The Center for the Education of Women hosted their first open forum on women in science yesterday with three women faculty researchers as well as University students.
The event involved talks from Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni, assistant professor of geological sciences; Joanna Mirecki-Millunchick, assistant professor of material science and Engineering; and Helen Pass, assistant professor of surgery.
Although the panel focused mainly on these women's individual careers as engineers, surgeons and geologists, a primary topic was the decreasing trend for men and especially women participating in the scientific fields.
"Education has become the highest import" in the United States, said sociology Prof. Muge Gocek as she noted the decreasing numbers of men and women in the sciences and the fact that many companies are now forced to hire internationally.
Gocek and audience members engaged in a discussion which established the importance for both genders to apply themselves more and the need for science oriented individuals in the work force.
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| DANNY KALICK/Daily Assistant geological sciences Prof. Carolina Lithgow-Bertelloni speaks in West Hall yesterday at a forum focusing on women in science. |
"I taught a first-year level on geology and the importance of knowing more about the environment. At the end of the semester, many students told me they would have never cared about the environment as they did at the end of class because they know so much more about the situation and the politics," she said.
Lithgow-Bertelloni referred specifically to voting issues on global warming and other environmental hazards.
"Dialogues like this are important. I am pleasantly surprised to listen to these women and see that the science fields, unlike what many have thought throughout the years, is not just geeked-out men," Mirecki-Millunchick said.
Carol Hollenshead, director of the Center for the Education of Women, described the event as "terrifically important" to women within different specialties and careers.
"It is so exciting to see the interest between the scientists and nonscientists," she said.
Hollenshead also pointed out the need for more women to involve themselves within the engineering and material science fields.
"The biological fields are reaching a parody. Top 20 (Education) schools around the nation now have 45 percent women enrolled," she said.
But Pass, also the director of the University breast cancer department, spoke of the changes needed within even the medical and biological fields of science.
She maintained that even though many more women are acquainting themselves with the biological sciences, much more research should be performed on women within the clinical trials.
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