Women in the Sciences

In its report issued in May, the University's Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering dramatically highlighted the "leaky...

In its report issued in May, the University's Task Force on Women in Science and Engineering dramatically highlighted the "leaky pipeline" at work in academic science: its data, shown below, demonstrate that plenty of undergraduate women study the natural sciences at Harvard, and women now outnumber men in Medical School and School of Public Health doctoral enrollments. But the tenured professoriate is overwhelmingly male. As hiring increases in the sciences, the gender composition shown here may begin to change, especially if the University succeeds in its announced strategy of appointing more professors from its junior-faculty ranks, where women are more equally represented today. But that, in turn, depends in part on whether conditions for work and research improve for the tenure-track faculty.

 

 

Chart by Stephen Anderson

Most popular

Two Years of Doxxing at Harvard

What happens when students are publicly named and shamed for their views?

Paolo Pasco and the art of making crosswords

Paolo Pasco and the art of making crosswords

A New Narrative of Civil Rights

Political philosopher Brandon Terry’s vision of racial progress

Explore More From Current Issue

Renaissance portrait of young man thought to be Christoper Marlowe with light beard, wearing ornate black coat with gold buttons and red patterns.

Shakespeare’s Greatest Rival

Without Christopher Marlowe, there might not have been a Bard.

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio smiling beside the pink cover of her novel "Catalina" featuring a jeweled star and eye.

Being Undocumented in America

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio’s writing aims to challenge assumptions. 

Nineteenth-century prison ruins with brick guardhouse surrounded by forest.

This Connecticut Mine Was Once a Prison

The underground Old New-Gate Prison quickly became “a school for crime.”