It's always a shock to realize that you're in the wrong. As this issue was going to press, I found myself tut-tutting at the data that Phoebe Leboy presents elsewhere in this issue on the number of women scientists in the more senior positions at academic institutions. At the end of 2006, Harvard Medical School had no women among 23 tenure-track faculty in cell biology and biochemistry/ molecular pharmacology. Two have joined since then, but that's still a scandalous figure. The number of female assistant professors at the University of Pennsylvania has dropped from 18 to four in the last eight years? Shocking! Why don't the crusty old beggars that run research play fair?
Then I became uneasy: What is my own record in recognizing senior female researchers? The answer is, very poor. At The Scientist one of the ways of acknowledging leadership in the life sciences is to invite ...
