Category: Women in Science

Advisor of the Month – Chinwe Chukwudi

Susan Jenkins

We’re delighted to introduce Dr. Chinwe Chukwudi, Senior Lecturer of Veterinary Pathology and Microbiology at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka. Chinwe is currently a visiting fellow of the African Postdoctoral Training Initiative (APTI) at the Laboratory of Parasitic Diseases, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland (USA).

Where did you start your research journey?

My research journey started at the Royal Veterinary College, University of London where I obtained my PhD in Molecular biology and Microbial genetics, and subsequently did my first postdoc, both sponsored by the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission in the UK.

While growing up in a semi-urban community in South East Nigeria, I had a first-hand experience of the impact of infectious disease burden in Africa. Knowing that the sufferings caused could be alleviated with dedicated research into these diseases spurred my interest in researching on therapeutics/interventions for infectious diseases.

What is your favorite place to work?

A scientific laboratory and/or classroom, anywhere in the world!

How long have you been using Mendeley? 

11 years (since 2011)

What were you using prior to Mendeley?

Endnote

Why did you decide to become an Advisor?

To help others unlock the immense benefits of using Mendeley for reference management.

Teaching Mendeley at University of Nigeria Nsukka in 2021

What is the most important thing about Mendeley that you think people should know?

It’s free and easy to use.

Is there a researcher you admire (dead or alive) that you would like to work with or meet, and why?

Jennifer Doudna of the University of California, Berkeley, USA who discovered the CRISPR/Cas9 genetic scissors that have revolutionized genome editing.

What’s the most interesting thing you’ve learned this week?

I was at a drug repurposing conference this week, and realized how much the little we do as scientists could impact the lives of people/populations we may never know, and how much some of these people are helplessly waiting for us (scientists) to ‘discover’ a cure for their ailment.

What is the best part about working in research?

You get to explore your imagiNATION and make impact in the lives of people doing that.

And the most challenging part about working in research?

Having no defined work time….you have to work in and out of ‘normal’ working time, including through the nights, weekends and public holidays!

Levity in the lab: a few favorite organisms decorating a mask.

Do you have any advice for young researchers? 

Research is a commitment to serve humanity, and that should be the driving force and yardstick for the measurement of success for young researchers.

You can follow Chinwe and her work by visiting her LinkedIn profile, ResearchGate profile, or searching her OrchidID. Curious about the Mendeley Advisor program? visit our website.

Supporting the movement toward gender equity in STEM

sallyransom

Diverse faculties are vital. In research, they bring different perspectives to bear on projects, supporting innovation and discovery. In education, they foster a greater range of young minds thanks to their broader understanding of marginalization and privilege. While some advances toward gender equity in STEM faculties have been made, women remain greatly under-represented, particularly women of color.

The Association for Women in Science (AWIS) recognizes the serious long-term impact of this lack of diverse perspectives in research and education. They’re working toward equity in STEM, and this year, they’ve launched an exciting initiative to further that crucial goal: the ADVANCE Resource and Coordination (ARC) Network Community. It is intended to bring together diverse audiences, including scholars, educators, practitioners and researchers, to collaborate on, discuss and implement change.

At Mendeley, we firmly believe in the goals of the AWIS and are proud to be supporting them. We have created a new dedicated online group for the ARC Network to help members from across the globe connect. They can share both ideas and resources, including reports, articles, datasets and videos, as well as organizing online events and learning opportunities.

In addition, Elsevier’s preprint service SSRN will host a dedicated STEM First Look series to support the initiative. This will be a quarterly digest of STEM equity content and early-stage research, including presentations, white papers, videos, podcasts and webinars.

Mendeley and SSRN are designed for connection, sharing and collaboration, and that’s exactly what the ARC Network needed when they approached us. As Dr. Heather Metcalf, AWIS Chief Research Officer and ARC Network Principal Investigator explains, “with the online research collaboration tools generously provided by Elsevier, the ARC Network will facilitate the early adoption and implementation of promising practices and sharing of new research findings. Providing these opportunities broadens our collective impact on STEM equity in unprecedented ways.”

Gaby Appleton, Managing Director of Mendeley and Researcher Products said of the collaboration “Supporting researchers and educators is the core vision for Mendeley. We’re delighted to be part of the ARC Network initiative because it means supporting a healthy future for scholarship and innovation in STEM.”

Find out more about AWIS here and their ADVANCE Resource and Coordination (ARC) Network Community here

Find out more about SSRN here

Webinar: Gender bias in academic publishing

Christian DeFeo

Join Publishing Campus for this highly anticipated webinar in which three industry experts explore the issue of unconscious bias and its role in academic publishing.

About the webinar

Unconscious gender bias in academia can have a real impact on women’s careers. Whether it’s obtaining a job or publishing a paper, quick judgments made subconsciously by reviewers can have very tangible consequences. In this webinar, you’ll learn the ins and outs of identifying and avoiding the pitfalls of gender bias. You’ll come away with clear evidence of the influence of unconscious bias in peer review, and hear about some of the recent efforts by publishers to reduce it, making the publishing process fairer and more equitable for all.

Attend this event – Thursday 11 May, 2017 – 2 pm BST / 3 pm CEST / 9 am EST

Ask the experts

Join the Gender Bias in Academic Publishing Mendeley group to field your questions to the experts and engage in deeper conversation with other attendees.

Presenter bios

Joanne Kamens is the Executive Director of Addgene, a mission-driven nonprofit dedicated to helping scientists around the world share useful research reagents and data. She holds a PhD in Genetics from Harvard Medical School and founded the Boston chapter of the Association for Women in Science. In 2010, she received the “Catalyst Award from the Science Club for Girls” for her longstanding dedication to empowering women in the STEM fields.

Nicole Neuman holds a PhD in biochemistry from Tufts University, which was followed by a post-doctoral fellowship at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, studying cell signaling. She joined Cell Press in 2012 as Editor of Trends in Biochemical Sciences. Nicole has enjoyed engaging Cell Press in community conversations around gender in the STEM fields, first by organizing a symposium around gender and science and now by co-leading the “The Female Scientist,” a column in the Cell Press blog Crosstalk.

Kate Hibbert holds a degree in Earth Sciences from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Isotope Geochemistry from the University of Bristol. She joined Elsevier in 2015 as a Publisher for its Geochemistry and Planetary Science Journals and has been a true champion for women in STEM.

Win a pair of tickets to Ada Lovelace Day Live in London!

Shruti Desai

THIS CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. THANK YOU!

ada-lovelace-day-logo

We’re happy and proud to sponsor and contribute to Ada Lovelace Day, held annually on 11 October. Mendeley is sponsoring the Ada Lovelace Day Live!, an annual celebration of the achievements of women in STEM. Ada Lovelace was the world’s first computer programmer, and a perfect figurehead to represent women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics field.

The event features an inspiring line up of seven women from across the UK STEM world — design engineer Yewande Akinola, planetary physicist Dr Sheila Kanani, science writer Dr Kat Arney, developer Jenny Duckett, mathematician Dr Sara Santos, computational biologist Dr Bissan Al-Lazikani, and climate scientist Dr Anna Jones — each of whom will be giving a ten minute talk about their work. The evening is being compèred by the fabulous Helen Keen.

Mendeley is offering two pairs of tickets to attend this incredible event*, held this year at the IET, Savoy Place, in London at 6:30p.m. on Tuesday 11 October. This contest is now closed. Two names will be drawn at random. Want to make sure you secure your place or need more tickets? Tickets are £20 general entry and £5 concessions, and are available from Eventbrite.

We will also be participating in the worldwide celebrations by interviewing and highlighting women in STEM careers here at Mendeley! Follow our Twitter and Facebook this week and next for new contests, interesting facts and links, and brief interviews. Get a headstart with our Women in STEM series on YouTube:

 

*Prize is for event entry only. Contest winners are responsible for their own transportation and stay in London.

Why Campaign for Women in STEM?

Sarah E Hoey

In June 2015, Sir Tim Hunt was reviled for being perceived to be in favour of gender-segregated labs on the grounds that ‘girls’ cause men to fall in love with them, and cry when criticized. His comment, whether or not it reflected his actual opinion, cost the Nobel Prize winner his honorary professorship at UCL, and his position on the Royal Society’s Biological Sciences Awards Committee. More recently online, The Review argued that campaigning for women in STEM was unnecessary. Gender gaps in different professions, the editorial contends, can often be a matter of biology. Gender is a factor in determining why we study what we study, and blindly incentivizing students to pursue STEM subjects may distort the job market in the longer term.

But what we’re increasingly seeing is that failing to encourage women to pursue these careers can be equally damaging to the job market. In the short term the UK could find itself in the position of Australia, struggling to address the 600,000 strong STEM skills shortage. On a broader scale, a report released by the European Commission in 2013 estimated that if as many women as men worked in ICT, European GDP would be boosted annually by around €9 billion – therefore showing that failing to attract, and retain, women in this sector has negative consequences for the entire economy. In terms of the advancement of science, the research community could have missed out on the talents of Dr Sarah Noble, featured last week on the blog, Christina Richey, Planetary Science Division Program Officer at NASA, Liu Yang, pilot and astronaut who became the first Chinese woman in space, Dr. Fabiola Gianotti, selected as the next director general of CERN, Maryam Mirzakhani, who won the Fields medal in 2014, and so many more.  

The science community might also have missed out on the work of Professor Lucy Carpenter, this year’s winner of the Royal Society Rosalind Franklin Award, which was celebrated yesterday as part of the Royal Society’s Anniversary Day. Professor Carpenter specializes in atmospheric chemistry, studying the controls and mechanisms responsible for the release of a wide range of oceanic gases, many at concentrations around a trillionth of nitrogen and oxygen (hence named ‘trace gases’). This type of research is vital to understand the Earth’s atmosphere, how it affects our health and climate, and how our atmosphere responds to natural and human activities. Above all, Professor Lucy Carpenter was chosen for this award not only for the outstanding quality of her work, but also for her suitability as a role model and her project proposal to promote women in STEM.

The award is named after Rosalind Elsie Franklin, the English chemist who immensely contributed to our current understanding of the structure of DNA. The controversy surrounding the amount of credit due to Franklin continues and was brought to light most recently in Nicole Kidman’s depiction of her in a West End production.

What is certain, however, is that her meaningful work in learning about the structure of DNA was never publicly rewarded: she was beaten to the publication of her X-Ray photographs of DNA and work on the DNA structure in part because of her frictions with Maurice Wilkins. Later, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 1962 was awarded jointly to Francis Crick, James Watson and Maurice Wilkins “for their discoveries concerning the molecular structure of nucleic acids and its significance for information transfer in living material”.

Photo 51: X-ray diffraction image of DNA obtained by Rosalind Franklin and Raymond Gosling in 1952. The pattern triggered the idea that two strands of DNA ran in opposite directions, forming a helix.

Without doubt, this helps to highlight the importance of awards and schemes, such as those championed by the Royal Society, in supporting the development of female scientists, recognising their achievements and instilling them with the confidence to pursue lines of research that could lead to the next major scientific breakthrough.

"Follow your passion and your curiosity" – Meet Dr Sarah Noble, Planetary Geologist at NASA

Sarah E Hoey

NASA_logoIn July, some of us Mendeleyans had the amazing privilege to fly over to Washington to visit the NASA HQ for the New Horizons Pluto Flyby. During our trip, we had the chance to meet some of NASA’s scientists, one of whom is planetary geologist and a program scientist Sarah Noble. Sarah’s specific interested are in space weathering on environments such as the Moon, Mercury, and asteroids.

We recently got in contact with Sarah again, to speak with her about being a women in planetary geology.

Who are you and what do you do?

I am a program scientist at NASA Headquarters. In my job I have two main hats to wear, grants management and mission work. I manage several Research and Analysis (R&A) programs for the planetary science division, making sure that we find and fund the best planetary research. I also serve as a program scientist on missions, like the recent LADEE mission to the Moon, and I’m currently the Deputy Program Scientist for our next Mars rover, Mars 2020. A program scientist serves as a sort of liaison between HQ and the science team, it’s our job to make sure that the mission actually produces good science. I also get to do a little science once in a while, my research is mostly working with Apollo samples to understand the effects of space weathering on the properties of lunar rocks and soils.

Is this what you wanted to be, when you were growing up? If not, what did you want to become?

I think I always knew that I would work for NASA, though as a kid, of course, I wanted to be an astronaut, didn’t every kid?

With Moon rock and the giant microscope I use to study it.
Doing a Q&A just before the LADEE launch.

What is your background and how did you get to where you are now?

I started my undergrad as an aerospace engineering major (because it was the only major with the word “space” in it), but quickly realized that I was much more interested in science than engineering. I switched to geology and fell in love with it, I also minored in both political science and art, because why not? I continued on the geology path in graduate school, specializing in planetary geology. After completing my PhD, I took a year or so off from science to scratch my political science itch and went to work for Congress. As an AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellow, I worked as a committee staffer for the Space and Aeronautics subcommittee of the House Committee on Science and Technology. Then I went back to science, in what I like to call my “NASA-nomad phase, where in the span of a few years I worked at NASA Johnson Space Center, then NASA HQ, then NASA Marshall Space Flight Center, then NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and finally back to NASA HQ.

Apart from being a lunar/planetary, what else are you/do you do?

In my spare time, I’m an artist. My day job tends to leak over into my art, most of my paintings are of the Moon and planets – they are so beautiful and amazing that I can’t help but paint them.

What are the best and worst parts about working in planetary geology?

In planetary science, we literally get to discover new worlds. Like NASA’s New Horizons mission that flew by Pluto this summer, giving us our very first pictures, and ESA’s Rosetta mission that has brought us incredible views of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. And every time, every new world, they are more amazing and incredible than we had imagined. But it’s a two-sided coin, space is hard, and vast, so our data is always limited. It took New Horizons nine and a half years to get to Pluto (and that’s just from launch, it doesn’t include the nearly three decades of work lobbying, planning, proposing, and building to get the mission off the ground), it will be a long time before we go back.

Is there a problem attracting girls/women to planetary science?

At the graduate school level, we are doing pretty well, about 40% of planetary grad students are women. Recruiting isn’t the problem, retaining is a bigger issue. Those numbers fall off precipitously among tenured faculty and senior researchers.

Me sporting #thatothershirt
With my Pluto painting

Have you had any role models or mentors in your field/during your career? If so, how did they support/encourage you?

My PhD advisor, Carle Pieters, was/is an amazing mentor.  She was a women in planetary science back when there weren’t any women in planetary science.  When I was her graduate student, her door was always open and whenever I would knock on it, no matter how busy she was (and believe me, she was always busy), she would give me her full attention. No phone calls, no quick glances at her computer, her full attention, which taught me that what I had to say was important and worthwhile.

Are there any particular challenges you’ve faced as a woman in STEM?

Imposter syndrome (the feeling that you are not as smart or qualified as those around you and that one day you will be found out) is something that I have struggled with. It turns out to be quite common among scientists, particularly female scientists, and actually I have found it to be very comforting and reassuring to realize that most of the people around me are struggling with the same feelings. One thing I try to remember to do when I mentor early career scientists is to talk about my failures, not just my successes, it’s important to realize that everybody fails sometimes and it’s not the end of the world. When we only talk about our successes it makes us appear superhuman, and that can be a tough standard to compare yourself to.

What has been your best experience, as a women in STEM?

I help run the Women in Planetary Sciences event at our annual meeting, the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference. I used to attend those events when I was a graduate student and it would be maybe twenty people crammed into someone hotel room swapping war stories. Now we fill up the big ballroom, well over a hundred women (and a few men) gathering to support each other and offer advice. Every year as the women are gathering, I take a minute to look around, take in the scene, and remember how far we’ve come.

Sarah Noble 4
Women’s in Planetary Science Event 2012

Is there anything you wish you’d had, to support your career path?

My career path has not been a straight line, I have stepped away from doing research, first to work for Congress, then again at HQ, and I wish there had been more people telling me that that was okay, that getting a tenure-track faculty job wasn’t the only correct path, that I wasn’t “throwing away my science career”. I have no regrets about those decisions, they were the right ones for me, and I love my job. There are lots of ways to be a scientist, and all of them are valid career choices if you end up happy and fulfilled.

Which woman in STEM, dead or alive, do you most admire, and why?

I’m a big fan of Poppy Northcutt – She was the first women engineer to work in mission control and helped to design the return-to-Earth trajectory for Apollo 8. There’s a great picture of her in mission control, fashionably dressed, tousled blond hair, sitting in the midst of a sea of men in short-sleeved white shirts with ties and horn-rimmed glasses – the unofficial uniform of Apollo. One of these things is not like the others, clearly, and yet, everything about her body language and expression says she was right where she belonged, comfortable and confident. It’s hard to be the first, the only, and I love that she didn’t shy away from her “otherness”, didn’t buy herself a white shirt and horn-rimmed glasses.

What advice and encouragement can you offer to girls wanting to enter a career in STEM?

Follow your passion and your curiosity. Science is hard, but if you love it, it’s worth it.

What is your science/tech dream?

Part of me still wants to be an astronaut, or more to the point, I want to visit the Moon, do some field geology, see the Earth rise over the horizon.

 

If you are, or know, a women in STEM who would be interested in contributing to our Women in STEM blog series, then please email us! We’d love to here your story!

Let’s talk about science – Researchers’ Choice Award for science communication

Shruti Desai

Albert Einstein once famously claimed that “you don’t really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother.” Living this ethos, a new breed of fresh-faced, tech-savvy researchers are on a mission to break down the barriers and bring science to the masses.

Communication is forming a bigger part of the role of researchers, and for those in the early stages of their career, it can have a potentially huge influence on the trajectory of their career. Alongside the life-changing scientific research taking place every day, there’s also a lot of impressive communication effort in the background – how else would we know about it? And we think it’s about time these researchers get the recognition they deserve.

We’re looking for early career researchers who are brilliant at communicating their scientific ideas to the public. They must be currently living in the UK, affiliated with a UK university and have begun publishing no earlier than 2012. We want to see evidence that they have gone above and beyond the publication of their research paper, and used any kind of public activity to address misleading information about scientific or medial issues; bring sound evidence to bear in a public or policy debate or helped people to make sense of a rather complex scientific issue.

There are no restrictions on what or how – simply visit the dedicated Mendeley group and enter the researcher’s name, age, institute and the reason for the nomination, along with links to supporting evidence such as a blog, Twitter account or YouTube video.

We then encourage all nominees (and their nominators) to invite peers and colleagues to ‘like’ their nomination post – those posts with the most likes will make the shortlist, which will be put in front of our specially selected judging panel.

So, if you know someone who has the potential to be the next Brian Cox, why not give them the chance of receiving the recognition they deserve…and £1,500! Nominations are open until 30th September 2015, and the winner will be announced at this year’s Awards ceremony at the Royal Society in London on 5th November.

You can read more about the importance of science communication, and if you have any questions on the Awards or the nomination process, feel free to post on the group and we’ll get back to you.