News & Events
Posted: 19th February 2013
To mark International Women's Week 2013
WiSER Public Lecture
“Approaches to Equality for Women Faculty in Science: Changing Institutions, Changing Individuals – Lessons from the MIT Story"
Professor Nancy Hopkins
Amgen, Inc. Professor of Biology,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
Chair: Professor Linda Hogan, Vice Provost, Trinity College Dublin
European Union House, Dawson St, Dublin 2
6.30 pm, Wednesday 6th March 2013
Attendance is free of charge. To register click here.
Professor Nancy Hopkins will discuss her work as an advocate for women in science over almost two decades since her appointment in 1995 by then-MIT Dean of Science Robert Birgeneau to chair the First Committee on Women Faculty in the School of Science.
At that time only 1 in 12 faculty members in the MIT School of Science were women. A summary of her committee’s findings published in 1999 came to be known as the ‘MIT Report on the Status of Women Faculty in Science’.
This report and the work of the committee paved the way for national efforts within the US which have since substantially increased the numbers of women in science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM), and have inspired countless initiatives globally.
Prof Hopkins will describe barriers to women’s advancement that were identified and how MIT addressed them administratively. Despite enormous progress, effort will still be needed to achieve equity and parity for women in science in the US. Two significant barriers that remain are unconscious bias, which results in exclusion and undervaluation of women, and greater family obligations.About Professor Hopkins
Professor Hopkins is the Amgen, Inc. Professor of biology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy. Prof Hopkins obtained a Ph.D. from Harvard University and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard and at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory. She joined the MIT faculty in 1973. Her lab worked in three areas: mechanisms of leukemogenesis by mouse RNA tumor viruses; genetics of early vertebrate development using the zebrafish; and use of the zebrafish as a cancer model. Currently she is on sabbatical studying cancer prevention. Hopkins has lectured widely in the US, and also in Europe and Asia on the under-representation of women in STEM fields in academia.
In 2000 Hopkins was appointed by then-MIT president Vest to the MIT administration to Co-Chair the first Council on Faculty Diversity with Provost Robert Brown. The resulting efforts by MIT were recognized by US President Clinton and are credited with improvements in the status and number of women faculty at MIT and nationally.
About Professor Linda Hogan
Professor Linda Hogan is Vice-Provost/Chief Academic Officer and Professor of Ecumenics at Trinity College Dublin. She was appointed to the role of Vice-Provost/CAO in September 2011 and as such has overall responsibility for education and research at the university and deputizes for the Provost as required. She coordinates strategic planning, research, undergraduate and postgraduate education, quality and the student experience.
Professor Hogan has degrees from the Pontifical University Maynooth and of Trinity College, Dublin, where she gained her Ph.D. Her primary research interests lie in the fields of theological ethics, human rights and gender. Amongst her recent publications are Religious Voices in Public Places, Oxford University Press, 2009 (edited with Nigel Biggar); Religions and the Politics of Peace and Conflict, Princeton Theological Monographs, 2009 (edited with Dylan Lee Lehrke); and Applied Ethics in a World Church, Orbis, 2008 (ed.) which received the 2009 Catholic Book Award from the Catholic Press Association of the USA and Canada. She is also the author of Confronting the Truth: Conscience in the Catholic Tradition, Paulist Press, 2000 and From Women’s Experience to Feminist Theology, Sheffield, Sheffield Academic Press, 1995, 1998 as well as essays and journal articles in the fields of social and political ethics, feminist theological ethics and intercultural ethics. She has been the co-editor of two special issues of Feminist Theory, i.e. Gendering Ethics/The Ethics of Gender 2001 and Ethical Relations, 2003.
Attendance
Attendance is free and open to all. However places are limited so early booking is advised. Click here to book your place.