Taking Action on the STEM Gender Leadership Gap

The University of Kansas April 28th, 2017

 

 

                   

JBB STEM Diversity Advocates: Engenious Design

International Architects Atelier Inc. Plastikon Healthcare, LLC

Boehringer Ingelheim Girl Scouts NE KS NW MO

Westar Energy CFS Engineers

RBC Medical Innovations Avviare

MilliporeSigma Black & Veatch

JE Dunn Construction DST Systems Oncimmune

U.S. Geological Survey Sprint

KCAS Bioanalytical and Biomarker Services Hallmark Cards

                 

What is Jayhawks Breaking Barriers?

The Program Overview: Jayhawks Breaking Barriers (JBB) is a spring 2017 semester-long project at the University of Kansas organized by graduate and postdoctoral students and funded through a Campus Action Grant by the American Association of University Women (AAUW). This project aims to increase awareness of the gender leadership gap in STEM, empower women through leadership and mentoring opportunities, and foster discussion about the gender leadership gap among university women and the community. Fourteen undergraduate women are the core participants of the program In addition to collecting data on the local gender leadership gap in STEM to create infographics for advocacy and awareness, they attended a series of 5 leadership and professional development workshops. The program also incorporated a layered mentorship structure with women at various career stages, including graduate student and postdoctoral mentors who worked closely with the participants throughout the project. JBB Leaders: Haifa Alhadyian, Leadership Curriculum co-Chair, Molecular Biosciences Dr. Katie Becklin, Final Event Planning Chair, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Sofia de la O, Undergraduate Organizer, Chemical Engineering Alexandra Erwin, Lead Organizer, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Aleah Henderson, Final Event Planning Committee co-Chair, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Hannah Kinmonth-Schultz, Leadership Curriculum co-Chair, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Rachel Lietz, Program Evaluation Director, Bioengineering Bailey Spickler, Website Manager, Mechanical Engineering Dr. Jessica Torres, Chief Social Media Officer, Chemistry Lynn S. Villafuerte, Advisor JBB Early Career Mentors: Dr. Camila Campos, Chemistry Kaila Colyott, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Dr. Bethany Gross, Chemistry Andrew Mongue, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Dr. Swathi Pullaguria, Chemistry Dr. Bruce Frederick, Geology Cynthia Siew, Psychology Anges Walsh, Medicinal Chemistry Dr. Lome Jordan, Molecular Biosciences JBB Undergraduate Participants: Anushka Bhattacharya, Electrical Engineering Helen Bontrager, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Claire Byers, Environmental Studies Chantelle Davis, Environmental Geology Marissa Duckett, Microbiology Aleah Estes, Biology Elizabeth Hazelwood, Microbiology Savannah Herring, Mechanical Engineering Ana Huerta, Human Biology Emilia Paz Ojeda, Computer Science Ashleigh Pulaski, Chemistry

 

Tanya Sanchez, Human Biology Emily Smith, Biochemistry Beverly Umeh, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology JBB Professional mentors: Rachel Dercher, Environmental Works Inc. Rebecca Linwood, Merck Animal Health Michelle Martin, ICM Biofuels Angela Furgeuson, Children's Mercy Erin Strait, Merck Animal Health Anna Groover, Biomed Valley Discoveries Kate Christmas, Boehringer Ingelheim Vetmedica, Inc Laura Treml, Aratana Therapeutics Betty Drees, UMKC Kimberly Meyer, KMU Analytics Jill Forrest, Oncology Strategies Kris Cappo, Teva JBB Scholarship Mentors: David Menager, Computer Science Erika Northcutt, Pharmacology & Toxicology Kara Hinshaw, Molecular Biosciences Jennifer Klaus, Molecular Biosciences

 

Schedule

8:30am Sign-in/Registration 9:00am Opening Remarks Welcome and Introduction, Julie Burkhart, the Director of Community

Engagement at KU

9:10am Overview of the Jayhawks Breaking Barriers Initiative, Alexandra Erwin, Ph.D. Candidate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department

9:20am Keynote Address

Career Development Strategies and the Gender Leadership Gap in STEM Dr. Donna J. Dean, Executive Consultant, the Association for Women in Science

10:10am Brunch, Poster Session, and Networking . 10:40am Panel Discussion

Dr. Dyan Morgan, Assistant Director, KU Center for Undergraduate Research Dr. Candan Tamerler, Wesley G. Cramer Professor in Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Kansas Julia Stephanus, Chief Commercial Officer, Aratana Therapeutics Dr. Julie Nagel, President, KU Innovation and Collaboration Dr. Donna J. Dean, Executive Consultant, the Association for Women in Science

11:40am Closing Remarks

Aleah Henderson, Ph.D. Candidate, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department Hannah Kinmonth-Schultz, Postdoctoral fellow, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department

 

Speakers’ Biographies

OPENING REMARKS Julie Burkhart is the Director of Community Engagement at the University of Kansas. Julie’s primary role is to facilitate linkages between KU resources, expertise, and capabilities on the Lawrence, Edwards, and KU Medical Center campuses with Kansas City area leaders to reduce workforce challenges, solve problems by utilizing community-based research and service, and grow entrepreneurship and economic development in this region and beyond. To expand engagement efforts in the communities we serve – with members of the public, community organizations, business and industry, state and local government and others – Julie is also leading an internal cross-campus initiative with faculty and staff to raise awareness on innovative engagement efforts and to increase understanding of the full engagement spectrum. Prior to joining KU, Julie spent 18 years at Sprint in training, leadership development, knowledge management and talent acquisition roles. She also served as president of Sprint’s Women’s Employee Resource Group. Julie was Sprint’s 2013 Diversity Award recipient and was selected for its High Performing Manager Program in 2010. Her academic background includes a bachelor’s degree in family life and human development from Kansas State University and a master’s degree in business communication from Fort Hays State University. Alexandra Erwin is the lead organizer of Jayhawks Breaking Barriers. She is a Ph.D. Candidate in the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department and supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. She has been committed to providing tools for the personal and professional development of early career scientists throughout her academic path. Alex was the lead organizer for a science careers symposium in the spring of 2016, SEARCH, and initiated an REU boot camp effort to familiarize biology undergraduates with basic computing skills useful for scientific research. She is the co-chair of the Early Career Scientist Steering Committee at the Genetics Society of America (GSA). Alex has received awards for her service to KU, including the Graduate Student Distinguished Service Award and the 2017 Kathleen McCluskey-Fawcett Woman Mentoring Women Award from the Emily Taylor Center. KEYNOTE ADDRESS Dr. Donna J. Dean has focused on leadership and talent development, career enhancement, and mentoring strategies for organizations and individuals as Executive Consultant (pro bono) to the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) and as Career Consultant for the American Chemical Society (ACS). She previously was Senior Science Advisor for 5 years with Lewis-Burke Associates LLC, a Washington D.C. based government relations consulting firm. During Dr. Dean’s 27-year career at the National Institutes of Health and Food and Drug Administration, she held senior management positions in NIH’s grants peer review system and was senior scientific advisor to three NIH Directors. In 2001, Dr. Dean was designated the founding/acting Director of the new National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering. In 2004, she was appointed Senior Scholar in Residence at the National Academy of Engineering of the National Academies and Senior Advisor for Engineering to the NIH Director, focusing on the interface of engineering and the health and life sciences.

Dr. Dean is a pivotal leader on scientific and technical workforce issues, in career development and mentoring strategies for scientists, and in women's health. She has written two books that draw upon her career experiences: Equitable Solutions for Retaining a Robust STEM Workforce (Academic Press, 2014) and Getting the Most out of Your Mentoring Relationships: A Handbook for Women in STEM (Springer 2009). Her recent professional activities included the Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the national Board of the Association for Women in Science (2007-2008 national President), the Board of Advisors for Tulane University School of Science and Engineering (2007-2012; now emeritus member), advisor to the joint biomedical engineering program of the University of North Carolina/North Carolina State University, and Board member of the Washington Academy of Sciences. She currently serves on external advisory boards to projects at Middle Tennessee State University and at Florida State University.

Raised on a tobacco farm in eastern Kentucky, Dr. Dean earned the B.A. in chemistry from Berea College, Ph.D. in biochemistry from Duke University, and conducted postdoctoral research in cell and developmental biology at Princeton University. Of all the awards she has received, she is most proud of the Distinguished Alumnus Award from Berea College in 2007 in recognition of her career achievements in the public sector and for her advocacy for historically underrepresented groups in science and engineering.

 

PANEL DISCUSSION Dr. Dyan Morgan is an Assistant Director at the Center for Undergraduate Research at the University of Kansas. At the Center, she focuses on developing, implementing, and evaluating student programs. Through this work, she has the privilege of developing relationships with the students and mentors involved in undergraduate research at KU. Dyan’s academic training and research experience provide a solid foundation for her work supporting students and mentors. She did research, was a Goldwater Scholar, and earned a B.S. in Biology at KU before heading to UW-Madison for a Ph.D. in Cellular and Molecular Biology. At UW-Madison, Dyan received an NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Honorable mention, was an NIH Molecular Biosciences Training Grant trainee, and was a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Teaching Fellow with the Wisconsin Program for Scientific Teaching. Dyan returned to KU as an NIH IRACDA postdoctoral fellow. During this time, she conducted research and mentored students at KU and taught classes at Haskell Indian Nations University. She also started the KU Postdoctoral Association in order to serve a need for professional development opportunities for that community of researchers. Through these varied experiences, Dyan has met many STEM researchers and heard their stories. She looks forward to sharing ideas with the group.  Dr. Candan Tamerler is a Wesley G. Cramer Professor in Mechanical Engineering Department at the University of Kansas (KU). She is the Director of Bio-mediated and Biomimetic Materials at the Bioengineering Research Center (BERC) at KU. Tamerler is also among the leadership team in the Bioengineering Program and serve as the Director of Biomaterials and Tissue Engineering Track. Prior to moving to KU in 2013, she was a Research Professor in the Materials Science and Engineering Department since 2010, and Assistant Director of the Genetically-Engineered Materials Science & Engineering Center (GEMSEC), an NSF MRSEC, at the University of Washington since 2005. Between 2002-2010, she was a Professor and the Chair of Molecular Biology and Genetics Department at the Istanbul Technical University (ITU), concurrently holding a Visiting Professor position in the Materials Science and Engineering Department at the University of Washington. While at ITU, Tamerler founded and served as the Director of the Molecular Biology and Biotechnology Research Center, a multi-disciplinary initiative established in 2004 until she joined to University of Washington as a full time faculty. Combining the molecular biology to materials science, Dr. Tamerler’s research focuses on the engineering of biomolecular systems for design, synthesis and biofabrication of materials in wide range of applications. With more than 125 SCI publications and several patents, her publications received 5500 citations (H-Index: 37). Tamerler is a Fellow both at Turkish National Academy of Sciences and AIMBE (American institute of Medical and Biological Engineering). Julia Stephanus is a 30-year veteran of the veterinary pharmaceutical industry. Julia has been involved in the development and launch of 28 veterinary products. She has been a senior executive in two start-up pharmaceutical companies (Aratana Therapeutics and Summit VetPharm), and held key positions at multi-nationals including Pfizer (now Zoetis) and its legacy companies. As Chief Commercial Officer of Aratana Julia provided the commercial leadership resulting in a successful IPO (NASDAQ:PETX), high-impact corporate branding, innovative go-to-market strategies for five therapeutics and the staffing of the inaugural commercial organization. As founder and CEO of Summit VetPharm, Julia developed and launched a new line of companion animal parasiticides, grew the company to a cash flow positive position with 85 employees in five years and divested the company to Ceva Animal Health in 2010. A graduate of Indiana University, she has continued her executive training at Harvard, Columbia, Chicago and the Wharton School of Business. Dr. Julie S. Nagel is the President of KU Innovation and Collaboration and Associate Vice Chancellor for Innovation & Entrepreneurship at the University of Kansas. In this role, she leads a university-wide strategy to drive entrepreneurship and the partnering and translation of faculty technology. Dr. Nagel oversees the intellectual property, company formation, and corporate engagement offices at KU. She previously held the role of Executive Director of Corporate Partnerships at KU where she consolidated industrial relations and implementing large scale programs to involve industry in translational research in areas of excellence at KU. Prior to KU, she was the Managing Director of the Oncological Sciences Center in Discovery Park at Purdue University. She received a Ph.D. from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in Environmental Toxicology where she was the recipient of an International Philanthropy Education Organization (PEO) Scholar Award, University of Tennessee Science Alliance Award for Outstanding Scholarly Achievement by a Graduate Student, and an Arthur E. Yates Graduate Fellowship. She did postdoctoral training at the Institute of Toxicology at Wayne State University. Dr. Nagel left the University as the 13th employee of a start-up company from the University of Michigan and has worked as a consultant to foster growth of startup companies. Dr. Donna J. Dean, Executive Consultant at the Association for Women in Science.

 

JBB Infographics

1. Super Bleak: Investigating gender distribution of faculty in engineering departments from United States universities. Elizabeth Hazelwood and Anuskhka Bhattacharya

2. How does the gender composition of life science companies compare to computer science? Aleah Estes

3. Gender Gap in the Lawrence and Kansas City Environmental Workforce. Chantelle Davis and Claire Byers

4. Gender Gap in Faculty Positions in Midwestern Universities of the United States. Tanya Sanchez and Emily Smith

5. Inequality in Ecology: A study comparing 22 Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Programs. Helen Bontrager

6. Gender Gap in Leadership Roles within STEM Careers. Ashleigh Pulaski and Ana Huerta

7. Gender Gap in STEM Startups. Savannah Herring and Emilia Paz Ojeda

8. Women Blooming in Biology. Beverly Umeh and Marissa Duckett

 

Directions and Parking

The Lied Center Pavilion 1600 Stewart Drive Lawrence, KS 66045 Directions: Directions to the Lied Center can be accessed through Google maps or via a PDF of driving directions. Links to both are located below. The Lied Center Pavilion is located on the east side of the Lied Center and can be accessed via the external doors on the east side of the building or through the main entrance.

Parking: Parking for symposium attendees will be available, free of charge, in Lots B, C, & D of the Lied Center Parking lot. Please see the photo below for the locations of Lots B, C, & D. In the event that symposium attendees do receive a parking ticket during the event, please contact JBB Leadership.