Overview: MPOWIR (Mentoring Physical Oceanography Women to Increase Retention) is a community-led program aimed at providing mentoring to junior women in physical oceanography in order to improve their retention in the field. Initiated in 2004, MPOWIR activities started in earnest in 2007. The objectives of the program, as determined by the community in the 2005 planning workshop are: (1) to provide continuity of mentoring from a young woman's graduate career, through her postdoctoral years to the first years of her permanent job, (2) to establish a collective responsibility within the physical oceanography community for the mentoring of junior women in the field, (3) to provide a variety of mentoring resources and mentors on a variety of issues, (4) to cast a wide net to avoid exclusiveness and (5) to open this mentoring program to all those who self-identify as a physical oceanographer.
Intellectual Merit: The MPOWIR program, through its focus on the retention of women in the field of physical oceanography, will allow further capitalization on the investment the funding agencies and universities have made on the education of women students. Essentially, this project seeks to stem the loss of intellectual capital for the physical oceanographic field, as well as other geoscience disciplines through the following activities:
1.Pattullo conference: This biannual conference brings together about 25 junior women physical oceanographers, together with 12 senior physical oceanographers, both male and female, for a 2.5 day meeting focused on discipline-based mentoring. 2.Mentoring groups: Groups of about 6 junior women and 2 senior women physical oceanographers meet for a monthly teleconference, for the purpose of confidential, personalized mentoring. 3.MPOWIR website: The website serves as a repository of resources for mentoring and physical oceanography careers. 4.Databases and surveys: Regular surveys are conducted to assess the effectiveness of MPOWIR activities, determine community mentoring needs, and evaluate progress in retention. 5.Town Hall meetings and socials: Events at the Ocean Sciences meeting facilitate networking between physical oceanographers and provide career development information to junior scientists.
The website and town hall meetings are open to all, and greater emphasis will be placed on making material available via the website, to ensure a gender-neutral benefit. Efforts to export the MPOWIR model to other disciplines and institutions will be undertaken via links with the Earth Science Women's Network, and through a new quarterly newsletter. Social media will be used to publicize MPOWIR activities, announcement and events.
Broader Impacts: This proposed work aids efforts to create a scientific workforce whose diversity more closely matches that of the student population and that of the U.S. population as a whole, by aiding the retention of women in the field of physical oceanography and other geoscience disciplines.
