KAREN SCHLOSS
Enhancing the Success of Women in Vision Science: Females of Vision, et al. (FoVea)
1645442
Females of Vision et al. (FoVea) is a new group created to advance the visibility, impact, and success of women in vision science. The ratio of women to men in the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) is near equal at the pre-doctoral level (1:1.13) but decreases as career stage increases (Cooper & Radonjić, 2016). The decline is symptomatic of forces that impede the professional development of female vision scientists. FoVea is conducting activities on several fronts to counter these negative forces, which we will present in this video. First, we established the FoVea Travel and Networking Award (supported by NSF) to help female vision scientists build their professional network. The award provides financial support for attending the VSS annual meeting and encourages applicants to network with faculty there. Second, FoVea identifies competitive females for the prestigious VSS Young Investigator award and contacts their former advisors to encourage their nomination. Historically, females have been far less likely to be nominated for this award and we are working to reduce this gender gap. Third, FoVea has established a satellite meeting during the VSS annual meeting, which hosts panels and discussions on topics of professional development. These topics are relevant to all members of the community but are aimed to address issues that might impede the success of females. Through these efforts, FoVea aims to raise awareness of gender disparity in the sciences and build a community of scientists of all genders who work together to enhance the success of females in vision science.
Enhancing the Success of Women in Vision Science: Females of Vision, et al. (FoVea)
1645442
Females of Vision et al. (FoVea) is a new group created to advance the visibility, impact, and success of women in vision science. The ratio of women to men in the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) is near equal at the pre-doctoral level (1:1.13) but decreases as career stage increases (Cooper & Radonjić, 2016). The decline is symptomatic of forces that impede the professional development of female vision scientists. FoVea is conducting activities on several fronts to counter these negative forces, which we will present in this video. First, we established the FoVea Travel and Networking Award (supported by NSF) to help female vision scientists build their professional network. The award provides financial support for attending the VSS annual meeting and encourages applicants to network with faculty there. Second, FoVea identifies competitive females for the prestigious VSS Young Investigator award and contacts their former advisors to encourage their nomination. Historically, females have been far less likely to be nominated for this award and we are working to reduce this gender gap. Third, FoVea has established a satellite meeting during the VSS annual meeting, which hosts panels and discussions on topics of professional development. These topics are relevant to all members of the community but are aimed to address issues that might impede the success of females. Through these efforts, FoVea aims to raise awareness of gender disparity in the sciences and build a community of scientists of all genders who work together to enhance the success of females in vision science.
Ami Radunskaya
I love this video! Replace "Vision Scientist" by "Mathematician", and your project looks a lot like ours. Ami Radunskaya (WATCH US project).
Kathryn Hobbs
Here is the link to the WATCH US presentation page and video: http://includes2017.videohall.com/presentations/835
Karen Schloss
Agreed, thanks for calling our attention to your video! It is exciting to see similar efforts to advance females in other STEM areas!
Jeanne Century
Director/Research Associate Professor
Hi Karen - your video really helped me get a quick understanding of the problem and your strategy for raising the profile of women in the vision sciences. I'm interested in hearing more about how you are going to be measuring the impact of your efforts? What metrics will you be following over time?
I'm also curious to know if you are focusing on women already in vision sciences or if any part of your work is focused on engaging more women?
Thanks! Jeanne
Karen Schloss
Hi Jeanne - I'm glad to hear our video helped give you quick understanding of our approach!
There are several metrics we will track, which will help measure FoVea's impact.
1. We will continue to track the ratios of females to males who register for our annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS) over time. In 2016 Emily Cooper (Dartmouth) and Ana Radonjic (U Penn) published an article on gender differences in VSS registration using data from 2004-2015 (http://jov.arvojournals.org/article.aspx?articl...). They plan to continue to compile and analyze registration data, and we can look for changes in the trajectories since FoVea’s first event at the VSS meeting in 2016.
2. We will track the number of women being nominated for awards in the society each year (Young Investigator Award, Ken Nakayama Medal for Excellence in Vision Science), as well as the number of females who win these awards.
3. We will track the proportion of females on symposia panels and giving oral presentations at meetings over time. There have been gender differences in these metrics in past, and we are optimistic that we will already start to see changes, given the recent level of discussion about these concerns in the Society.
4. We will be developing a questionnaire to track other key advances beyond those provided by meeting statistics, for example gaining a better understanding of career pathways for women in vision science, the extent of diversity within women in vision science, and numbers of women invited to give colloquia at other institutions.
Joni Falk
Center Co-Director
This video was great. I knew very little about the field of vision science but your video made me interested in finding out more and I now know that this rich field that encompasses a broad range of disciplines including visual psychophysics, neuroscience, computational vision and cognitive psychology. Your graphics were effective in highlighting the need to increase females, especially in graduate programs and faculty appointments. I particularly liked that your provided concrete ideas as to how to help females such as nominating young female investigators to be recognized, teaching females how to negotiate successfully, how to navigate tenure and promotion, and how to raise a family while pursuing a career. How will you measure your success of your intervention?
Karen Schloss
Hi Joni - I'm excited to hear that our video sparked your interest in Vision Science, and thank you for highlighting the broad range of research areas in our field!
We will measure the success of our intervention by tracking several measures and looking for changes in trajectories in the ratios of females to males who (1) register for the Vision Science Society at different levels of membership (predoctoral, postdoctoral, regular) as in Cooper and Radonjic (2016); (2) are nominated for awards in the Society and who win those awards; (3) organize and participate in member-initiated symposium panels; and (4) request to give talks (as opposed to posters) in their conference submission and are who are assigned talks (as opposed to posters). There are further details in my response to Jeanne above.
We would be interested to hear your thoughts on further ways we could measure the success of our intervention and we are very open to suggestions.
Carolyn Brinkworth
Great video. Can I ask how you're addressing intersectionality of gender with race, sexual orientation, disability, and other identities? I love that you're hosting a workshop to teach career skills, and a vital part of that is how to navigate all the biases we still see in science against folks whose identities intersect with gender, i.e. racism plays a huge part as well, and if we're not addressing it along with the sexism, we're leaving women of color behind. I'm curious how you're planning to address this in your workshops and ensure that women of color, sexual/gender minorities and women with disabilities are fully included and supported.
Karen Schloss
Thank you for this important question.
We are trying, whenever possible, to have diverse panel/workshop members, and we will be featuring women from as many diverse backgrounds as possible. We are ensuring that issues related to intersectionality are addressed directly in discussions. For example, in our first panel session to be held in May, one of the speakers is a Latina female scientist. The other speaker is a white female scientist, but she has extensive experience in equity, diversity, and inclusivity issues. Issues of race, disability, nationality, and gender will be addressed directly. In future years, we will specifically target women from under-represented groups as potential candidates for prizes and awards, and look to increase the diversity of our steering committee. We welcome your input, and we would be grateful for any suggestions you may have for how to help ensure that those of color, sexual/gender minorities, and with disabilities are fully included and supported.Mia Ong
Senior Research Scientist
Hi Karen. What an entertaining and informative video! Your project's aim to have more women be nominated for awards reminded me of the Association for Women In Science's Advancing Ways of Awarding Recognition in Disciplinary Societies (AWARDS) Project (sponsored by NSF-ADVANCE), which successfully partnered with disciplinary societies to recognize more women with awards. Perhaps you could connect with them and share best practices. I admit that I'm a little circumspect by FoVea's plan to approach (presumably, predominantly male) advisors of women to suggest they nominate women for Vision Sciences awards. Given the well-documented gender bias in STEM, I believe it might take more than a nudge. On a related note, how will you track the nominations -- i.e., whether they happen or not -- and their outcomes? What will be your metrics? Thanks.
Karen Schloss
Hi Mia, I'm glad you enjoyed our video! Thank you for letting us know about the AWARDS Project sponsored by NSF-ADVANCE, it would be great to connect with them and learn about their approach.
I understand why you are circumspect by our plan to encourage senior members to nominate their female advisees for the Young Investigator Award. However, in our experience so far, the support from male and female senior advisors has been overwhelmingly positive. When we send our emails to encourage them to nominate their advisees, they respond with great enthusiasm and have gone on to follow through with the nominations.
Two years ago there was a discussion at VSS about the gender imbalance in the Young Investigator Award nominations, and it emerged that male young investigators may be more likely to ask to be nominated by their advisors. Many females in the discussion did not even consider the possibility that advisees might ask their advisors to be nominated. We realized that if the gender imbalance stems, at least in part, from the level of encouraging advisors to submit nominations, we could help by raising awareness of this issue and encouraging more female nominations.
We will track ratio of females to males who are nominated for awards in the Society to see if there are changes since we began encouraging advisors to nominate female advisees in 2016. The Vision Sciences Society has been extremely helpful in providing data needed to track such trends.
Mia Ong
Senior Research Scientist
Hi Karen! Thanks for your detailed answer. I'm quite impressed that you have already gotten positive responses with follow-through. Given what we know about gender schemas, it makes sense that men will ask to be nominated more often than women. Will your project provide any training to women to self-nominate? Are you in contact with the women on whose part you are currently seeking nominations? And what about the other end of the spectrum -- senior awards, VSS conference keynote addresses, positions on boards, etc.? What are gender ratios for these? Do you have any plans to advocate on behalf of women?
Shannon Alfaro
Hi Karen!
I appreciate how methodical your approach is, and the concrete steps you've outlined for your pilot. I'm curious to know if FoVea will include a behavioral/cognitive component to gauge/counteract any self-limiting beliefs that the women in your cohort may be operating by. This is a topic/area that our pilot, WATT, will be including, and would be interested in collaborating/learning from other pilots as well.
Shannon Alfaro - Women Advancing Through Technology
http://includes2017.videohall.com/presentations...
Karen Schloss
Hi Shannon,
Thank you for calling our attention to the WATT program, we would be excited to learn more about your approach to gauging and counteracting self-limiting beliefs that might impede the success of women in STEM.
One approach we are currently taking is to address these issues during panel discussions at our annual meeting of the Vision Sciences Society (VSS). This year we will have a panel on "Negotiation: when to do it and how to do it successfully," which will address some of the self-limiting beliefs that may dissuade individuals from engaging negotiation at various stages of their career.
We would be interested to hear your thoughts on other ways to include a behavioral/cognitive component, and we are open to suggestions.
Janice Jackson
education consultant
Karen, this project is quite an interesting approach to increase the number of women in the vision science. I do not know much about the term. It would be helpful to have a little more info.
I also had a question about intersectionality. Why is that an idea to be attended to in year two? What holds you back about attention to it in the initial phase. All the best as you move forward.
Karen Schloss
Hi Janice,
Thank you for your questions! Vision Science is the study of how how organisms see, and how vision relates to cognition and action. It is a multidisciplinary field, including Psychology, Neuroscience, Computer Science, Biology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Cognitive Science, and other related disciplines.
We will directly address intersectionality at our satellite event at the Vision Society Meeting this May. The event will be a panel on "Negotiation: When to do it and how to do it successfully." In the comment above where I mentioned future years, I was referring to nominations for awards and prizes--all of the nominations for the Vision Sciences Society are closed for this year (we have a yearly cycle), but we will address intersectionality in our next cycle.
Janice Jackson
education consultant
Karen, thank you for such a clear explain of vision science. I am fascinated by the field as you've explained it. I was in the dark. I want to learn more about it. I wish you well as you forward. There is much that can be learned as new eyes raise new research questions.
Further posting is closed as the event has ended.