When I earned my bachelor’s degree in chemistry in 1977, women comprised 23% of the 11,322 Chemistry degrees awarded that year in the US. In 1982, I was one of only 17 women who earned a PhD in Chemical Engineering in the US. (There were 289 PhD degrees awarded to men in Chemical Engineering that year.) Have we made progress over the past 40 years? From a numbers perspective, yes. In 2013, women earned close to 50% of the 14024 bachelor degrees awarded in Chemistry and 30% of the 1001 doctoral degrees awarded in Chemical Engineering. In 2017, women comprise 16.9% of tenured and tenure track faculty in engineering and 19.2% of tenured and tenure track faculty in chemical engineering. But only 11.8% of full professors in engineering are women. Yes, there has been progress, but we are certainly not ‘there’ yet. Here, I am defining ‘there’ as a point where women comprise 50% of students, graduates, faculty and employees in science and engineering disciplines. ‘There’ is a point where female STEM faculty are not asked if they are a ‘real’ professor. ‘There’ is a point where it is not assumed that a woman was hired only because of her gender. ‘There’ is a point where awarding the Nobel Prize in Physics or Chemistry to a woman will not be viewed as a novelty. In my talk, I’ll share some of my journey over the past 40 years and provide some thoughts on how we can get from ‘here’ to ‘there’.

Award Address (ACS Award for Encouraging Women into Careers in the Chemical Sciences sponsored by The Camille and Henry Dreyfus Foundation, Inc.). Are we 'there' yet?

2019 Spring National Meeting

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