Pandemic May “Roll Back” Women’s Gains in STEMM: NASEM Report

A National Academies study of COVID-19’s effect on academic researchers adds to the evidence that women’s careers have been particularly damaged by the global disruption.

Written byCatherine Offord

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The US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine released a report this week (March 9) showing how disruptions due to the COVID-19 pandemic have taken a toll on women’s careers in research. The document, which runs more than 200 pages and includes survey responses from women in science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM), identified several areas of concern, including decreases in publishing, challenges with work-life boundaries, and mental health problems.

“The evidence available at the end of 2020 suggests that the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic endangered the engagement, experience, and retention of women in academic STEMM,” reads the report summary, “and may roll back some of the achievement gains made by women in the academy to date.”

Through surveys, the report’s organizers collated hundreds of responses from women in academic STEMM about their experiences last year. They concluded that although women’s representation ...

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Meet the Author

Catherine Offord
After undergraduate research with spiders at the University of Oxford and graduate research with ants at Princeton University, Catherine left arthropods and academia to become a science journalist. She has worked in various guises at The Scientist since 2016. As Senior Editor, she wrote articles for the online and print publications, and edited the magazine’s Notebook, Careers, and Bio Business sections. She reports on subjects ranging from cellular and molecular biology to research misconduct and science policy. Find more of her work at her website.
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