Number 34, June 2002

Editor's Introduction

Women in the Atmospheric Sciences

In 2000 I had the opportunity to serve on a "Diversity Task Force" at the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

The UCAR Task Force was motivated by an earlier study conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). The MIT study found that:

The Committee discovered that junior women faculty feel well supported within their departments and most do not believe that gender bias will impact their careers. Junior women faculty believe, however, that family-work conflicts may impact their careers differently from those of their male colleagues. In contrast to junior women, many tenured women faculty feel marginalized and excluded from a significant role in their departments. Marginalization increases as women progress through their careers at MIT. Examination of data revealed that marginalization was often accompanied by differences in salary, space, awards, resources, and response to outside offers between men and women faculty with women receiving less despite professional accomplishments equal to those of their male colleagues. An important finding was that this pattern repeats itself in successive generations of women faculty.

In response to such concerns in science and engineering generally, the National Science Foundation adopted as one of its strategic goals to "strive for a diverse, globally oriented workforce of scientists and engineers … a diverse science and engineering workforce that is representative of the American public and able to respond effectively to a global economy is vitally important to America's future."

With this issue of the WeatherZine we are pleased to offer 2 perspectives on Women in the Atmospheric Sciences. The first is from Joanne Simpson, whose distinguished and successful career makes her one of the leading atmospheric scientists in the nation. The second is from Tracey Holloway, a recently minted Ph.D. (Princeton) who is now at Columbia University. We hope that these essays, and the contrast between them, serve to stimulate discussion on the status of under-represented groups in science and engineering.