Back in March (March 8, 2016), Dr. Jo Handelsman, Associate Director for Science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, and (see more here) Howard Hughes Medical Institute Professor and Frederick Phineas Rose Professor in the Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology at Yale University, gave a seminar at Johns Hopkins. The talk, made possible through a Diversity Innovation Grant from the Johns Hopkins Diversity Leadership Council, was titled The Fallacy of Fairness: Confronting Bias in Academic Science. We are fortunate that a video of the talk is now available. Handelsman, who has done important research on women and minorities in STEM fields, discusses the strengths that diversity offers, scientists’ claim to meritocracy, how unconscious bias weakens the STEM pipeline, and offers actions and policies to confront and address bias.

The video is 80 minutes long including introductions and the question and answer session that followed Handelsman’s talk. Among the many thought-provoking points Handelsman made, it was particularly interesting to learn that women are equally as likely as men to be unconsciously biased towards other women when it comes to hiring, mentoring, and awarding salaries. Moreover, the unconscious bias holds across all types of educational. Although Handelsman focuses on STEM disciplines, the message is an important one for all in the academy.

I’d also like to point you to the blog edited by Dr. Karen Fleming, Professor in the Johns Hopkins University Department of Biophysics, Overcoming Bias & Barriers to Women in Science / Achieving Gender Equity in Science. Dr. Fleming was one of the organizers of the Handelsman seminar, along with JHU Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering Professor Jeffry J. Gray, and Julia Koehler Leman, postdoctoral fellow, and Dominic Scalise,  graduate student, both in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering.  Also of interest on this topic is the video of a talk by Dr. Fleming given at the October 2014 JHU Diversity Conference: Achieving Gender Equity in STEM: How Can Women Move Beyond Bias & Barriers?

**********************************************************************************

Macie Hall, Senior Instructional Designer
Center for Educational Resources

Image source: Poster for Dr. Jo Handlesman JHU seminar, March 8, 2016.