Empowering Women in Science and Engineering (EWISE) video

Great video produced by Cornell University discussing how featured panelists attain work-life balance, including how they incorporate children into their overall career goals. Watch and get some great info! Note: each video is about 1 hour in length.

Empowering Women in Science and Engineering (EWISE) Part 1

Empowering Women in Science and Engineering (EWISE) Part 2

Attend the SACNAS 2010 conference with a travel scholarship for minorities!

I was looking for opportunities to attend a conference this year and found this video that showcases the goals of SACNAS (Society for Advancing Hispanics/Chicanos and Native American in Science) as an organization in general and what can be expected from attending the SACNAS National Conference, which will be held September 30- October 3, 2010 in Anaheim, CA.  If you are interested in attending the conference, apply for a SACNAS Travel Scholarship before April 29, 2010, which will cover your hotel and roundtrip airfare to/from Anaheim.  Both undergraduate and graduate students are eligible.  Also, if you are not of Hispanic/Chicano or Native American heritage, do not be discouraged to apply for the travel scholarship! SACNAS supports all minority scientists, which is made evident on their website:

"SACNAS serves, supports, and is made up of researchers, students, educators, and administrators at all levels of education and career stage from diverse ethnic, racial, gender, cultural, and sexual orientation backgrounds."

For more details, visit the SACNAS website!
 

Google's JourKnol, an alternative for publishing in science academia

The phrase "publish or perish" makes me shudder.  In my field, you can be the hardest worker, conduct the most exciting research, but if you do not publish your findings in a high impact journal, then it is as if you did not accomplish anything.  As I near completion of my PhD studies, "publish or perish" resounds in my ears every single day.  I know that the future of my career (new positions, ability to get funding, etc.) will depend on which scientific peer-reviewed journal my four plus years of research gets published in.  In about a month, my manuscript will be written and submitted to a journal.  If I am extremely lucky, then it will be accepted and published.  The likelihood of this happening is slim and the next best case scenario is that reviewers may request additional experiments prior to publication.  The worst that can happen is that the manuscript is rejected and I may have to re-submit my manuscript to a different journal for publication.  And so this is the process that we researchers go through to simply share our research with others.  Well, actually we go through this process so that we will have the most crucial evidence of our worth as researchers, our publication(s)... in hopefully a top-tier journal, of course. This is just how it works, right? 

Well, maybe not for long because I just came across this product that Google offers called JourKnol, which may one day become an alternative to the traditional publishing forum utilized in academia. JourKnol is different because as the article JourKnol challenges the medical journals' stronghold states,

"the author simply creates the content, loads it in, and clicks “Publish” – no peer review, no rejection, no delay, and no relinquishing copyright. And, from the moment they publish their Knol, authors...could upload the information and publish it and still get peer-reviewed. 

But how would publishing in JourKnol affect your career?? Will the scientific community value your research if it is published in JourKnol? The article, JourKnol challenges the medical journals' stronghold, addresses this concern by saying that the,

"traditional journals’ enviable position as the sole arbiters of the quality and impact of an author’s work may be challenged by web-derived measures of the impact of individual “articles,” such as number of hits, number of links, and reader ratings and comments.... The point is this: peer review, that most sacred of academic rituals, might ultimately be replaced by real-time rankings by experts"

To read the complete article, click here.

Scholarships for women and minorities

 

For the most updated funding opportunities, be sure to click on "fellowships and scholarships" in the label cloud ----->

 If you would like to share a funding opportunity, please send an email to Minority.Scientist(at) gmail.com and include the funding organization and a link to the website where the information can be located. Thanks!   

• FREE scholarship databases (via UCSF student financial aid office website)
  CareerMD: Provides career management resources for medical students, residents, and doctors. It features FellowshipFIND, a comprehensive database of fellowships related to different medical specialties.
  
  FastAid: A scholarship search database co-sponsored by David Cassidy, author of The Scholarship Book. FastAid is helpful to international students.
  
  FastWEB: An extremely popular database with more than 1.5 million scholarships, fellowships, grants, and loans. Students can set up a mailbox with personalized information so that they may check for new awards and update their portfolio periodically. New scholarship information can be e-mailed to students.
  
  FinAid: The SmartStudent Guide to Financial Aid: An extremely comprehensive guide to all student financial aid information and free scholarship, grant, and fellowship search databases. This website offers advice on college education planning and scholarship scam alerts.
  
  GrantsNet: Useful for medical and graduate students interested in biomedical or life sciences research funding, postdoc toral scholars, and research administrators. GrantsNet allows users to save and update their scholarship profile and to receive e-mail alerts about new funding opportunities. Useful for international students.
  
  IEFA: International Education Financial Aid: Scholarships and private loans for international students and students interested in studying abroad. Some are also available to U.S. citizens and permanent residents.
  
  NextStudent Scholarship Search Engine: One of the oldest scholarship databases that contains over 6.2 million scholarships based on many different qualifications and a broad range of criteria such as academic achievements, community services, family heritage, and special talents or aptitude.
  
  SRN Express: Helpful to international students, especially Canadian citizens. This database also includes student loan forgiveness programs for graduates who need alternatives for repayment.
  
  SchoolSoup: World's Largest Scholarship Database
  
  Student Awards: Canada’s free scholarship search service website.
   
• List of scholarships for women 
• American Society of Hematology (ASH) Minority Medical Scholar Award Program 
• Brookhaven Women in Science (BWIS) Renate W. Chasman Scholarship for Women 
• Huge list of undergraduate/graduate scholarships, fellowships, etc. sponsored by FASEB
  
• 100 Free Minority Scholarships: Free listing of scholarships for underrepresented minorities pursing science-related degrees
  
• American Chemical Society: Chemistry Scholarships for African American, Hispanic, and American Indian Students max $5,000 
• American Geological Institute: AGI Minority Participation Program  
• American Institute of Chemical Engineers: Minority Scholarship Awards for Incoming College Freshmen   $1,000; Minority Scholarship Awards for College Students $1,000
  
• American Physical Society: Minority Scholarship $2,000-$3000 
• American Society for Microbiology: ASM-Microbiology Undergraduate Research Fellowships $6,000  ASM Robert D. Watkins Graduate Research Fellowship $63,000 (over 3 years)
• Latino College Dollars: Search database for scholarships for Latinos
  
• NASA: Motivating Undergraduates in Science and Technology (MUST) up to $10,000
  
• National Institutes of Health:Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Awards for Individual Pre-doctoral Fellowships (F31) to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research 
• National Science Foundation: SBE Minority Postdoctoral Research Fellowships and Follow-up Research Starter Grants (MPRF) 
• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute: Undergraduate Fellowships for Minorities Summer Research Program $468/week for 10 or 12 weeks 

More  funding opportunities
 American Physiological Society:
American Psychological Association Fellowships in the Neurosciences
American Society for Microbiology Graduate Research Fellowship

FASEB/MARC Programs

Ford Foundation Predoctoral Diversity Fellowships
Ford Foundation Dissertation Fellowships

Graduate Women in Science Fellowships
L’Oreal Women in Science International Fellowships
SACNAS Genome Scholars Fellowship Program
Society for Neuroscience Scholars Program
UNCF/Merck Science Initiative

If you are a PhD student who has already selected a thesis laboratory and you belong to an underrepresented group, your thesis adviser may be able to apply for a research supplement. For more info, visit the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Supplements (GRS) to Current ENG Awards to Broaden Participation (nsf 09-045)

Kid science

I woke up this morning and found my eight-year-old daughter watching this cool science show for kids called DragonflyTV on the PBS channel.

DragonflyTV is hosted by teenagers Mariko and Michael and showcases kids, who were about 10 to 17 years old, performing scientific investigations in their local surroundings. As I watched the show, I became so impressed by the scientific questions these kids posed, the approach they devised to test their hypotheses, and how they presented their data.  In this episode, Malformed Frogs, Susie and Katie continued to impress me as they sought out to determine why the frogs in their local pond were displaying malformed

Continue reading>>

Scientific research conferences for minorities

Within the last six months, I had the opportunity to attend three different scientific conferences to present my research. When first approached about attending these meetings, I was immediately overjoyed at the thought of traveling, but then I suddenly became nervous of what others would think of my work. I am generally a shy person and get even more so at the thought of sharing my research with colleagues more senior than myself. To overcome my shyness, I prepared my research poster and practiced what I would say at the conference. Then, I briefly scanned the NCBI Pubmed website for new and relevant publications to be sure I was current on happenings in my field of research.

The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) conference I attended offered a poster presentation session for minority students to showcase their research aside from the general poster session of the conference. (I would like to note that I was able to attend this conference virtually for free due to a travel grant issued by the (ASCB Minorities Affairs Committee (MAC).) Once at the poster session, I hung my poster and marveled at the number of minority scientists at all levels in their careers in attendance at the conference. Now is the time to admit that I was still nervous to present at this conference. Why? Because I brought my five-year-old daughter with me. I am a single parent and generally where I go, my daughter goes. So, there we were, my daughter and I, at a national research conference and it was time to present my poster.

As I presented to judges and fellow students, post-docs, faulty, etc., I realized how truly beneficial it is to my career to share my research with other scientists. First and foremost, you verbally communicate your research ideas with other scientists from all backgrounds. Presenting to those who are not intimately familiar with your topic forced me to learn how to explain my work for the masses. It was also a time for me to be critical of my communication skills. So, you may wonder how it worked out with my daughter there during the poster presentation. Well, she asked questions about the poster just as my audience! I did not expect that.

Conferences to check out!

• American Association for Cancer Research
• American Chemical Society
• American Society for Microbiology 
• Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students
• New England Science Symposium 
• Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans

About travel grants and awards

• Who can receive an award? This depends on the conference. Some conferences offer awards to undergraduate and graduate students, postdocs, and faulty members.
• How to apply for an award? Most conferences have an application process which includes submitting an abstract of your research for review.
• How much is the award? The travel grants typically range from $500-1500 and may cover conference registration fees, travel, lodging, and dining expenses.
• When will I receive the award? Most awards are received either at the conference or after the conference. Thus, be prepared to pay for conference-related expenses. SAVE ALL RECEIPTS.

If a conference you are interested in does not offer a travel award, it may offer discounts on airfare, rental cars and/or hotels! So, check with the conference's hosting organization to learn how you can reduce conference costs.  Also, seek out funding mechanisms from your home college, which often have monies set aside for conference expenses. If you don't ask, you will not know what is possible.

A must have book for young scientists

A fellow graduate student shared a book with me that I believe is invaluable to young research scientists.  At the bench, a laboratory navigator by Kathy Barker introduces readers to the laboratory environment, complete with discussions ranging from how labs are generally organized to laboratory safety and etiquette.

At the bench also describes how to properly setup experiments, carefully maintain your laboratory notebook and how to perform some important techniques commonly used in biological research.  In my opinion, two of the key topics in this book are the chapters that detail how you should present yourself and your data to other people.

I wish I had this book earlier in my career.  At the bench is written in an easy-to-read and understand manner such that it can be utilized by scientists as young as those that are in high school.  However, even as an advanced graduate student, I find the material in At the bench extremely useful.  The material is also easily accessible as this hard cover book is spiral bound so that when I am at the bench, I can quickly flip through pages for quick reference.  This book typically costs approximately $45.00, but consider it an investment in your career. You may even find it less expensive if you purchase a used copy.  Pass on the information because it is a great resource!

Employment in the sciences: degrees earn top dollar!

Do you know which college degrees lead to the best paying salaries?  You will be pleasantly surprised to learn that people who major in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)- related disciplines go on in their careers to earn top dollar!  To learn more about which undergraduate science majors yield the highest salaries, read the 2009 Payscale Salary Report. Happy researching!