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Women, Work and the Academy > About the Participants
About the Participants
Constance Backhouse, B.A.(Man.), LL.B. (Osg. Hall), LL.M.
(Harvard), LL.D. (honoris causa, Law Society of Upper Canada), F.R.S.C.,
holds the positions of Distinguished University Professor and University
Research Chair at the University of Ottawa. She was one of the
co-authors of Breaking Anonymity: The Chilly Climate for Women
Faculty (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 1995). Her
Challenging Times: The Women's Movement in Canada and the United
States (Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1992),
co-edited with David H. Flaherty, was named the "Outstanding Book on the
Subject of Human Rights in the United States" by the Gustavus Myers
Center. She is the co-author with Leah Cohen of Sexual Harassment on
the Job (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1981) and The
Secret Oppression: Sexual Harassment of Working Women (Toronto:
Macmillan of Canada, 1979).
Dr. Robin E. Bell is the Director of the ADVANCE program at
the Earth Institute at Columbia University. Funded by the National
Science Foundation, the ADVANCE program seeks to increase the
recruitment, retention, and advancement of women scientists and
engineers at Columbia through institutional transformation. Dr. Bell is
also a Doherty Senior Research Scientist at Columbia University's
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, where she directs major research
programs on the Hudson River and Antarctica. She has studied the
mechanisms of ice sheet collapse and the chilly environments beneath the
Antarctic ice sheet, including Lake Vostok. She has also led seven
major aero-geophysical expeditions to Antarctica. After receiving her
undergraduate degree from Middlebury College in Vermont, she built a
24-foot dory, which she sailed and rowed down the Hudson River past
Lamont and Columbia on to Woods Hole where she worked for several years.
Returning to the Hudson River Valley, she received her doctorate in
marine geophysics from Columbia University. Presently, she is chair of
the National Academy of Sciences Polar Research Board and Vice Chair of
the International Planning Group for the International Polar Year.
Elizabeth S. Boylan is Provost and Dean of the Faculty, and
Professor of the biological sciences at Barnard College. A
developmental biologist and cancer researcher, Provost Boylan earned a
Ph.D. in zoology from Cornell University and a bachelor's degree in
biological sciences from Wellesley College. She came to Barnard from
Queens College/CUNY in 1995 where she had been associate provost for
academic planning and programs. While at Queens, she was involved in a
University-wide program reform in science, engineering, technology and
mathematics, and in secondary education. At Barnard she led the first
systematic review of the College's general education requirements since
the early 1980's, resulting in the implementation of new curricular
requirements in 2000, and she has coordinated the planning and
implementation of a number of major building projects, including
renovation of the science facilities in Milbank and Altschul Hall.
Provost Boylan was a moderator for the inaugural meeting of the Women's
Investigator's Network of the New York Academy of Science, and serves on
the University Relations Committee of the President's Council of Cornell
Women which advises the Cornell administration on its policies regarding
faculty and staff recruitment and advancement.
Sally Chapman attended Smith College in Northampton,
Massachusetts, where she received her A.B., summa cum laude, in 1968.
Her Ph.D. in physical chemistry was awarded in 1973 by Yale University.
She did postdoctoral research at the University of California at Irvine,
working with Prof. Don L. Bunker, and at U. C. Berkeley, with Prof.
William H. Miller. She joined the faculty at Barnard College in 1975.
Prof. Chapman's research in computational physical chemistry is in the
area of molecular reaction dynamics. Prof. Chapman has spent
sabbaticals at the Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics in
Boulder, where she had a Research Fellowship for Teachers, at Oxford
where she worked with Prof. Mark Child, and at the University at
Perugia, Italy. Her research has been funded by the Alfred P. Sloan
Foundation, Research Corporation, the Petroleum Research Fund, and the
National Science Foundation. Prof. Chapman was a member of the Advisory
Committee for the Chemistry Division of the National Science Foundation
from 1986 to 1989. She was a member of the American Chemical Society's
Committee on Professional Training from 1990 to 2001, and served as its
Chair from 1995 to 1997. She was on the Advisory Board of the Petroleum
Research Fund from 1990-1996, and was its Chair from 1997 to 2002. She
is a member of the advisory board of COACh, the Committee on the
Advancement of Women Chemists. Working with the ACS, she is the
principal investigator in an NSF ADVANCE site visits project.
Donna Ginther is an Associate Professor of Economics at the
University of Kansas. Prior to joining the University of Kansas faculty,
she was a research economist and associate policy adviser in the
regional group of the Research Department of the Federal Reserve Bank of
Atlanta and held academic appointments at Washington University and
Southern Methodist University. Her major field of study is gender
differences in employment outcomes in academic labor markets. In 2004
Ginther received a grant from the National Science Foundation to
continue this research. A native of Wisconsin, Dr. Ginther received her
doctorate in economics in 1995, master's degree in economics in 1991,
and bachelor of arts in economics in 1987, all from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison. Dr. Ginther has published numerous articles and
working papers on gender differences in academia.
Alice Hogan is Program Director for ADVANCE at the National
Science Foundation. ADVANCE is designed to address the
underrepresentation of women in academic science and engineering,
particularly at the senior ranks. Ms. Hogan has worked with ADVANCE
since its inception, first as Chair of the committee at NSF charged with
design of the ADVANCE Program and then as Program Director. Prior to
work with the ADVANCE Program, she was a senior program manager with
NSF's Division of International Programs with responsibility for
bilateral science and engineering grant programs with countries in the
Asia Pacific region. She worked at the White House Office of Science and
Technology Policy on a detail from the Foundation, and was responsible
for coordinating science and technology efforts under Vice Presidential
Commissions with Egypt and Ukraine, and for advising on science and
technology programs with China and with the OECD. Prior to joining NSF
in 1986, she worked in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration in a variety of professional positions involving
international operations, policy and research, including the development
of the first cooperative projects between NOAA and China in 1979. Ms.
Hogan is a Fellow in the Women and Public Policy Program at Harvard's
Kennedy School of Government. She holds degrees from Cornell University
and the University of Michigan.
Nancy Hopkins is the Amgen, Inc. Professor of Biology at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is well known as a scientist
for her innovative use of large-scale forward genetic screens in
research designed to identify the genetic basis of developmental
processes in zebrafish. For more information about her research
interests, see her website: http://web.mit.edu/biology/www/facultyareas/facresearch/hopkins.shtml.
Outside the biological research community Hopkins is
probably best known as the architect of the 1999 Study on the Status
of Women Faculty in Science at MIT. She continues to lead efforts to
realize institutional change for women in science at MIT and she plays a
pivotal role catalyzing initiatives to improve the training, employment,
retention, and recognition of women in the sciences on a national scale.
The MIT Study is available on-line at: http://web.mit.edu/fnl/women/women.html.
Janet R. Jakobsen is Director of the
Center for Research on Women and a Professor of Women's Studies at
Barnard College. She is the author of Working Alliances and the
Politics of Difference: Diversity and Feminist Ethics (Indiana
University Press, 1998), co-author (with Ann Pellegrini) of Love the
Sin: Sexual Regulation and the Limits of Religious Tolerance (New
York University Press, 2002), and co-editor (with Elizabeth A. Castelli)
of Interventions: Activists and Academics Respond to Violence
(Palgrave 2004) She is currently working on a book project, Sex,
Secularism and Social Movements: The Value of Ethics in a Global
Economy. Before entering the academy, she was a policy analyst and
lobbyist in Washington, DC.
Sandra Morgen is Director of the Center for the Study of Women
in Society and Professsor of Anthropology at the University of Oregon.
Her most recent books include Into Our Own Hands: The Women's Health
Movement in the U.S., 1969-1990(Rutgers 2002) and an edited book
(with Frances Fox Piven, Joan Acker and Margaret Hallock), Work,
Welfare and Politics (University of Oregon, 2002). Given her
theoretical interest and expertise in understanding women's relationship
to the State, her work to promote women's research and research on women
and on the intersection of gender, race, and class is informed by her
scholarship, as well as by her long years of experience working for
institutional changes in higher education.
Dr. Donna Nelson, is an Associate Professor of
Chemistry at the University of Oklahoma. She took her BS in Chemistry at
the University of Oklahoma and her Ph.D in Chemistry at the University
of Texas at Austin. She did her postdoctorate at Purdue University with
Herbert C. Brown during 1980 - 1983 and joined the University of
Oklahoma in 1983. She was a Faculty Fellow in the OU Provost's Office
1989 - 1990. She has been recognized for her work, most recently via a
Sigma Xi Faculty Research Award (2001), a Ford Foundation Fellowship
(2003), a Guggenheim Award (2003), and a National Organization for Women
"Woman of Courage" Award (2004). For more information, visit her
website.
Professor Stephanie Pfirman chairs the Department of
Environmental Science at Barnard College, co-chairs the Education
Subcommittee of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, and is one
of the co-PIs of the ADVANCE grant to the Earth Institute. Current
research interests include environmental aspects of sea ice in the
Arctic and interdisciplinary scholarship by women. As the first chair
of the National Science Foundation's Advisory Committee for
Environmental Research and Education, Pfirman oversaw analysis of a 10
year outlook for environmental research and education at NSF. Pfirman
also chaired NSF's Office Advisory Committee to the Office of Polar
Programs. Prior to joining Barnard, Pfirman was senior scientist at
Environmental Defense and co-developer of the award-winning traveling
exhibition "Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast" developed
jointly with the American Museum of Natural History. Pfirman received
her Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology/Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution Joint Program in Oceanography and
Oceanographic Engineering, Department of Marine Geology and Geophysics,
and a BA from Colgate University's Geology Department.
Deborah Rolison received a B.S. in Chemistry from Florida
Atlantic University in 1975 and a Ph.D. in Chemistry from the University
of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1980 under the direction of Royce W.
Murray. Dr. Rolison joined the Naval Research Laboratory as a research
chemist in 1980 and currently heads the Advanced Electrochemical
Materials section. She is also an Adjunct Full Professor of Chemistry
at the University of Utah. Her research at the NRL focuses on
multifunctional nanoarchitectures, with emphasis on new nanostructured
materials for catalytic chemistries, energy storage and conversion,
biomolecular composites, porous magnets, and sensors. She is the
principal inventor of composite aerogels; electrified microheterogeneous
catalysis; a process to electrodesulfurize carbons and coals under mild
conditions; and 3-D nanowired mesoporous architectures.
Sue Rosser received her Ph.D. in Zoology from the University of
Wisconsin-Madison in 1973. Since July 1999, she has served as Dean of
Ivan Allen College, the liberal arts college at Georgia Institute of
Technology, where she is also Professor of History, Technology, and
Society. From 1995-1999, she was Director for the Center for Women's
Studies and Gender Research and Professor of Anthropology at the
University of Florida-Gainesville. In 1995, she was Senior Program
Officer for Women's Programs at the National Science Foundation. From
1986 to 1995 she served as Director of Women's Studies at the University
of South Carolina, where she also was a Professor of Family and
Preventive Medicine in the Medical School. She has edited collections
and written approximately 100 journal articles on the theoretical and
applied problems of women, science, and technology and women's health
and authored nine books.
Bernice R. Sandler, Senior Scholar at the Women's Research and
Education Institute has published more that one hundred reports about
women on campus, including the first reports on the chilly climate for
women faculty, how men and women are treated differently in the
classroom, campus sexual harassment, gang rape, and campus peer
harassment. She is well-known for her expertise on programs, policies,
practices and strategies and has given over 2500 presentations. In the
1970's she filed charges of sex discrimination against more than 250
institutions. The New York Times dubbed her "the godmother of
Title IX" for her work in the development and passage of Title IX.
Kimberlee A. Shauman is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at
the University of California, Davis. Her main areas of interest are
social stratification, family and kinship, demography, sociology of
education, and quantitative methodology. Her research focuses on gender
differences in career development and outcomes with particular attention
to the causal effects of family characteristics. She has recently
published a book, Women in Science: Career Processes and Outcomes
(co-authored with Yu Xie), that examines the underrepresentation of
women in science from a life course perspective. She is currently
studying the sex differences in the career causes and consequences of
family migration and gender differences in the leadership of academic
departments at research universities in the U.S. (with Deb
Niemeier).
Gerhard Sonnert is a research associate in the Department of
Physics at Harvard University. He received master's and doctorate
degrees in Sociology from the University of Erlangen, Germany, and a
Master's in Public Administration from Harvard University. One of his
major research interests there has been the impact of gender on science
careers. That research has resulted in two books (both authored with
the assistance of Gerald Holton): Who Succeeds in Science? The Gender
Dimension and Gender Differences in Science Careers: The Project Access
Study. He currently works with Professor Mary Frank Fox of the
Georgia Institute of Technology on a nationwide study of programs
designed to support women undergraduates in the sciences and
engineering.
Ellen Spertus is an Associate Professor of Computer Science
and Director of the Interdisciplinary Computer Science program at Mills
College (Oakland, CA). During her 2004 sabbatical, she is a visiting
scientist at Google. She received her bachelor's, master's, and
doctoral degrees in computer science from MIT. She is interested in
outreach and reentry programs for girls and women in technology.
Claude Steele is the Lucy Stern Professor of Psychology at
Stanford University. He has done pioneering research on the ways in
which race and gender stereotypes affect self-evaluation and academic
performance in a range of settings. His elegant experimental work has
been pivotal in delineating the mechanisms by which these such
stereotypes can be mobilized and can significantly compromise
standardized test performance. Significantly, he shows that even quite
subtle cues can generate stereotype threat and that this affects women
and African American students who are in the academic vanguard of their
groups. Steele has also played an active role in designing and
implementing strategies for defusing stereotype threat in educational
contexts. For more information about Steele's research interests, see
his website: http://www-psych.stanford.edu/~steele/.
Abigail Stewart is Agnes Inglis Collegiate Professor of
Psychology and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan and
director of the UM ADVANCE project, supported by the NSF ADVANCE program
on Institutional Transformation. She is former director of the Women's
Studies Program (1989-95), of the Institute for Research on Women and
Gender (1995-2002), and former Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in
the College of Literature Science and the Arts at the University of
Michigan (2002-2004). Dr. Stewart has published over 100 scholarly
articles and several books, focusing on the psychology of women's lives,
personality, and adaptation to personal and social changes. Her current
research, which combines qualitative and quantitative methods, includes
comparative analyses of longitudinal studies of educated women's lives
and personalities and a study of race, gender and generation in the
graduates of a Midwest high school.
Susan Sturm is the George M. Jaffin Professor of
Law and Social Responsibility at Columbia Law School, where her
principal areas of teaching and research include employment
discrimination, workplace regulation, race and gender, public law
remedies, and civil procedure. Her current work focuses on rethinking
employment discrimination regulation, exploring the role of law and
lawyers in addressing complex forms of bias, and examining sites for
successful multiracial problem solving. Her recent publications include
Whose Qualified? The Future of Affirmative Action (with Lani
Guinier)(Beacon Press, 2001); Equality and the Forms of Justice (2004);
Learning from Conflict: Reflections on Teaching About Race and Gender
(Journal of Legal Education 2003); Lawyers and the Practice of
Workplace Equity (Wisconsin Law Review 2002); Second Generation
Employment Discrimination: A Structural Approach, (Columbia 2001);
Equality and Inequality (International Encyclopedia of Social Sciences,
2001); and Race, Gender and the Law in the Twenty-First Century
Workplace(1998). She also has developed a website with Lani Guinier,
www.racetalks.org, on building multiracial learning communities.
Virginia Valian is Distinguished Professor of Psychology and
Linguistics at Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City
University of New York (CUNY). She is a cognitive scientist whose
research ranges from first and second language acquisition to gender
differences and gender equity. In her landmark book, Why So Slow?
The Advancement of Women (MIT Press, 1998), she asks why so few
women are at the top of their profession, whether the profession be
science, law, medicine, college teaching, industry, or business. In
answering this question she integrates research from psychology,
sociology, economics, and neuropsychology. Valian is the lead Principal
Investigator on an NSF ADVANCE Award, the "Gender Equity Project" at
Hunter College. For more information about this initiative, visit the
project website at: www.hunter.cuny.edu/genderequity. For more
information about Valian's research interests and publications, visit
her website at:
http://maxweber.hunter.cuny.edu/psych/faculty/valian/valian.htm.
Alison Wylie is Professor of Women's Studies, Barnard College, and of
Philosophy, Columbia University. She is a philosopher of social science
(archaeology), who has a longstanding interest in feminist analyses of
science and in equity issues for women in science. She has published
widely on evidential reasoning in archaeology; a selection of these
essays appear in Thinking from Things (2002). She co-edited
Feminist Science Studies (Hypatia, 2004), has published
related essays in collections such as Science and Other Cultures
(2003) and Science, Technology, Medicine: The Difference Feminism Has
Made (2001), Primate Encounters (2000), Changing Methods:
Feminists Transforming Practice (1995), and Women and Reason
(1992). She has also played an active role in grass-roots and
institutional initiatives designed to document and redress the effects
of workplace environments that are inhospitable for women. She co-edited
Equity Issues for Women in Archaeology (1994), and collaborated
in two projects of the Chilly Collective: an anthology, Breaking
Anonymity: The Chilly Climate for Women Faculty (1995); and a
documentary video, Chilly Climate for Women in Colleges and
Universities (1990). For additional information, see her website: http://bc.barnard.columbia.edu/~awylie/.
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