On March 19 the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine held a one day long, online Symposium on Addressing the Underrepresentation of Women in STEMM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, and Medicine). The purpose of the Symposium was to share the results and key findings of a recent study aimed at addressing the underrepresentation of women in STEMM. The study was jointly sponsored by the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and L’Oreal USA.
While many such studies and reports have recently been undertaken, this report differs in that it places a strong emphasis on understanding the issues of intersectionality – i.e. those issues that are particular to women of color or women holding some additional underrepresented identity.
The report is broken down into six chapters that address the following questions: What is the problem? (Chapters 1 and 2), What are possible solutions? (Chapters 3 and 4), Why don’t we see more progress? (Chapter 5), and What can be done to open doors for women in STEMM? (Chapter 6). The committee’s recommendations are “grouped into four broad categories, which are targeted at incentivizing and informing the broad adoption of evidence-based promising practices for improving the recruitment, retention, and advancement of women in science, engineering, and medicine: 1) Driving transparency and accountability, 2) Adopting data-driven approaches to address underrepresentation of women in STEMM, 3) Rewarding, recognizing, and resourcing equity, diversity, and inclusion efforts, and 4) Filling knowledge gaps.”
The full report can be found at: http://nap.edu/25585, with an option for free PDF download.
The Symposium website, containing the agenda as well as speaker bios, can be found at: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/03-19-2020/symposium-on-addressing-the-underrepresentation-of-women-in-stemm.
The video recording of the symposium can be found at: https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/03-19-2020/symposium-on-addressing-the-underrepresentation-of-women-in-stemm.
