This award to the University of Oregon by the NSF Chemistry Division's Special Projects Office supports activities by the Committee on the Advancement of Women Chemists (COACh) to increase the number and success of women in the academic chemistry arena. This award is co-funded by NSF's Divisions of Materials Research, Physics, and Chemical and Transport Systems, and NIH's National Institute of General Medical Sciences. This project, under the direction of Prof. Geri Richmond, will (1) develop and offer professional skills workshops that will assist women chemists in achieving their full career potential at the graduate, postdoctoral, and faculty levels; (2) target minority women chemists through professional meetings with high minority attendance; (3) assess the short and long term impacts of these workshops and disseminate the results to the scientific community; (4) assist with transformational change in departments and institutions to insure the recruitment and retention of underrepresented groups in science; (5) foster and strengthen mentoring and networking among women academic chemists; and (6) partner with other organizations on gender equity issues in science. The broader goal of this project is to have successful COACh programs transferred to other science and engineering disciplines.
