Ken Houk of UCLA and Cynthia Friend of Harvard University are supported by the NSF Chemistry Division's Special Projects Office to organize a workshop on "Tapping the Female Talent Pool for Academic Chemistry." The workshop will (1) discuss and document the shortage of women in academic chemistry and the need for more women on chemistry faculties; (2) enable sharing among participants of proven means for attracting women into academic chemistry careers; and (3) explore new ways to draw women to chemistry faculties at major research institutions in the U.S.
Chemistry departments continue to have low numbers of female faculty members despite considerable increases in recent undergraduate and doctorate chemistry degrees to women (currently about 50% and 33 %, respectively). The workshop will present evidence that research and teaching are improved when academic chemistry faculties come from a larger and more diverse talent pool. The workshop is viewed as having potentially broad impact not only within chemistry, but other disciplines as well.
