Major Grant to Address Barriers to Women in STEM Fields

The Center for Women & Work is proud to announce a joint effort on advancing women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). UMass Lowell, in partnership with the UMass Medical School, has recently received a prestigious ADVANCE award from the National Science Foundation. The 3-year, $750,000 award is focused on creating new quantitative metrics and tools for the assessment of subtle gender biases and other microinequities that affect the progress of women faculty in STEM fields.  
"I view this joint proposal as an example of many current and future partnerships between the UMass campuses – in this case, Lowell and Worcester. This ADVANCE partnership will provide the tools we need to transform UMass Lowell in terms of becoming a supportive environment for women faculty in STEM, as well as for all faculty, by creating the quantitative metrics to know if we are truly developing best practices." ~Provost Ahmed Abdelal
Recent studies have noted the persistent underrepresentation of women in higher ranks of STEM fields, for both industry and academia. Despite many advances in addressing the most visible barriers to increased participation of women, the accumulation of subtle biases over years (“a thousand pounds of feathers”) can have a profound negative effect on women’s career trajectories in STEM.   
The ADVANCE project is led by faculty in Psychology and Sociology and from the Center for Women and Work at UMass Lowell.  Nellie Tran, CWW Associate and Assistant Professor of Psychology, is the PI on the grant; Ivy Ho, Paula Rayman and Meg Bond as well as the Vice Provost for Research Julie Chen (also a professor of Mechanical Engineering) are Co-PIs for the Lowell contributions to the project.  Faculty from UMass Worcester/UMass Medical School include Judith Ockene, Associate Vice Provost for Gender and Equity, Lori Pbert, Sybil Crawford, Rashelle Hayes and Pat Franklin as well as Robert Milner, Luanne Thorndyke from the UMass Worcester Office of Faculty Affairs.   Faculty from the other UMass campuses (Dartmouth, Boston, Amherst) also have been involved in the discussions related to the larger programmatic efforts in addressing women in STEM fields.
The unique collaboration between the University of Massachusetts Lowell and the University of Massachusetts Medical School – combining strong expertise in engineering and the physical and natural sciences, with new advances in social and behavioral sciences -- will achieve a scientific understanding of and metrics for quantifying subtle gender biases. The goal is to refine existing techniques and design new methods to positively affect the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in the STEM disciplines.
The products that result from this project are expected to benefit not only women, but also men faculty in all academic fields; and they will provide the foundation for addressing similar subtle biases in non-academic and international environments.