Profiles of Exceptional Women In Nuclear Energy

From the Energy Collective: Profiles of Exceptional Women In Nuclear Energy

Nuclear energy, like many other highly technical science and engineering fields, was led in the post World War II era by men. In the decades that followed, many women entered the field. An indication of how much that presence has grown is that the Women in Nuclear (WIN) organization now lists 4,500 members, according to a press release from the Nuclear Energy Institute, which is a sponsoring organization for WIN.

The latest crowd sourced blog post here at ANS Nuclear Cafe is a series of profiles of exceptional women in the nuclear energy field. ANS asked for brief profiles for publication and we are very pleased to present them here.

These are first person stories, e.g., “How I become a nuclear professional and the importance of what I have achieved” in terms of career satisfaction, work-life balance, career ladders, technical mastery, or meeting a management challenge.

We published these profiles because we think that they tell interesting stories, and we hope you agree.

________

Susan Hoxie-Key
Nuclear Fuel Services Manager
Southern Nuclear Operating Company

Susan Hoxie-Key

I grew up following the space program and knew by the time that I got to high school that I wanted to study engineering in college. I wanted to be one of the people who knew how complicated things worked and who made complicated things work. The colleges that I was applying to required a choice of major. I literally looked down the list of engineering majors and passed judgment on each option. When I got to “nuclear” on the list, it sounded interesting and hard. I picked nuclear engineering, and have never looked back.

In college, I joined the cooperative education (co-op) program, which meant that I alternated work and school semesters to earn money and gain work experience. Co-op was also a wonderful opportunity to live away from home and school and to test myself in the real world.

In 1989, after 12 years at Savannah River Site, I joined Southern Nuclear as a core designer for the Vogtle 2 nuclear power plant. I worked in core design and fuel-related licensing until 2006, when I moved into nuclear fuel procurement. More recently my responsibilities have expanded to include characterization of burned fuel for dry cask storage, burned fuel inspection activities, and new fuel fabrication oversight—all in addition to fuel procurement.

I love seeing my ideas put into action. I love the idea that I help make electricity, which has such a profoundly positive impact on peoples’ lives.

________

Kate Jackson
Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer
Westinghouse

Kate Jackson

My mother was an English teacher and my father was an engineer. They seldom agreed on politics or religion, but they always agreed on the importance of education and personal values. Growing up, family time was an opportunity to learn and practice open debate, with the most valuable lesson being that I learned to ask really good questions.

I’ve had exceptional opportunities to study and manage large, complex technological and natural systems to understand energy, environmental, and political intersections. These inextricably integrated systems require our continued stewardship and trade-off solutions by our best scientists, engineers, and social scientists.

As a parent, consumer, engineer, and global citizen, it’s important to me that we evaluate all energy options. As science and technology innovations lead us to review new trade-offs, we must continue to question and weigh options. Our social and economic stability depends on a flexible and diverse energy portfolio. Most of my career I’ve advised policy, business, and industry decision makers. And, it’s clear to me that nuclear energy is an essential component of a sustainable, emissions-free energy system.

I’m proud to be part of the Westinghouse tradition of excellence and innovation in science and technology. The AP1000® is the safest and most efficient nuclear reactor ever designed and licensed. In addition, I’m confident that our small modular reactor will offer an equally safe and efficient choice that customers can rely on in an increasingly carbon-regulated world.

I’ve never been one to plot my career path. Instead, I’ve gravitated toward work that makes a lasting contribution to the world that our children will inherit. We’ll never have all the answers, but we have an ethical responsibility to be fearless about asking all the questions.

________

Amanda Maguire
Engineer, LOCA Analysis & Methods
Westinghouse

Amanda Maguire

I arrived at Westinghouse as a new college graduate two years ago. My first days provided an impressive perspective on the level of responsibility available for young engineers in the nuclear industry. With a growing number of engineers approaching retirement age and the rapid changes around new nuclear technology, there are numerous opportunities to learn and advance. My first months at Westinghouse were spent immersing myself in learning about loss-of-coolant accident (LOCA) long-term cooling analysis for the entire Westinghouse C-E reactor (Combustion Engineering) fleet of plants. The expectation was that, over time, I would amass enough knowledge to serve as the new subject matter expert.

I was initially overwhelmed by the high expectations of the nuclear industry. Getting up to speed with the volumes of knowledge was no small feat. Most knowledge transfer on older technology occurred in one-on-one information sharing sessions. I spent weeks meeting with previous experts, documenting everything they told me.

Now I feel light-years away from where I started. LOCA long-term cooling analysis is a current Nuclear Regulatory Commission focus. As a result, I’ve faced several difficult questions from the staff. I’ve learned to rely on my peers and other resources because an accurate answer is more important than an immediate answer. The biggest lesson learned, however, is to never try to do everything on your own!

This experience has been highly rewarding. I’ve recently presented in front of the NRC, traveled to several plants, and spoken with customers about my work. Although I’ve only worked in the industry for two years, I can now consider myself a subject matter expert!

________

Kathryn A. McCarthy
Deputy Associate Laboratory Director
for Nuclear Science & Technology
Idaho National Laboratory

Kathryn McCarthy

I was going to major in music. I played clarinet in the Phoenix Youth Symphony and in my high school band. I loved it. But the music programs in high schools were being cut as state budgets were reduced. I’m practical, so I considered other options. I had grown up around engineers and scientists. My father was a chemical engineer and worked at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory for many years. I was good at math and science, and I enjoyed it. So I decided to look into engineering, which was a good combination of math, science, and practicality.

My high school physics teacher would often talk about nuclear energy. It sounded interesting, so I decided to major in nuclear engineering. I received my B.S. in nuclear engineering from the University of Arizona (where I had a wonderful mentor in Norman Hillberry, one of the designers of the first nuclear reactor, Chicago Pile), and my M.S. and Ph.D. in nuclear engineering from the University of California, Los Angeles. My area of research was fusion energy. Research in fission was limited then, and fusion energy had lots of interesting research options.

After graduate school, I worked for six months at the Kernforschungszentrum, Karlsruhe, research institution in Germany and then for a year in the Soviet Union, before coming to the Idaho National Laboratory, where I’ve worked for 20 years, first in fusion and then in fission technology.

My husband of 25 years is one of the main reasons that I’m successful. He’s an engineer with a Ph.D., and he has always been supportive of my career. We’ve raised two wonderful boys (my most important job), and I’ve been able to balance work and family most of the time.

My current role at INL is Deputy Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear Science and Technology, where I’m responsible for the execution of about $250 million worth of research and development programs.

I miss playing clarinet, but began taking piano lessons several years ago, so I still have my foot in that door, too.

________

Gail H. Marcus
Former President, American Nuclear Society

Gail Marcus

Whenever I talk to students about careers, I always tell them that careers are like snowflakes—no two are alike. Even if someone goes to the same university or takes the same first job, the landscape changes over time, and a second person can never follow the identical path.

Therefore, I tell them not to put too much emphasis on a career model. Instead, I emphasize the value of broad skills, diverse experiences, flexibility, and networking. And of how volunteering in one’s professional society can help career progression.

When I first joined ANS, I really didn’t have any expectation of getting involved in Society governance. But ANS ticked me off by issuing a pink badge, used for spouses, to my husband (really!), and then one thing led to another.

At some point, I realized that being involved in Society activities was benefiting me in many ways. Early in my career, it gave me opportunities to learn and exercise skills I later applied in my workplace. Throughout my career, it also gave me a chance to get to know many people outside my own field and my own organization.

If this sounds like an ad for ANS, so be it. The opportunities within ANS are numerous and diverse, so there is something for almost every interest. I encourage every member of ANS, but particularly the younger members, to get involved. Volunteering in ANS will not lead everyone to the same path I followed, but it will almost certainly prove a valuable experience.

As for me, I always wonder how my career would have evolved if ANS had not handed my husband a pink badge. In retrospect, I guess I’m grateful they did.

________

Kelle Barfield
Vice President, Advocacy
Entergy Corporation

Kelle Barfield

Kelle Barfield says that she became a nuclear professional through first receiving an undergrad degree in journalism from the University of Texas, a graduate degree in communications management from Syracuse University, and by working in the publishing world in Manhattan and Birmingham, Ala. But all roads led her home, back to her roots in Vicksburg, Miss., where she married an engineer who worked in nuclear at Entergy’s nearby Grand Gulf Nuclear Station.

Beginning her Entergy career 25 years ago as a technical editor at Grand Gulf, Barfield has successfully navigated the organization chart from nuclear to utility positions back to nuclear, giving her a unique breadth and competency in the nuclear sector. Leading national efforts and considered a respected, knowledgeable thought-leader, Barfield’s passion for
the nuclear industry is noteworthy.

When Toni Beck was hired by Entergy as a new corporate communications group vice president at the New Orleans headquarters, she saw the opportunity to weave Entergy’s nuclear advocacy efforts into the broader public awareness that Entergy tries to instill about all aspects of energy policy.

Barfield is now shaping a new position created at Entergy: Vice President for Advocacy Communications. With bold thinking for the corporate giant, Beck is leveraging Barfield’s management and industry expertise, moving her from the
nuclear headquarters in Jackson, Miss., to the New Orleans office overlooking the Louisiana Superdome.

Barfield commented that the shape of the Superdome reminds her of a short, fat cooling tower. “Once a nuke, always a nuke,” she remarked as she packed boxes for her new office. This nuke isn’t going too far, only up.

________

Michaele (Mikey) Brady Raap, Ph.D.
Chief Engineer, Battelle Northwest Division
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory
ANS Treasurer and Chairman of the Professional Divisions Committee

Michaele Brady Raap

How does a kid (especially a girl) who attended high school in the same small Texas town that her mother grew up in end up with a PhD in nuclear engineering and an officer of an 11,000 member organization like the American Nuclear Society?

I often wonder myself, how did I get here? Most of my family (still in rural Texas) think I’m stubborn enough to do anything, but they wonder what DO I do?

In high school, I wrote a research paper on nuclear power. It was totally awe inspiring to think of the amount of energy that is released from something you couldn’t even see. After all the work (grades, testing, essay writing, etc.) associated with applying for colleges and scholarships (my only option for college), I decided I should be pursuing something that really excited me…so I checked a box that said “nuclear engineering.” I spent my first four years of college trying to figure out exactly what an engineer was!

By the time I finished my B.S., we were just getting to the good stuff. I stayed for my M.S., which included spending time at the university’s TRIGA reactor, and then for my PhD, which culminated in a three-year graduate research opportunity at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Wow, was I a long way from home!

I found a lot of support in my early involvement in ANS—both as a student and as a professional. That experience gave me confidence and provided opportunities for me to grow as a professional. ANS was also where I learned that nuclear is so much more than an academic study, a lab experiment, or electricity generation. It’s a powerful science with applications in medicine, space exploration, agriculture, food processing, etc. There are endless opportunities to support and improve current applications and to identify new uses of nuclear science and technology. For many developing countries, nuclear is the option that most effectively enables them to increase the standard of living for the masses.

After more than 25 years, I’m still jazzed by the potential of nuclear and thankful that I have the opportunity everyday to learn something new.

GCSEs: Michelle Obama helped me make the grade

From : GCSEs: Michelle Obama helped me make the grade

A GIRL who feared she would drop out of school has said US first lady Michelle Obama inspired her to GCSE success.

Talitha Lewis, 16, got 11 GCSEs at grade C or above, and now hopes to be a forensic scientist.

Two years ago, she could not see the point in ­education – until a visit by Mrs Obama to her school, Elizabeth Garrett Anderson in North London, changed her mind. Talitha, of Hackney, East London, said: “When she said, ‘You’re in charge of your life and it’s up to you what happens next’, I thought, ‘Right, I’ll stay in school, do what I can’.”

She’s a Barbie girl, living in a Barbie world (that discourages careers in science)

From Scope: She’s a Barbie girl, living in a Barbie world (that discourages careers in science)

It’s no secret: Women scientists are a rare breed. And who better to know this firsthand than Athene Donald, a physics professor at the University of Cambridge. She’s written a thoughtful piece on how women are sadly underrepresented in scientific fields such as physics, engineering and mathematics and why social and cultural norms may be to blame:

Go online to buy a T-shirt for your daughter and you can find one with the catchy slogan “I’m too pretty to do math” blazoned across the front in fetching pink letters. The message is clear to young girls and they appear to be heeding it. Society expects them to be wafting around with long hair, long Snow White dresses adorning impossible figures, and ignorant of how to work out their credit card interest or the mpg of their nippy little car, let alone get to grips with relativity or design a bridge. What they are allowed, even encouraged, to do is to cuddle a cute kitty (hence, I would assert, the large number of female vet students and biologists), or exhibit their nurturing side in preparation for a lifetime as a nurse or childminder.

Why are we as a society so inert in accepting these gendered (and other) stereotypes that permeate the way we bring up our children? Some scientists may be geeks, but female geeks should be just as acceptable as male ones.

Some scientists may be scruffy, but if you’re pretty (or handsome, nicely gendered words there) and like clothes, it doesn’t disqualify you from being a scientist. Female scientists can have families, you’re not excluded from that either. In short, we need to celebrate the fact that scientists and engineers, collectively, are smart, interesting people with rich lives whose other attributes are just the same as the rest of the population.

Take a look online and you can see that Barbie can be lots of things: a doctor, a news anchor, a computer engineer, a pet vet, a pizza chef, or an architect. But Athene, I’m with you – where is Physics Barbie?

Someone posted a counterpoint:

In the US, women go into medicine (requiring a reasonable amount of scientific training) because there is a plausible and relatively lucrative career path. I believe that they don’t go into the hard sciences largely because there is a terrible career path. There are few tenure-track faculty positions; you probably don’t get to choose where you live; and very likely you spend most of your potential reproductive years doing low-paying, long-hours post-doc or lab work.

Women are too sensible (dare I say smart) to go into the sciences.

Penfield woman wins award in diabetes innovation contest

From BrigtonPittsford Post: Penfield woman wins award in diabetes innovation contest

Penfield, N.Y. —

Molly Johnson says she’s no scientist, but felt the effects of faulty insulin pumps firsthand when her diabetic daughter, Sarah, had her own struggle with the devices.

Sarah was diagnosed with Childhood diabetes as a toddler and went on the pump at the age of 3. The pump works to keep blood sugar low by feeding insulin to the bloodstream through a thin plastic tube. But when Johnson saw that her daughter’s blood sugar levels were going up instead of down, she was told that air bubbles in the pump tubing were keeping the insulin from getting through.

“As (parents of) a new patient, we didn’t know that,” said Johnson.

Years later, her daughter is now 14, and Johnson, a financial analyst at RIT, came up with an award-winning idea to prevent this complication from hurting others with the disease.

The idea? Make tubing which changes color based upon the contents of the tubing, clearly identifying the presence of any insulin-blocking air bubbles. While scrolling through her email one day, she saw an announcement from the organization Diabetes Mine for its international Design Challenge.

She soon decided to enter her own idea by submitting a short video. Although she’d had the idea for using colors in an insulin pump mind for a long time, she didn’t expect it to earn any recognition.

But after several months of waiting, she found out she’d won the “Most Creative” award and a $2,500 prize, beating out entries from prestigious scientific institutions including Johns Hopkins and MIT. Each entry was judged by a panel of health care professionals.

“It was a fluke because I never thought I’d win,” she said with a laugh.

While she doesn’t intend to build and market the pump itself, she is looking into a way to patent the design so a scientist in the industry can use her idea to help other families touched by diabetes.

“To see my name, it was one of the neatest things that’s ever happened to me,” she said.

Books and Authors Luncheon: Rachel Carson, 1951

From WNYC: Books and Authors Luncheon: Rachel Carson, 1951
Before achieving national acclaim for her exposé of the chemical industry, Silent Spring (1962), marine biologist and nature conservationist Rachel Carson wrote prolifically about the world of the ocean. Her sea trilogy, Under the Sea Wind (1941), The Sea Around Us (1951), and The Edge of the Sea (1955), quickly made her a New York Times bestselling author and a literary star.

The Sea Around Us, which is the focus of the speech Carson gave for the New York Herald Tribune's Books and Authors Luncheon broadcast by WNYC on October 25, 1951, earned Carson the National Book Award in nonfiction and a Burroughs Medal in nature writing, and was even made in to a movie, which won the 1953 Academy Award for Best Documentary.

The month before The Sea Around Us was published, New Yorker editor William Shawn serialized nine condensed chapters as a "Profile" piece beginning June 2, 1951. The responses to the excerpts, paired with the wide exposure the book gained as a selection for the Book-of-the-Month Club, were so strong that Carson was immediately besieged by requests for speaking engagements and book signings. Carson refused most of these requests because, as biographer Linda Lear notes, she was "uncomfortable with the idea of appearing before large audiences." [1]

One of these requests came from Irita Van Doren, editor of the New York Herald Tribune Book Review and host of the Books and Authors Luncheon. Despite her intentions to refuse, Carson was persuaded to accept Van Doren's invitation.

At the Luncheon, likely held on October 16 and broadcast on WNYC on October 25, Carson, who, according to Lear, was "apprehensive about how to hold the interest of such a large and critical audience," made a short speech and played recordings of ocean life from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. She also briefly referenced a prevalent theme in reviews of The Sea Around Us: the unlikely truth of her gender.

Many of the reviews written, both from a literary and scientific angle, questioned the likelihood of a female scientist and drew attention to the fact, even in some cases going so far as to assume the publisher avoided printing a photograph of the author because of some unattractive physical quality. The reviewers who were able to confirm her gender reassured readers that Carson was not even "a very large and forbidding woman," as might be suspected, but that she was instead "a quietly taut, fragile-looking woman." [2, 3]

Carson addressed such comments at the luncheon in this way: "People often seem to be surprised that a woman should have written a book about the sea. This is particularly true, I find, of men. Perhaps they have been accustomed for a long time to thinking of the more exciting fields of science as exclusively masculine domains. In fact, one of my correspondents a few days ago addressed me as 'Dear Sir,' explaining that even though he knew perfectly well that I was a woman, he simply could not bring himself to acknowledge the fact." [4]

After firmly establishing herself to the assembled audience as female, Carson explained her fascination with the sea and talked about her recent adventures along the Atlantic Coast, where she had been working on a new book. There she began observing people gazing out in to the ocean. "I've been trying to analyze some of the reasons for that fascination," she said. "The sea is a place where one gets a sense of the great antiquity of the earth. It seems to link the dim beginnings of time with the present. The same sort of waves that we watch today must have rolled in from Paleozoic seas."

"Most of all, I think, the sea is a place of mystery. One by one, the mysteries of yesterday have been solved. But often the very solution seems to bring with it another and perhaps a deeper mystery. I doubt that the last ultimate mysteries of the sea will ever be resolved. In fact, I rather cherish the hope that they will not be."

Carson concluded her presentation by playing for the audience a collection of oceanic field recordings. "We used to think of the deep sea as a place of silence," she said. "The idea that there could be sound underwater had never entered most people's minds." But, during World War II, Navy technicians were able to capture the "voices" of whales and porpoises by putting their hydrophones underwater, intending to listen for submarines. The recordings of shrimp, fish, and whales she presents were recorded in many locations by lowering a hydrophone in to the ocean.

[1] Linda Lear's biography, "Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature," published in 1977. Quoted throughout.
[2] Jonathan Norton Leonard's review of The Sea Around Us, "--And His Wonders in the Deep," published in Time, July, 1951. Quoted from Lear.
[3] Unnamed review published in Pathfinder Magazine. Quoted from Lear.
[4] This quote comes from WNYC's recording of the event. Lear's research includes Carson's prepared remarks, which conclude in this way: "Then even if they accept my sex, some people are further surprised to find that I am not a tall, oversize, Amazon-type female. I can offer no defense for not being what people expect, but perhaps I might say a few words about why a woman, and only an average-size one at that, should have become a biographer of the sea."

Pineview victim was a dedicated swimmer, scientist

A sad story: Pineview victim was a dedicated swimmer, scientist

Esther Fujimoto often headed out for a swim at Pineview Reservoir after her workday at University Hospital’s neurobiology and anatomy lab.

"She swam every day ... so long as the temperature was doable," said assistant professor Josh Bonkowsky. "She was only limited physically, not by her mental desire."

Fujimoto, whose hip dysplasia led to a double hip replacement, was an accomplished scientist who worked on a gene that leads to breast cancer and was researching nervous system development and cerebral palsy at the time her death, Bonkowsky said Monday.

She was nearly as dedicated a swimmer as she was a scientist, he said.

Fujimoto, 49, of Ogden, was struck and killed by a motorboat at Pineview Reservoir Sunday evening, police said.

She was with her sister at Spring Creek Cove, a quiet spot where she often swam, when they became separated, said Weber County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dave Creager.

A neighbor heard her scream about 8 p.m. He paddled a rowboat out to her and called 911, but was only able to hold Fujimoto’s head above water so she could breathe, he said.

"He was alone in the boat, talking to the dispatcher, and he was not physically able to pull her out of the water without dumping his boat," Creager said.

The motor boat’s propeller apparently tore into her torso and lower abdomen, causing critical injuries.

When rescuers arrived, they pulled Fujimoto from the water and performed CPR, Creager said, but Fujimoto died before rescuers could reach land.

She was about 300 feet from shore when she was hit. The boat never stopped.

Sheriff’s deputies are searching for the craft, and want to speak with three males who were seen in the area in a blue and white boat.

"There’s a high probability they may have seen or heard or have information," about the collision, said Lt. Mark Lowther.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen of Fujimoto’s co-workers gathered Monday to mourn.

"She taught me everything I know," Brooke Gaynes said through tears, her eyes rimmed in red. Gaynes, a lab technician who saw Fujimoto every day, said she’d been out of town before her co-worker’s death.

Along with her science skills, Fujimoto was a good friend, Gaynes said, the kind who always remembered specific details about others’ lives

"She just really cared about people," Gaynes said.

Fujimoto’s work on the breast cancer gene was especially important because she’d had her own brush with the disease several years ago, Bonkowsky said.

Fujimoto, a senior lab specialist who had worked at the hospital since 2003, had "not only the technical skills, but the art of being a scientist, [the ability] to take a small piece of DNA and do what needed to be done," Bonkowsky said.

It’s not the only tragedy to affect University Hospital workers this summer. In June, 24-year-old nurse Brynn Barton was struck and killed while riding her bicycle on 700 East.

70 African women scientists awarded

From Africa News: 70 African women scientists awarded
As discussions of drought and famine in the Horn of Africa continue to dominate global headlines, it is clear that ensuring the continent's food security will require mobilizing the best minds from every discipline, including women agricultural researchers.

African Women in Agricultural Research and Development (AWARD) is committed to building the capacity of African women scientists who are conducting pro-poor agricultural research. AWARD has announced the 70 winners of its 2011 AWARD Fellowships. These outstanding researchers were selected from among an impressive cadre of 785 applicants from 11 African countries, bringing the total number of women in the program to 250.

“These talented women are conducting critical agricultural research that is desperately needed to feed Africa’s people and help mitigate crises like we are seeing in East Africa right now,” said Vicki Wilde, AWARD Director. “We are recognizing and supporting these women today with an AWARD Fellowship.”

The fellowship will help these top scientists strengthen their research and leadership skills, and enhance their contributions to poverty alleviation and food security across the continent. While the women come from diverse agricultural disciplines, they share a common passion to help smallholder farmers.

“My parents paid for my primary education by selling a cow or a goat, so I know from experience that livestock is the cornerstone of people’s livelihoods in rural Africa,” said Dr. Lillian Wambua, a molecular geneticist at the University of Nairobi’s School of Biological Sciences and one of this year’s AWARD winners. “Diseases are the greatest challenges to livestock farmers. As an AWARD Fellow and upcoming researcher, my goal is to use my scientific skills to engage with like-minded researchers in finding lasting solutions to secure healthy herds.”

Wambua is one of 2,200 female scientists from 450 institutions to have applied for one of the 250 available fellowships since AWARD began in 2008. AWARD Fellows benefit from a two-year career-development program focused on mentoring partnerships, science skills, and leadership development. The fellowships are awarded on the basis of intellectual merit, leadership capacity, and the potential of the scientist’s research to improve the daily lives of smallholder farmers, especially women.

“USAID is pleased to support African women scientists via AWARD, as an integral component of the U.S. government’s commitment to reducing gender inequality and recognizing the contribution of women to achieving food security,” said Kurt Low, Office Director for the Regional Economic Growth and Integration Program at USAID/East Africa. “By drawing on some of the best minds in agricultural research, AWARD provides a shining example of the contributions that women can make to poverty alleviation and food security in sub-Saharan Africa.”

AWARD addresses many of the barriers, including a lack of role models and mentors, which prevent African women from playing a more active role in agricultural research and from considering a career in agricultural science.

Recent research conducted in 15 African countries by AWARD and Agricultural Science and Technology Indicators (ASTI) shows that between 2000 and 2008, the number of African women professionals employed in the agricultural sciences grew by 8 percent per year, while the number of African male professionals grew by 2 percent per year. However, women still represent less than one quarter of Africa’s scientists holding positions in institutions of agricultural research, and less than one in seven (14 percent) leadership positions is held by a woman.

Evelyn Asante-Yeboah is one of seven Ghanaians to win the prestigious fellowship. Asante-Yeboah, an assistant manager at the Ghana Forestry Commission’s Resource Management Support Centre, expects that the skills she gains through AWARD will help advance her research into climate change. “Agriculture accounts for almost half of Ghana’s GDP and export earnings, but we don’t always see trees as being valuable agricultural products that need protection,” said Asante-Yeboah. “I’m researching on-farm tree management and its contribution to climate change. Being an AWARD Fellow will help me increase my contribution to fighting hunger and poverty in Africa.”