Where Have All the Women Cell Biologists Gone?
Zena Werb immediate past President of the ASCB the author and the American Society for Cell Biology (http://www.ascb.org/ ). For more information contact ascbinfo@as The American Society for Cell Biology prides itself as home for all cell biologists irrespective of gender or ethnicity. The ASCB Annual Meeting and the smaller Summer Meetings typically enjoy about equal attendance of women and men. Graduate students in cell biology disciplines are more than 50% women. Yet in organizing the 2005 Annual Meeting, despite all good intentions and vigilance, the Program Committee had notable difficulty first identifying and then convincing enough women to take on major roles like speaking in symposia or chairing mini-symposia. A similar problem affected the ASCB Summer Meetings. Over the past 1015 years, the proportion of women hired as assistant professors has increased dramatically and their promotion up through the ranks has also accelerated, but the proportion of women faculty is still muc
