© The American Physiological Society - Women in Physiology Committee

Sixteen nominations were received for the fourth Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist award. Members of the Women in Physiology Committee reviewed the nominations and selected Barbara A. Horwitz of Univ. of California, Davis as the 2007 awardee. The awardee received an honorarium of $1,000, a plaque, and reimbursement of expenses to attend the EB 2007 meeting. Horwitz gave a 30-minute talk on mentoring entitled, “Mentoring: Lessons Learned,” and an article based on the lecture will be published in The Physiologist. The lecture was followed by a buffet luncheon to which were invited APS Council members, the former Schmidt-Nielsen Awardees, Horwitz’s nominators and mentees, awardees of the various APS award programs (tum Suden, Minority Travel, Porter Fellows, etc.), other trainees, and guests specified by the awardee. More than 60 physiologists attended the award presentation.

The Women in Physiology Committee received 167 applications for the 2007 Caroline tum Suden/Frances Hellebrandt Professional Opportunity Awards. The number of applications has been steadily increasing over the past few years (113 in 2004, 115 in 2005, 134 in 2006, 167 in 2007; this represents a 48% increase in award applications over three years). These awards provide monetary ($500) prizes and complimentary registration for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows of either gender who give presentations at the 2007 EB meeting. The applications include an abstract submitted for presentation at EB and a supporting letter from the applicant indicating the goals of his/her research project, his/her specific role in the project described in the abstract, and the reasons why he/she is deserving of the award. From that pool of candidates, 36 were selected to be recipients of the tum Suden Award. The awardees were invited to attend the APS Business Meeting where they each received a certificate and a check for $500. Sixty-one per cent of the 2007 awardees are APS members.

The APS Career Mentoring Website continues to be a valuable resource for both women and men trainees who are looking for information and assistance in developing and maintaining a good mentoring relationship with more senior and junior scientists. It has been cited by a national publication as being an excellent resource for mentoring and receives a considerable number of hits each month. A new feature last year for the APS Career Mentoring website was a Mentoring Discussion Board, designed to provide timely and practical career information to young physiologists. Members of the Women in Physiology Committee developed a list of topics and the first topic (“Teaching your First Course”) was posted last November. The discussion board was populated by invited posts from members of the Trainee Advisory, Career Opportunities in Physiology, Education Committees, and the Teaching of Physiology Section Listserv. The Discussion Board was also advertised to the trainees via the Trainee Listserv and the general APS membership in an all-APS email.

In order to enhance visibility of the online discussion board, the Committee will be adding a Mentoring Column in The Physiologist covering the same topic previously posted on the Career Mentoring website. Selected comments generated from the articles will be included in the following issue and posted to the website. The new topics will be published in the Mentoring Column in The Physiologist one to two times per year.

Each year the Women in Physiology Committee co-sponsors a workshop with the ASPET Committee on Women in Pharmacology. For EB 2007, ASPET was the lead organization sponsoring a workshop on “Being Heard: The Microinequities That Tilt the Playing Field.” Two representatives from the Women in Physiology Committee (Kathleen Berecek and Siribhinya Benyajati) and two representatives for the Committee on Women in Pharmacology (Susan F. Steinberg, Holly H. Brevig) served as co-organizers. This year, the program was structured more as a symposium than a workshop and the speakers were rated well (see evaluation results below). Since the session did not include information on how to deal with the equity issues raised by the speakers, the APS Women in Physiology Committee is adding a webpage to the workshop website with suggestions/comments from leaders of the Society and committee members about things women could do to deal with the “microinequities” issues (similar to the online discussion format). Education Office staff will be distributing and collecting responses to the questions and will add them to the webpage.

2007 EB APS/ASPET Women in Physiology and Pharmacology Workshop Topic and Speaker	Mean Rating*
Overview: Women in Academic Science and Engineering – Beyond Bias and Barriers Joan A. Steitz, Yale University	4.5
Leveling the Playing Field: A Focus on Students Barbara A. Horwitz, University of California-Davis	4.2
Institutional Strategies to Improve the Status of Women Jeanine D’Armiento, Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons	4.3
Succeeding in a Male-dominated Environment Florence P. Haseltine, NICHD, NIH	4.2
OVERALL PROGRAM RATING	4.6

As APS is the lead organizer for the joint APS/ASPET Mentoring symposium for 2008, the Women in Physiology Committee consulted with the Trainee Advisory Committee concerning their planned 2008 Trainee Symposium to best meet the needs of APS trainees. The Committee selected a topic of “Gainfully Employed: From Launching a Job Search to Navigating Negotiations” to complement the Trainee Symposium topic of “Marketing Yourself on Paper for Academic Positions.” The organizers will be Siribhinya Benyajati and Colleen Hegg (APS) and Jelveh Lameh (ASPET). As in the past, the APS-led session will include both speakers and interactive activities and will include practical applications/suggestions that trainees can use in their job searches and negotiations.

The Chair of the Women in Physiology Committee serves as the APS representative to the FASEB selection committee for the prestigious FASEB Excellence in Science Award, which carries a $10,000 cash prize (supported by Eli Lilly and Company) and the opportunity to present a plenary talk at a FASEB-sponsored meeting. Competition is very rigorous for this award. Most nominees have extensive dossiers documenting their numerous contributions to research, education, service, and mentoring. Frances Arnold, California Institute of Technology, was the 2007 awardee. The Chair of the Women in Physiology Committee is precluded from coordinating a nomination because of the conflict of interest that this represents. For the 2007 award, members of the Committee (Berecek, Fuller, and Alexander) worked with three APS members to improve their nomination packets. For the 2008 award, 56 applications were received, of which eight were primary APS members. The Committee will continue to work with APS members to enhance their nomination packets.

The Women in Physiology Committee annually reviews the number of women serving on APS Committees and Section Steering Committees. Women members comprise 21% of the APS regular membership. The Committee was pleased to see that there are 82 women serving in 209 committee slots (39%). This is a higher percentage than last year (36%). In addition, as in 2006, eight of the 22 (36%) Committee chairs and four of the 12 members (33%) of the elected Council are women (including the third female President). There are 40 women serving in 123 (33%) steering committee member slots. The Committee will continue to monitor these numbers and encourage the Committee on Committees, the sections, and general membership to continue to include women in governance roles.

The Committee again noted that the number of women among the top Society awardees (Cannon, Bowditch, Distinguished Lectureships) has not been high. There have only been five female Bowditch awardees (1957, 1993, 1995, 1996, 2004) and three female Cannon awardees (2004, 2006, 2007). The Committee submitted nomination packets of outstanding women for both the 2008 Bowditch and Cannon awards. In addition, the Committee will encourage the sections to consider women as Distinguished Lecturers.

The Women in Physiology Committee remains active through conference calls to identify ways to promote the advancement of women and young physiologists in APS, to engage in the mentoring program, to encourage nomination of women for committees of APS and for APS and FASEB awards, and to select awardees for the Bodil Schmidt-Nielsen Distinguished Mentor and Scientist Award and Caroline tum Suden Opportunity Award. The Women in Physiology Committee continues to work to develop its agenda based on the directions outlined in the 2006 Strategic Plan.

2007 Women in Physiology Committee Report