Love this idea of @big_data_kane using his talk @ucsc@ucscgenomics to illuminate the ontogeny of his ideas and the evolution of his thinking to the learners in the audience: "I move as I am inspired."
This talk is both a discussion of the science in his lab and its foundation in personal history and interests: What effect does environment have on scientific processes? How does context affect protein evolution, viral transmissibility and who GETS TO DO science?
Advice for young scholars: Be a historian of your own field. Studying the past can inform how you think about and do science now. It also lets you find people and ideas that you identify with.
THAT paper is what happens when you don't recognize that gender bias is systemic and structural in academic STEM
LOOK: I have remained SANE in academic STEM b/c of my women mentors, both senior and peer, b/c we are honest about the reality of being women in STEM: the joy of doing science, the connection with trainees AND the persistent devaluation of our work, most evidently in peer review
This world *waves vaguely around*, in which academic STEM is FIRMLY situated, consistently devalues the contributions and work of women, particularly BIWoC.
Is the NIH...unaware that access to NIH funding is often a major determinant in whether women ascend the academic hierarchy?
And I don't just mean success rates, which the NIH is good at reporting! I mean:
ability to get add'l R01s, which can be linked to promotion at some institutions
not consistently getting scores that are borderline and having to navigate that cognitive load and risk assessment
Mary Blair Loy discussing job talks as consequential rituals that illustrate the "schema of scientific excellence" and departmental climate that can affect the response to gender of the speaker #AFDSymposium 👏🏽👏🏽
Men more likely to receive highly positive intros, referencing research brilliance, excellence and awards. Women more likely to get "irrelevancies," which implies that there is not much to say about their professional accomplishments, and sometimes included inappropriate comments
BOTH of these pieces of information are important since dismantling the structural racism, sexism and biases that infuse our definitions of merit and excellence will be an iterative process
I also want to highlight two additional important lessons: 1) identifying allies and developing informal strategies to minimize those who would derail this process 2) there needs to be a corresponding focus on retention.