Making Science Fair: How Can We Achieve Equal Opportunity for Men and Women in Science? - Softcover

Robert Leslie Fisher

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0761837957 ISBN 13: 9780761837954

Publisher: University Press of America, 2007

Synopsis

American prosperity and military superiority cannot be maintained with the current shortage of scientists with advanced degrees. How we arrived at this crisis-the embedding of scientific research at male-dominated universities-is less important than what we do to redress it. Approximately ten percent of full professors in the S.T.E.M. disciplines in the United States, and four percent of full professors in physics and engineering, are women, one of the lowest rates among highly developed nations. Top scientists with African-American, Latino, or American Indian ancestry are barely represented. Ultimately, the solution to this gender imbalance is to recruit more native-born women and underrepresented minorities for senior positions in American science.

First, we need to attract more women and minorities to pursue advanced degrees. Equally important are new tools to evaluate scientists throughout their careers to replace the unreliable simple count of publications. It merely measures the number of collaborators of a scientist, where men have an overwhelming advantage. Drawing primarily on the literature in program evaluation, the author presents two proposed metrics that would more accurately represent the research contributions of women scholars.

About this title

About the Author

Robert Leslie Fisher is an independent researcher and author of The Research Productivity of Scientists and Invisible Student Scientists. He attended Stuyvesant High School, a special school for science-oriented students, and has degrees in sociology from City College of New York (B.A. cum laude), and Columbia University (M. Phil.). Prior to retiring in 2003, Fisher had a varied career as a criminal justice planner, research contracts officer, and program evaluator in New York State government. He is now an author and director of a nonprofit consulting organization in the Capital District of New York. Fisher is the author of three previous nonfiction books about the gender gap in science, all published by University Press of America, and has contributed articles on medical research. He also published Vanilla Republic, a mystery novel.

Edition details

• Publisher: University Press of America
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0761837957
• ISBN 13: 9780761837954
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 125