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Credit: Darren Baker
Women are underrepresented among speakers at scientific meetings, but a new study has revealed a way to address this deficit.
An analysis of 460 scientific sessions showed that including at least 1 woman on a convening committee can increase the proportion of female speakers by as much as 86%.
And it significantly reduced the likelihood that a session would have an all-male list of speakers.
Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, and Jo Handelsman, PhD, of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, recounted these discoveries in mBio.
The pair had analyzed data from 2 large meetings sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology—the General Meeting (GM) and the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC).
The data included 1845 speakers at 460 sessions from the annual meetings in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
The researchers classified sessions according to whether they had been convened by 2 men, a man and a woman, or 2 women, then tallied the gender representation among speakers for each symposium.
Despite differences in the operating procedures for the 2 meetings, the results for the GMs and ICAAC meetings closely paralleled one another. For both, there was a positive correlation between the participation of women as session conveners and participation by female scientists in those sessions.
At the 3 GMs, 104 sessions were convened by all-male teams, and 112 sessions had at least 1 female convener.
Sessions convened by 2 men had an average of 25% female speakers. And sessions including at least 1 female convener had an average of 43% female speakers, for a 72% increase in women speakers.
On average, 30% of GM sessions had all-male speakers if the conveners were both males. But 8.9% of the convener teams containing at least 1 woman had an all-male list of speakers (P=0.0002).
At the 3 ICAAC meetings, 145 sessions were convened by male-only teams, and 99 had at least 1 female convener.
Including at least 1 woman in the convening team increased the proportion of female speakers by 74%. Including a women also significantly reduced the number of sessions with all-male speakers (P=0.0042).
Dr Casadeveall cautioned that this study revealed correlations, not proof of causation. And further research is needed to explain why the presence of a woman on a convening committee is correlated with increased numbers of female speakers.
But the data suggest that involving women as conveners could have a significant effect on the gender distribution of the speakers and promote gender equity.
“Meeting program committees could carefully consider the gender composition of those assigned to pull together scientific sessions,” Dr Casadevall said, “and make efforts to involve women scientists as conveners for sessions and symposia.” 
Credit: Darren Baker
Women are underrepresented among speakers at scientific meetings, but a new study has revealed a way to address this deficit.
An analysis of 460 scientific sessions showed that including at least 1 woman on a convening committee can increase the proportion of female speakers by as much as 86%.
And it significantly reduced the likelihood that a session would have an all-male list of speakers.
Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, and Jo Handelsman, PhD, of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, recounted these discoveries in mBio.
The pair had analyzed data from 2 large meetings sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology—the General Meeting (GM) and the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC).
The data included 1845 speakers at 460 sessions from the annual meetings in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
The researchers classified sessions according to whether they had been convened by 2 men, a man and a woman, or 2 women, then tallied the gender representation among speakers for each symposium.
Despite differences in the operating procedures for the 2 meetings, the results for the GMs and ICAAC meetings closely paralleled one another. For both, there was a positive correlation between the participation of women as session conveners and participation by female scientists in those sessions.
At the 3 GMs, 104 sessions were convened by all-male teams, and 112 sessions had at least 1 female convener.
Sessions convened by 2 men had an average of 25% female speakers. And sessions including at least 1 female convener had an average of 43% female speakers, for a 72% increase in women speakers.
On average, 30% of GM sessions had all-male speakers if the conveners were both males. But 8.9% of the convener teams containing at least 1 woman had an all-male list of speakers (P=0.0002).
At the 3 ICAAC meetings, 145 sessions were convened by male-only teams, and 99 had at least 1 female convener.
Including at least 1 woman in the convening team increased the proportion of female speakers by 74%. Including a women also significantly reduced the number of sessions with all-male speakers (P=0.0042).
Dr Casadeveall cautioned that this study revealed correlations, not proof of causation. And further research is needed to explain why the presence of a woman on a convening committee is correlated with increased numbers of female speakers.
But the data suggest that involving women as conveners could have a significant effect on the gender distribution of the speakers and promote gender equity.
“Meeting program committees could carefully consider the gender composition of those assigned to pull together scientific sessions,” Dr Casadevall said, “and make efforts to involve women scientists as conveners for sessions and symposia.”
Credit: Darren Baker
Women are underrepresented among speakers at scientific meetings, but a new study has revealed a way to address this deficit.
An analysis of 460 scientific sessions showed that including at least 1 woman on a convening committee can increase the proportion of female speakers by as much as 86%.
And it significantly reduced the likelihood that a session would have an all-male list of speakers.
Arturo Casadevall, MD, PhD, of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, New York, and Jo Handelsman, PhD, of Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, recounted these discoveries in mBio.
The pair had analyzed data from 2 large meetings sponsored by the American Society for Microbiology—the General Meeting (GM) and the Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC).
The data included 1845 speakers at 460 sessions from the annual meetings in 2011, 2012, and 2013.
The researchers classified sessions according to whether they had been convened by 2 men, a man and a woman, or 2 women, then tallied the gender representation among speakers for each symposium.
Despite differences in the operating procedures for the 2 meetings, the results for the GMs and ICAAC meetings closely paralleled one another. For both, there was a positive correlation between the participation of women as session conveners and participation by female scientists in those sessions.
At the 3 GMs, 104 sessions were convened by all-male teams, and 112 sessions had at least 1 female convener.
Sessions convened by 2 men had an average of 25% female speakers. And sessions including at least 1 female convener had an average of 43% female speakers, for a 72% increase in women speakers.
On average, 30% of GM sessions had all-male speakers if the conveners were both males. But 8.9% of the convener teams containing at least 1 woman had an all-male list of speakers (P=0.0002).
At the 3 ICAAC meetings, 145 sessions were convened by male-only teams, and 99 had at least 1 female convener.
Including at least 1 woman in the convening team increased the proportion of female speakers by 74%. Including a women also significantly reduced the number of sessions with all-male speakers (P=0.0042).
Dr Casadeveall cautioned that this study revealed correlations, not proof of causation. And further research is needed to explain why the presence of a woman on a convening committee is correlated with increased numbers of female speakers.
But the data suggest that involving women as conveners could have a significant effect on the gender distribution of the speakers and promote gender equity.
“Meeting program committees could carefully consider the gender composition of those assigned to pull together scientific sessions,” Dr Casadevall said, “and make efforts to involve women scientists as conveners for sessions and symposia.”