Deadline for applications: 10 Jan 2020
Introduction
Women earn 41 percent of PhDs in STEM fields, but make up just 28 percent of tenure-track faculty. A persistent problem in academia is the disproportionate fraction of qualified women who leave science as they move up the educational and higher education career ladder. The worldwide loss of women in STEM, specifically from the transition from postdoctoral and junior faculty to senior faculty stages of their careers, has been explained by various reasons including: work-life balance conflicts, hostile environment from co-workers, gender discrimination, few professional development opportunities, and a lack of role models and mentors.
Without mentors or role models, women receive limited advice about career and personal development. Mentoring can help address the feelings of isolation and marginalization that women in academic settings often report. A mentor guides and becomes a colleague that a mentee can depend on and trust. In a 2017 study, women in engineering, who had been assigned a female mentor, experienced more belonging, motivation and confidence, better retention in science, and greater career aspirations than women assigned either a male mentor, or no mentor at all. When more junior level professionals are motivated and confident and have positive mentors and role models, they are also more likely to successfully win awards for research funding, aiding their movement up the professional career ladder.
Approach
The PEER Women in Science Mentoring Program invites cohorts of female scientists, consisting of one senior faculty member as the mentor, and 2-4 junior faculty with complementary research focus from the same university, to apply for this mentorship program. Selected cohorts will attend a three-day training that can include topics such as mentoring for career success, networking, negotiation, communication skills, publishing research, and applying for research awards. The training concludes with each cohort creating a 12-month, mentee led plan for cohorts to meet monthly to focus on personal and professional development skills to increase career success such as work-life balance, lab management, and proposal writing .
The combination of the skills acquired from the training and the insights provided through the year-long mentorship experience will result in female scientist cohorts who are better equipped to not only remain, but excel in their STEM careers. The Women in Science Mentoring Program also includes a seed funding opportunity open only to mentees in the program. Upon successful completion of the program, mentees have the opportunity to compete for seed grants of $10,000 each. These awardees are required to mentor more junior colleagues as part of the seed funding, leading to a sustainable, pay-it-forward model.
2019 Focus Area - TB related research in Asia
The 2019 PEER Women in Science Mentoring Program has chosen tuberculosis (TB) as its area of focus and will support networks of female scientists conducting research on the development and uptake of effective tools and approaches for preventing, detecting, and treating TB. We encourage applicants from diverse academic backgrounds including, but not limited to, the behavioral and social sciences, public health and medical sciences, life and earth sciences, and computer, engineering or physical sciences.
For more details, or to apply, visit the call webpage.