Mind the Gap:
the Advancement of Women in Science, Engineering and Mathematics



Purpose:

Mind the Gap is a project to determine: and to encourage institutional change to accept non-traditional career paths for doctoral scientists and engineers.

Activities:

We collect information on methods and best practices to survive a career break without sacrificing career and personal goals. We are in the process or fine-tuning a survey of people in such breaks whether voluntary or involuntary. Results will be reported to the community.

Request: We are currently interviewing a handful of women in such career breaks. The survey will be expanded to a larger set once we refine the questions.

If you are such a person or know of any such women (must have PhD in science/engineering/math/social science) we'd appreciate being put in contact with you/them or email us at wlp at gwu.edu with the following information:

We have a few criteria for this first group:

We also encourage participation in the FORWARD to Professorship workshop described below or here.

Resources

Our resource page is slowly growing here.

Funding:

We are grateful for funding under the US National Science Foundation ADVANCE Leadership Award #0540801. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the NSF.

The FORWARD in SEM Project

Mind the Gap is a component of the FORWARD in SEM project. The FORWARD in SEM project to advance women in Science, Engineering and Mathematics (SEM) academia was started by Rachelle Heller, Catherine Mavriplis, Charlene Sorensen and H. David Snyder in 1996. The project was funded three times by NSF, first from the Program for Women and Girls and more recently by the ADVANCE program.

The first project was aimed at increasing the number of women in SEM graduate programs. Please visit the (old) website at www.seas.gwu.edu/~forward for more information on this project. In particular, materials from a FORWARD to Graduate School workshop are available for dissemination or adaptation.

The second project was derived from the FORWARD to Graduate School workshop and is a FORWARD to Professorship workshop for pre-tenure women in SEM fields. The highly successful workshop has been run three times nationally in Washington, DC and is oversubscribed every year. Please visit the website at www.seas.gwu.edu/~forward/advance. The last workshop was held May 19-21, 2008. This workshop was also adapted and run for the MIT community on a consulting basis in October 2005. Inquiries for bringing this workshop to your campus or a group of institutions may be directed to Catherine Mavriplis at Catherine.Mavriplis at uottawa.ca

For a report on the 4-year survey administered in Summer of 2007, please see:
C. Mavriplis, C. Beil, K. Dam, R. Heller and C. Sorensen,
An Analysis of the FORWARD to Professorship Workshop - What Works to Entice and Prepare Women for Professorship?,
Women in Engineering and Technology Research, PROMETEA International Conference, 2007. (refereed) download

Related: OU ADVANCE Project

Catherine Mavriplis was also until recently the Principal Investigator and project director for the University of Oklahoma's ADVANCE project. This project is funded by a NSF ADVANCE PAID award and aims to promote institional transformation at the University of Oklahoma and in the Big 12 Conference. Please visit our website at www.ou.edu/advance.