Structural, societal, and systemic barriers to the advancement of women have been exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Women’s Economic Forum has estimated that the pandemic has added 36 years, an entire generation, to the time it will take for women to reach economic parity with men. Women in STEM fields, including chemistry, have seen their research progress slow dramatically. Professional and personal burdens have fallen on them more so than their male co-workers; however, many women have demonstrated resilience in the face of these challenges through innovation, creativity, and collaboration.<br/><br/>For the women in our NSF ADVANCE-funded project ASCEND: Advancing STEM Careers By Empowering Network Development, this resilience is strengthened by the community of women in their professional network. Members of the ASCEND steering committee and the 75 grant participants from primarily undergraduate institutions are part of inter-institutional peer mentoring networks in the Midwest, Northwest, and Southeast regions of the United States. Each Regional Network is composed of an Administrator Alliance and four to five discipline-specific Faculty Alliances (Biology, Chemistry, Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, and/or Physics) and include women who identified one or more intersectional factors as barriers to their career advancement. Each Alliance meets remotely on a monthly basis and Regional Networks meet face-to-face annually; however, in this first year, the regional meeting was held virtually.<br/><br/>In this talk, members of the ASCEND steering committee will share: (1) our experiences participating in inter-institutional peer mentoring networks since 2012, (2) why we felt compelled to extend this resource to others, (3) the process of collaborative grant writing, and (4) the early impacts we have seen on the grant participants, including how peer networks provided a sense of inclusion and empowerment which fostered resilience in the face of expected and unexpected challenges.

Supporting innovation, creativity, and collaboration through formal professional networks

ACS Fall 2021

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.