern society, which is why I found it disappointing that in 2011 physics was the fourth most popular subject in A-levels for boys in England, but the 19th most popular among girls. In the 21st century we are being empowered as young women: removing the bonds of stereotypes and breaking through the glass ceiling. Irrespective of one's gender, I believe it's important to grasp the fundamental ideas that are taught through physics.
Girls who don't study physics are missing out, without a doubt. Physics is highly regarded by employers and people who have this qualification tend to be better paid.
As a young person, before studying physics I didn't have high expectations of the subject as I had some connotations that it was hard, boring, or a "boy" subject. However after the first lesson, where we learned about heat radiation, I was heartstruck! This was taught through an experiment - by my teacher Dr Simon Faulkner - called Leslie's cube that shows how the matt black side of a box filled with hot water emits the most heat.
Physics is a natural science: it has made profound contributions to the advancement of new technologies and our understanding of the world. This is clearly seen with the recent discovery of the Higgs boson, incredible scientific milestone that will be vital for unravelling the mysteries of the universe.

 

Women researchers as prolific as men in publishing papers

From LiveMint:  Women researchers as prolific as men in publishing papers

New Delhi: Women researchers in India are as prolific in publishing scientific papers as men in spite of being significantly fewer in number, says a study in Tuesday’s edition of Current Science.

While it’s established that many women drop out at progressive stages of their careers as scientists, the study in the peer-reviewed journal quantitatively establishes that—as a proportion of their representation in India’s population of scientists—women may not only be at par but better than their male counterparts.

For the study, the authors analysed—by gender—998 scientific papers published between 2004 and 2009 by researchers at the doctorate and post-doctorate levels. Generally, aspirant scientists are of ages 25-35 years at these stages of their careers. The study found that proportionally, there was barely any difference in the number of papers published by 358 women and 640 male researchers.

The study analysts found 26% of female research scholars published their findings in both science-citation index (SCI) and non-SCI journals; 11% in non-SCI and 63% in SCI journals. Almost similarly, 28% of male research scholars published both in SCI and non-SCI journals, 9% in non-SCI and 63% in SCI journals. SCI journals are those accessed by a database called the Science Citation Index, a compendium of more than 3,700 journals and a metric of their quality and outreach.

Other data show women are grossly under-represented as research scholars as well as in the larger scientific establishment. According to the department of science and technology, only about 37% of those with a PhD in science in India in 2005 were women; in general, only around 15% of India’s scientists were women, significantly lower than the 25% in the US and the European Union.

“This study is specific to women at the PhD and post-doctorate level and what’s most striking is there’s no difference in quality in their output,” said Rajesh Luthra, the main author of the study and head of the human resources department of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, India’s largest group of publicly funded research laboratories.

The data accentuated the fact that it was harder for women to have equally productive careers in science as men, he said. “The recently constituted task force for women in science talks about this,” he said.

In 2005, India’s science ministry constituted a committee to address the poor representation of women in science. Under-representation of women in science had grabbed international headlines after the then Harvard president and former US secretary of treasury Lawrence Summers attributed “differences in aptitude” as one reason for the lower representation of women in the upper echelons of science and engineering.

“There is a drastic drop in the percentage of women from the doctoral level to the scientist/faculty position, suggesting a bottleneck at the employment stage due to recruitment procedures and family responsibilities,” the committee said in its report, made public last year. “Focused efforts are needed to identify the sources of this precipitous drop and counteract them,” it said.

Garima Balwani, who’s pursuing a PhD in pharmacy at the Birla Institute of Technology and Science in Pilani, says she has never experienced any bias academically. “There are no separate restrictions for women studying science. Even to get papers published, there are no restrictions. Journals only consider your credibility,” she said.

Private companies, however, discriminated against women, she said. During her internship at a company she did not want to name, Balwani could not get hands-on training or do any actual research. “That particular company hired women only in selective departments like patent and regulatory affairs. They did not hire women in the department which involves actual research work,” she said.

Balwani added that several women who got a PhD also preferred to get into teaching, a point also emphasized by the science ministry committee.

 

Looking at Dignifying Science

From Sequential Tart News: Looking at Dignifying Science

s a girl, I was never once concerned that my career options were limited because of my gender. I grew up convinced I could be anything, and I had the support of my parents and teachers all the way. It was really only the stories of the obstacles women faced, and in some cases are still facing, that told me about the struggles of women to pursue their passions. Reading Dignifying Science was special for me, because I'm fascinated by these brilliant women who challenged scientific and cultural attitudes. Today I'm a microbiologist and writer, and it's because of female pioneers in these fields that I can contribute to how we understand and interpret the world around us. In comic form, learning about the accomplishments of these amazing women is informative and, let's be honest, fun.


Dignifying Science is written by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by Donna Barr, Stephanie Gladden, Roberta Gregory, Lea Hernandez, Carla Speed McNeil, Linda Medley, Marie Severin, Jen Sorenson and Anne Timmons, with covers by Ramona Fradon and Mary Fleener.

The story I was least familiar with was the spectacular life of Hedy Lamarr. She escaped her oppressive husband and the Nazis to become an American film star and inventor. Lamarr patented a communications technology that eventually became useful for cellular phones. It's a fascinating story about a beautiful woman who lived in a time when men dominated the engineering arena. My sister is an electrical engineer today, and she designs wireless tech that is probably influenced by the designs that Lamarr created. Wow!

My favourite scientist has always been Marie Curie (1867-1934), and although Dignifying Science only touches on her story, it highlights the difficulties women, and men, experienced as scientists at the turn of the century. It is a tough thing to be on the frontier of a field, and many scientists, curious and brilliant people, lived with little and studied with less. Curie was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize, and she coined the term radioactivity. I've also studied Rosalind Franklin's work that helped to elucidate the true structure of DNA. She was a remarkable woman as well, and died before her colleagues were awarded their Nobel. Her story in Dignifying Science has an interesting blend of perspectives through the different art styles and does a good job with the complicated science and personality of Franklin.

Dignifying Science also includes stories about Lise Meitner, Barbara McClintock and Biruté Galdikas. The book is entertainingly written and illustrated, and makes a point to remind us that these stories are told for dramatic effect. There are many references provided to point readers towards other works about these important women. It’s also wonderful that Dignifying Science does not present these stories as historical curiosities, as though female scientists of this calibre are rare. Instead, I feel like the book does an excellent job of capturing a few tales about brilliant women in a historical context and reminds me to follow the discoveries that women are making every day. Ottaviani's collection of stories honors these great scientists and is a compelling and fun read. 

Turn up the girl power in science

From CosmicLog:  Turn up the girl power in science

It's not exactly surprising that males are perceived as more competent in science than females — but researchers at Yale University were surprised to find that even professional scientists showed evidence of such bias. Now the big question is what to do about it.
"Whenever I give a talk that mentions past findings of implicit gender bias in hiring, inevitably a scientist will say that can’t happen in our labs because we are trained to be objective," microbiologist Jo Handelsman, lead author of a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, said in a Yale news release. "I had hoped that they were right."

Nope.

Handelsman and her colleagues asked 127 science faculty members from six institutions to review an application from a senior undergraduate student looking for a job as a lab manager. The faculty members were asked to judge how competent the applicant was, how much the student should be paid, and whether they'd be willing to mentor the student.

Each researcher looked at the same application — but in some cases the applicant was given a male name (John), and in the other cases a female name was assigned (Jennifer), all on a random basis. When the results were analyzed, it turned out that the sight-unseen male applicant was rated more competent than the female. The mean starting salary offer was $30,238.10 for John as opposed to $26,507.94 for Jennifer. Faculty members were more willing to mentor John than Jennifer.

The data showed a disparity whether the demographic category in question was male or female, young or old, tenured or untenured. "The bias appears pervasive among faculty and is not limited to a certain demographic subgroup," Handelsman and her colleagues wrote.

The researchers emphasized that they weren't suggesting the biases were intentional or stemmed from a conscious desire to hold women back. In fact, they found that the faculty members tended to like Jennifer more than John. That sentiment was generally voiced by faculty women as well as faculty men. It's just that the warm feelings for Jennifer "did not translate into positive perceptions of her composite confidence or material outcomes," according to the PNAS paper.

So what is to be done? "Our results suggest that academic policies and mentoring interventions targeting undergraduate advisers could contribute to reducing the gender disparity," the researchers wrote.

The findings suggest that it's not enough to get young women interested in careers in science, technology, education and math, a.k.a. STEM. There needs to be a conscious follow-through by the folks who do the hiring and mentoring. You can read through the whole study at the PNAS website.

Maybe it shouldn't be so surprising to find out that scientists can be vulnerable to subtle biases, just like other people. Even journalists. Last month, for example, Lund University researchers Daniel Conley and Johanna Stadmark found that far fewer women than men were being invited to write commentaries for the journals Science and Nature.

Conley and Stadmark acknowledged that men tend to outnumber women in scientific fields, particularly at the higher levels, so there's something of a selection effect at work. But they said it was "still fair to conclude that fewer women than men are offered the career boost of invitation-only authorship in each of the two leading science journals." They called on the editors to "extend gender parity for commissioned writers."

Over time, raising the visibility of women scientists (and raising their salaries) will help draw more girls into research and science education. At least that's the idea. Here are a few more efforts that put girl power to work on the science world's gender issues:

'Girl Thing' reloaded: Remember the European Commission program that stirred up a controversy by putting out a glammed-up video about STEM careers for women? Now the EC's "Science: It's a Girl Thing" program is sponsoring a contest for videographers who think they can do better. On the Scientific American website, "Science Goddess" Joanne Manaster explains how to enter. The winning videos will be shown in November at the European Gender Summit at the European Parliament in Brussels. Three winners will each receive a cash prize of €1,500 ($1,930).

Think locally: It's worth looking for organizations that are bringing girl power to STEM on the community level. The best example is Sally Ride Science, which thinks globally and acts locally when it comes to getting girls involved in scientific pursuits. The organization, founded by the late space icon Sally Ride, presents a series of science festivals for girls in grades 5 through 8. The next one is coming up Oct. 27 at Rice University in Houston, with astronaut Wendy Lawrence as the featured speaker. Other organizations involved in girl-power science include Girlstart in Austin, Texas; and Science Club for Girls in the Boston area.

Women chemists in the spotlight: The Chemical Heritage Foundation's video series pays tribute to seven women who have made their mark in chemistry — including Stephanie Kwolek, the inventor of bulletproof Kevlar fiber; Paula Hammond, a pioneer in nanotechnology for drug delivery; and Nancy Chang, a successful biotech entrepreneur.