In order to enhance the utility of this project's results, we have created the Effective Networks for Women in Science and Engineering Advisory Board. This Board is comprised of individuals representing different experiences and involvement in women in science research and practice in addition to an expert in social network analyis with experience in women's career issues. The Board will provide input to the instrumentation and refining of the research questions as well as other research design issues and dissemination of research results.The following individuals have agreed to serve in this capacity (bios follow).
• Dr. Anjum Ansari, Associate Professor of Physics, UIC
• Dr. Mary Ashley, Professor of Biology, UIC
• Ms. Catherine Didion, Vice President, The Didion Group
• Dr. Allan Fisher, President and CEO, iCarnegie Inc.
• Dr. Jong-on Hahm, Vice President, Biotech Talent, The Biotechnology Institute
• Mr. Valdis Krebs, Social Network Analysis Consultant and developer of InFlow software
• Dr. Sue McNeil, Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Delaware
• Dr. Pamela A, Popielarz, Associate Professor of Sociology, UIC
• Dr. Paula Stephan, Professor of Economics, Georgia State University
Dr. Anjum Ansari is Associate Professor of Physics at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research is in experimental Biophysics. She has worked extensively on characterizing the conformational dynamics of proteins and the kinetics of relaxation from a non-equilibrium ensemble of conformations. Current efforts in her laboratory are directed toward understanding the principles behind secondary structure formation in single-stranded DNA, RNA and proteins, with the application of theoretical and computational models from statistical mechanics of polymers to better understand the experiments. She uses time-resolved absorbance and fluorescence measurements following a 10 nanosecond laser temperature-jump to probe the dynamics of the biological macromolecules. Professor Ansari received the National Science Foundation CAREER award for her research in 1998.
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Dr. Mary V. Ashley is Professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Her research interests are in evolutionary biology, population genetics, and conservation genetics and she has worked on a range of plant and animal species. Currently much of her research involves using DNA micro-satellite markers to characterize mating systems, breeding biology and dispersal patterns in species where these parameters are largely unknown and difficult to ascertain by more traditional approaches. She has authored over 30 publications and has mentored more than a dozen graduate students in her lab at UIC. She is on the Editorial Boards of Conservation Biology and Evolution. She received her Ph.D. from the University of California at San Diego and her B.A. from Kenyon College.
Back to topMs. Catherine Didion is Vice President of the Didion Group, a public affairs consulting firm. Her recent work includes a leadership training program for women scientists and engineers in Nairobi, Kenya; work with the Organization of American States (OAS); organizing the only event at the 2005 UN Conference on Women (Beijing+10) on women in science; and collaborations with the European Commission’s Women in Science Unit, American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS), the W.K.Kellogg Foundation, and the U.S. Department of State. She served as Executive Director for the Association for Women in Science (AWIS) for fourteen years (1990 to 2004). During her tenure AWIS was awarded the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring and Didion was the principle investigator for 17 federal and foundation grants. She has provided training on mentoring to non-profits, government agencies, and corporations. Didion has presented testimony before Congress, authored over fifty publications on women in science, and has been an invited speaker on mentoring, networking, and women in science issues at over 200 conferences. She served as Editor for the Women in Science Column for the Journal of College Science Teaching (1993-2002). Didion has extensive experience on Capitol Hill including staff positions at the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee, Office of Senator Robert Packwood (R-Oregon), the Senate Computer Center, and the Senate Press Gallery.
Didion’s professional affiliations include Nominating Committee Member (elected position), Section X-Societal Impacts of Science, American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS); Nominator, Lemelson Prize; Advisory Board Member, MentorNet; Organizer, National Science Foundation (NSF) Short Course for College Teachers and Faculty Development Program; International Member, South African Reference Group on Women in Science and Technology (Appointed by the South African Minister of Science and Technology); Board of Advisors, National Post-Doc Association; Member, National Selection Committee, National Inventors Hall of Fame; Member, Progress Committee (Women in Science), American Chemical Society; Consultant, AAAS Minority Scientists Network; and Member, National Association of Science Writers. Her honors and awards include AAAS Fellow (2005); AWIS Fellow (2001); Drucker Foundation Fellow (2000); Texaco Management Institute Fellow (1999); Secretary of the US Air Force Inaugural Environmental Civic Leaders Tour (1996); and Certificate of Commendation and Distinguished Service, Embassy of the United States of America (1989).
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Dr. Allan Fisher is President and CEO of iCarnegie Inc., a spin-off of Carnegie Mellon University. iCarnegie delivers web-based courses on software development to educational institutions and employers worldwide, with a special emphasis on providing access to under-served groups. iCarnegie is a successor to Carnegie Technology Education, a Carnegie Mellon subsidiary co-founded by Dr. Fisher in 1998. Prior to pursuing this project full-time, Dr. Fisher served as Associate Dean of Undergraduate Education in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. During that time, he and Jane Margolis carried out a program of research and intervention that increased the proportion of women entering the computer science program from 7% in 1995 to 42% in 2000. Their work is described in their book, Unlocking the Clubhouse: Women in Computing, published in 2002 by MIT Press.
Dr. Fisher received a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Princeton University, studied at the University of Cambridge, and received the Ph.D. in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University. He continues to serve Carnegie Mellon as an adjunct professor in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, and also serves on numerous advisory committees for projects and organizations working toward diversity in technology fields. These include the blue ribbon panel of the congressionally mandated BEST Workforce Consortium (bestworkforce.org), the Advisory Board of the Institute for Women in Technology (iwt.org), and the MentorNet Advisory Group on Research, Evaluation and Dissemination (mentornet.net). He lives near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, with his wife, son and daughter.
Back to topDr. Jong-on Hahm is Vice President at the Biotechnology Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to outreach and education on biotechnology. She develops and leads Institute initiatives on higher education and workforce in tandem with the Institute’s K-12 programs to improve biotechnology education and training in the U.S. She spearheads the effort to infuse diversity into all aspects of biotechnology and oversees the Institute’s Minority and Indigenous Fellows Program.
From 1998-2005, she was Director of the Committee on Women in Science and Engineering of the National Research Council, the operating arm of the National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of Engineering. In this capacity, Dr. Hahm worked with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, the Congressional Commission on the Advancement of Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science, Engineering, and Technology Development, and led a Congressionally-mandated study on gender differences in careers of science, engineering, and math faculty. Under Dr. Hahm’s direction the Committee coordinated for the first time in the 136-year history of the National Academy of Sciences, a symposium on women in science during the NAS annual meeting, Who Will Do the Science of the Future?. The Committee has published numerous reports on advancing women in science and engineering, including From Scarcity to Visibility: Gender Differences in the Careers of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers, a comprehensive analysis of national data on doctorate-earners. In 2003 Congress requested a study of Gender Differences in Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty, which will be released along with a Guide to Recruiting and Advancing Women Scientists and Engineers in Academia, in early 2006.
Prior to her position at the National Research Council, Dr. Hahm held research appointments in the Department of Neurosurgery at Georgetown University, the National Cancer Institute, and the National Institute of Mental Health.Dr. Hahm earned her Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She holds an M.A. in Psychology from the American University and a B.Sc. in Psychology from McGill University.
Back to topMr. Valdis Krebs is a management consultant and the developer of InFlow, software for social network analysis. InFlow maps and measures knowledge exchange, information flow, emergent communities, networks of alliances and other networks within and between groups. This technique allows us to map and measure what was once invisible.
Clients such as IBM Global Services, TRW, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Boeing, Aventis, Solvay, Cardinal Health, CapitalOne, Centers for Disease Control [CDC], Lucent Technologies, Hiram Walker, Shell, ACENet, Sempra Energy, Scottish Enterprise, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, Jaakko Poyry, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Booz-Allen & Hamilton, KPMG, University of Michigan Business School, Naval Postgraduate School, various government offices, and hundreds of independent consultants use his software and services to map and measure networks, flows, and relationships in organizations, communities, and other complex human systems.
His work in organizational network analysis has been covered in major media including Discover Magazine, Business 2.0, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CNN, Entrepreneur, First Monday, Optimize Magazine, Training, PC, ZDNet, O'Reilly Network, Knowledge Management, Across the Board, Business Week, HR Executive, Personnel Journal, Forbes, FORTUNE, CIO Magazine, MSNBC.com, HR.com, Release 1.0, and several major newspapers around the world.
Valdis has undergraduate degrees in Mathematics & Computer Science, and a graduate degree in Organizational Behavior/Human Resources and has studied applied Artificial Intelligence. He has given invited talks on organizational networks at UCLA Anderson School, Michigan State University School of Labor and Industrial Relations, Weatherhead School of Management - Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland State University, University of Michigan Business School, Kellogg School of Management - Northwestern University and the University of Latvia.
Valdis has consulted and researched organizational networks since 1988, and founded orgnet.com in 1995. Before starting his own business, he held various HR management positions at Disney, TRW, Toyota, and Ford. Valdis works from his office in Cleveland, Ohio with a network of colleagues in the USA, Canada and Europe.
Back to topDr. Sue McNeil is Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Delaware. She was formerly Director of the Urban Transportation Center and Professor in the College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs and the Department of Civil and Materials Engineering at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Prior to joining UIC, she was a Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering and Engineering & Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University. Her research and teaching interests focus on transportation infrastructure management with emphasis on the application of advanced technologies, economic analysis, analytical methods, and computer applications. Dr McNeil is a member of the Executive Committee of the Transportation Research Board and the Board on Infrastructure and the Constructed Environment. She chairs the Transportation Research Board Committee on Asset Management. She chaired (1988-1993) the ASCE Urban Transportation Division Committee on Transportation Facilities Management and is a founding Associate Editor for the ASCE Journal of Infrastructure Systems. She is a registered professional engineer.
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Dr. Paula E. Stephan is Professor of Economics, Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, Georgia State University. Her research interests focus on the careers of scientists and engineers and the process by which knowledge moves across institutional boundaries in the economy. Stephan's research has been supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, the Andrew Mellon Foundation, the Exxon Education Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the U.S. Department of Labor. She has served on several National Research Council committees including the committee on Dimensions, Causes, and Implications of Recent Trends in the Careers of Life Scientists, Committee on Methods of Forecasting Demand and Supply of Doctoral Scientists and Engineers, and the Committee to Assess the Portfolio of the Science Resources Studies Division of NSF. She is a regular participant in the National Bureau of Economic Research's meetings in Higher Education and has testified before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Basic Science. She currently is serving a three year term as a member of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Advisory Committee, National Science Foundation.
Dr. Stephan graduated from Grinnell College (Phi Beta Kappa) with a B.A. in Economics and earned both her M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan. She has published numerous articles in journals such as The American Economic Review, Science, The Journal of Economic Literature, Economic Inquiry and Social Studies of Science. Stephan coauthored with Sharon Levin Striking the Mother Lode in Science, published by Oxford University Press, 1992. The book was reviewed in Science, Chemical and Engineering News, Journal of Economic Literature, The Southern Economic Journal and The Journal of Higher Education. Her research on the careers of scientists has been the focus of articles in The Economist, Science and The Scientist. Stephan is a frequent presenter at meetings such as The American Economic Association, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and the Society for the Social Studies of Science. Stephan reviews regularly for the National Science Foundation and a number of academic journals including The American Economic Review, The American Sociological Review, Economic Inquiry, The Journal of Political Economy, and The Journal of Human Resources.
Dr. Stephan has lectured extensively in Europe. She was a visiting scholar at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung, Berlin, Germany, intermittently during the period 1992-1995.
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Dr. Pamela A. Popielarz is Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). Her research interests center on social networks, voluntary and professional organizations, and gender/race/ethnicity. Her interest in social networks spans both theory and methodology. Previous published work addressed the influence of social network and ecological processes on individual participation in voluntary associations, and the resulting patterns of gender segregation in such organizations. Current projects include a study of how parents’ social networks influence knowledge of and decisions about child care arrangements, a review of sociological theory on ecological niches, and a historical project on nineteenth century fraternal associations. She has published papers in the American Sociological Review, American Journal of Sociology, Gender & Society, and Research in the Sociology of Organizations. Her work has been funded by the National Science Foundation and UIC’s Institute for Research on Race & Public Policy and Office of Social Science Research. She has presented her research at the meetings of the American Sociological Association, International Network for Social Network Analysis (INSNA) and Academy of Management, as well as making invited research presentations at the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business and Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. She is a former Associate Editor of the American Journal of Sociology. In the Department of Sociology, she is former Director of Graduate Studies and current Coordinator of the graduate concentration in Work, Labor Markets & Organizations. She holds a Ph.D. in Sociology from Cornell University and a B.A. in mathematics from Yale University.
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