Research on gender biases as a tool for mentoring future ecologists

Background/Question/Methods

Gender biases are common in academia. They are present, for example, in the number of publications and research projects led by women and men, job selection processes, salaries and career progression. One important step for reducing such biases is rising awareness of their existence, and indeed these problems are becoming increasingly acknowledged within the scientific community. Many initiatives and action plans are in place in different countries for reducing this gap, but much is still to be achieved. I propose merging research on gender biases with student mentoring and research training. This approach not only helps bring gender issues in academia to the spotlight, but also allows rising young researchers’ awareness on this topic, while also giving students the concepts and tools necessary to perform high quality research.

Results/Conclusions

I will describe the different approaches I have used in the last years to achieve this goal, giving an overview of the topics that several undergraduate students have explored in their theses under my (and also other colleagues) supervision. All these students applied the scientific method to study gender biases, starting with developing an initial hypothesis, collecting data, and then analyzing it and interpreting the results. Some students focused on publication trends, while others searched for information on editorial boards of different ecology journals, or even evaluated questionnaires on the effect of maternity and paternity on researchers’ career. All questions were explored focusing on gender differences in the scientific community associated with ecological research. Finally, I will also propose other approaches for bringing gender-related issues into the classroom.