My talk for the @ucdavis Advance Awards Symposium

I gave a talk Thursday as part of the UC Davis Advance Awards Symposium in Sacramento. I am crazy busy right now so don't have a lot of time to write here about the talk but I did post about it to Twitter in a long thread.

Here are the slides for the talk:

Jonathan Eisen talk for 2019 ADVANCE Scholar Award Symposium from Jonathan Eisen

Here is the first Tweet in a long thread I posted annotating the slides.

Posted slides from my talk for the @ucdavis "2019 ADVANCE Scholar Award Symposium" - talk was about #microbiomes #manels and the people who have inspired me to work on #STEMDiversity https://t.co/mKBHq43kZX #ucdavis #STEMDiversity 1/n

— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) October 26, 2019

He is a Wakelet with some Tweets about the Symposium.

Kisaco Research - sponsoring YAMMMM - yet another mostly male microbiome meeting - again - not their first biased rodeo

Well, sadly, I am not shocked by this. Disappointed, yes.  But not shocked.  Just got an announcement sent to me for this meeting: Animal Microbiome USA 2019 | Kisaco Research

Happening next week in Kansas City.  Run by Kisaco Research.  I have written about their propensity to have meetings where most of the speakers were white men previously.  See

• Another white men's microbiome meeting from Kisaco #YAMMM #manel #STEMDiversity
• The White Men's Microbiome Congress #YAMMM #Manel #Boycott

People from the company claimed they were going to do better in the future.  And maybe they have for some meetings.  But alas not for this one.  By my estimate the speakers are ~ 85% male.  15% female.  Grrr.  Not good.  Not representative of the field.  Most  likely some sort of implicit or explicit bias going on.   

A conference where all the speakers are women - happening this week #YAMMM #manels #STEMDiversity #GenderBias

It was now six years ago that I wrote here wondering if it would be a good idea to have a conference where all the speakers were women.

See The Tree of Life: A conference where the speakers are all women?

I wrote about this because of the general issue with excessive numbers of conferences where most or all of the speakers were men.  I had come up with a term for such meetings - YAMMM.  Yet Another Mostly Male Meeting.  I even made some little pics / images to represent such YAMMMs.




And I blogged and Tweeted about such meetings a lot (and still do).  See STEM Diversity posts and related links here for example.

When I wrote the post I was wondering if this would be a good counter to the problem of these YAMMMs (also called manels by others).  The feedback (much of it on Twitter) was really useful, mostly.  And over the years I pondered doing such a thing but to be honest, never felt really comfortable with the idea.  I worried about some of the possible negative sides of doing this, such as how the speakers might get unwanted attention and critiqued for being selected solely because of their gender.  And I also worried about whether this would be viewed in some way as a form of "reverse discrimination".

But I did try to do other analogous things where one reversed the normal gender skew (which is almost always towards males).  For example, when I found out, kind of at the last minute, I was speaking at a meeting with a very very skewed gender ratio of speakers, I gave my talk, but changed only referenced the work of women in the field.  See What to do when you realize the meeting you are speaking at is a YAMMM (yet another mostly male meeting)?  And in a class I teach I decided to basically replace most of the white male scientists I had been referencing with women and people of color.  Small things I know.  But I was pleased when people noticed these efforts and commented on how it made them think a bit about the examples we use when we give talks and teach.

Mind you, I have organized or helped organize a lot of meetings and seminar series since that post six years ago.  And I have tried to have the speakers at these be representative of diverse backgrounds in terms of gender, ethnicity, career stage, type of institution, and more.  But I myself have never gone to the next level and flipped the standard gender bias on its head.

Thus I was intrigued in September last year when I found out that my friend and colleague Dr. Rob Knight was co-organizing (with Dr. Sandrine Miller-Montgomery) a meeting in San Diego on "microbiomes" (my main area of research) where all of the invited speakers were women.  I blogged briefly about this here: 1st annual CMI International Microbiome Meeting (CIMM) w/ a great #STEMDiversity statement & plan.  I include below the material from the conference site that I included in that post:

On behalf of Dr. Rob Knight, the Center for Microbiome Innovation is pleased to host the 1st annual CMI International Microbiome Meeting (CIMM) on February 27–28, 2019 in San Diego. Additionally, we are pleased to announce that the 1st Urobiome Meeting on February 26, 2019, led by Linda Brubaker MD, will occur in conjunction with CIMM to make the most of your visit to San Diego. 

During the first day of this event, leading researchers will present on the emerging science of the Urobiome and its recently discovered implications for human health, including common conditions such as urinary tract infection, urinary incontinence and bladder overactivity. 

The following two days will feature high-impact presentations on the latest discoveries in microbiome sciences, with sessions on topics ranging from the microbiome in human disease and wellness and the metabolome, to primate microbiomes, to environmental and ocean microbiomes. For this first edition, we have decided to demonstrate that it is possible to have a large representation of women presenters in a scientific meeting by inviting only women speakers. Be prepared to hear from fantastic presenters such as Dr. Katie Amato (Northwestern University), Dr. Rita Colwell (University of Maryland), Dr. Merete Eggesbo (Norwegian Institute of Public Health), Dr Susan Prescott (University of Western Australia), Dr. Lita Proctor (NIH), and many more!

In addition, I agreed to serve on a panel at the end of the meeting discussing "Breaking the Glass Ceiling: How do we solve the gender imbalance in STEM?" (I had found out about their plans for the meetings when they invited me to serve on the panel). As someone who has critiqued meetings for egregiously skewed gender ratios of speakers and as someone who has called attention to in particular the many microbiome focused meetings with gender balance issues, the whole idea behind this conference was in essence represented by this statement:

For this first edition, we have decided to demonstrate that it is possible to have a large representation of women presenters in a scientific meeting by inviting only women speakers

This was certainly a bold move by the organizers. So - now zoom to today.

Today I am heading down to San Diego for the meeting.  And yesterday I found out that there was an editorial in the Wall Street Journal apparently critiquing the plan for having only female speakers.  It is entitled "No Men Allowed" by James Freeman. Alas, I do not have access to the editorial as it is behind a paywall.  There is also an editorial by Mark Perry at the American Enterprise Institute web site: Can the University of California bar males from presenting research at a biology conference?

So -- clearly, some people do not like the idea of a conference where all the speakers are women.  I confess I am still torn about the whole concept for the reasons I mentioned above.  However, even though I am torn, I do think it is important to push back against the clear implicit and explicit biases that have occurred against women in relation to speaking at conferences.  There is an extensive literature on this topic and on the topic of implicit and explicit biases that may be involved.  And I think this conference is an important form of push back.  The organizers may in fact get a bunch of grief over not having any male speakers.  But they will also provide an important venue for people to get challenged.  Conferences with only male speakers occurred for many many years without too many people raising any complaints.  And now some still occur but they are generally frowned upon in most places and are becoming rarer at least in my fields.  So in a way this conference can serve a similar function as Ruth Bader Ginsburg's dream of an all female US Supreme Court (this analogy was pointed out to me by Karen James). In reference to this concept Ruth Bader Ginsburg said:

"So now the perception is, yes, women are here to stay. And when I'm sometimes asked when will there be enough [women on the supreme court]? And I say when there are nine, people are shocked. But there'd been nine men, and nobody's ever raised a question about that."

Of course, gender bias is just one of the forms of bias that happens in STEM fields and with STEM conferences.  It is not the only issue we need to worry about or work on.  But it is a big one.  And the organizers of this meeting have done something bold and risky to confront this issue.

I will report more from the meeting. I would also love to hear what other people think about the plan for this conference.

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PS. Thanks to multiple colleagues for some private feedback on this conference.  If I get permission I will post details of their comments.

FEBS Letters Blames Society and History for their Sexist Meeting ... #Boycott

What a joke.

I was pointed on Twitter to a meeting run by FEBS Letters to "celebrate" their 50th Anniversary.  The meeting has some 20 speakers highlighted of which only one is a woman.

See for example

Not acceptable ! @phylogenomics would not approve either https://t.co/UPGrki5uA2

— Liane G. Benning #FBPE (@LianeGBenning) February 3, 2018

and

Hey @FEBS_Letters what is your conference speaker policy? This speaker list is not representative of your readership. I wouldn't attend https://t.co/TCEscGT4o1

— Jenny Martin (@Jenny_STEM) February 2, 2018

And I guess in response to criticism they now write

We acknowledge that it is disappointing that there is currently only one female speaker in our line up. The FEBS Letters editorial team based its speaker selection on authors of some of the best papers published in FEBS Letters over the past 50 years, based on citations and downloads. Unfortunately, women are strongly underrepresented in this list, as a result of the fact that women in science were few over the last century. In addition, other women invited to speak at the event were not able to accept the invitation. The result below is thus currently a historical and social reflection of the past 50 years. FEBS Letters is looking at ways to address this.

That is right - for their own meeting they are blaming history and society.  How about this.  How about you take some $#$*()!@#()$!@ responsibility for the meeting you are running rather than blaming society and history for your lack of diversity?  And how about this - I call for a boycott of this meeting. Nobody should help them celebrate when this is their approach.




UPDATE - made a Twitter Moment with various Tweets on the topic


Sexism in FEBS Letters 50th Anniversary Meeting

Q-Bio conference in Hawaii, bring your surfboard & your Y chromosome b/c they don't take a XX

Wow.  Just wow.  And not in a good way.  Just got an email invitation to a meeting.  The meeting is

"THE FIRST ANNUAL WINTER Q-BIO MEETING: Quantitative Biology on the Hawaiian Islands. February 18-21, 2013."  

Well, I mean - who wouldn't want to go to Hawaii for a meeting.  And a meeting that 

"brings together scientists and engineers who are interested in all areas of q-bio."  

Plus 

"Each year, the meeting will rotate on the Hawaiian Islands with a different thematic focus within q-bio."

So I could go to Hawaii each year.  Cool.  And 

"The focus for the meeting this year will be Synthetic Biology, with about half of the invited speakers chosen as renowned experts in this area."  

I like synthetic biology and, well, sometimes I like experts, so still good

But then, OMG, then, the confirmed speaker list and the conference organizers.

2013 CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:

1. Jim Collins, Boston University
2. Johan Elf, Uppsala University
3. Michael Elowitz, California Institute of Technology
4. Timothy Elston, UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine
5. James E. Ferrell, Stanford University 
6. Martin Fussenegger, ETH Zurich
7. Leon Glass, McGill University
8. Terry Hwa, University of California, San Diego
9. Roy Kishony, Harvard Medical School
10. Galit Lahav, Harvard University
11. Andre Levchenko, Johns Hopkins University
12. Wendell Lim, University of California, San Francisco
13. Andy Oates, The Max Planck Institute, Dresden
14. Bernhard Palsson, University of California, San Diego
15. Gurol Suel, UT Southwestern Medical Center
16. Chao Tang, Peking University
17. John Tyson, Virginia Tech
18. Craig Venter, The J. Craig Venter Institute
19. Chris Voigt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
20. Ned S. Wingreen, Princeton University  

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS:

1. Bill Ditto, University of Hawaii 
2. Jeff Hasty, UC San Diego 
3. Bill Hlavacek, University of New Mexico
4. Alex Hoffmann, UC San Diego
5. Brian Munsky, New Mexico Consortium 
6. Lev Tsimring, UC San Diego 

That is a 25:1 ratio.  Pathetic.  Embarrassing.  The sponsors - UC San Diego's Division of Biological Sciences and BioCircuits Institute, San Diego Center for Systems Biology, the University of Hawaii and the Office of Naval Research - should all be ashamed.

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For other posts on this topic see

• Posts tagged women in science
• The Tree of Life: Diversity (of speakers, participants) at meetings: do ...
• The Tree of Life: A conference where the speakers are all women?
• A conference where the speakers are all women? (with tweets - Storify
• "Genomics: the Power and the Promise" meeting - could be called "Men Studying Genomics" instead
• The Tree of Life: Overselling genomics (and men) award #3 ...

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UPDATE - I have now submitted an abstract to the meeting.  The abstract I submitted is available here and posted below

The probability of having one out of twenty six participants at a scientific meeting be female

A quantitative analysis of gender bias in quantitative biology meetings 

Jonathan A. Eisen

University of California, Davis

(Note - new title suggested by John Hogenesch)

Scientific conferences have key participants which I define to be the speakers and the organizers. Such key participants can be divided into two main classes based on gender: male and female, which I denote here as M and F, respectively (I realize there are other gender classes and I regretfully am not including them here). The number of key participants (which I denote as KP) for conferences varies significantly. For this analysis I focused on meetings with KP = 26. This value was selected for multiple reasons, including (a) that it is the number of letters in the English alphabet (b) that its factors include the number 13 which I like, and (3) because in email announcements for this meeting KP= 26. I sought to answer a relatively simple question - what is the probability that, for a meeting with KP=26, that F = 1. I chose this because this seemed extreme and because F=1 in the email announcements for this meeting. Using the probability mass distribution formula as below:

which becomes

n = NP = number of participants
k = f = the number that are female
p = percentage of f in population being sampled

I have calculated Pr (F=1) for KP = 26. Assuming for the moment that p = 0.5 (i.e., that the population to be sampled is 50:50 male vs female) then Pr (F=1) = 3.8743E-07. This is highly unlikely by chance alone. However the assumption of p = 0.5 is certainly off in some fields. I therefore calculated P (F=1) for different frequencies of F in the population (i.e., what is the expected ratio of females to sample from).

Thus for a meeting with NP = 26, only when the frequency of F is ~0.16 does P (F=1) exceed 0.05. So a question is then, what should we use for p for this meeting? An informal survey (John Hogenesch, posted to Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/jonathaneisen/posts/10151208978630767?comment_id=24634832&offset=0&total_comments=15 ) suggests that in qBio the percentage is about 20%. However that may not be an ideal estimate since this meeting is specifically about synthetic biology, I do not have a any estimate of p for this field. However, examination of key meetings in the field (e.g., see http://syntheticbiology.org/Conferences.html for a list) reveals a percentage of perhaps a bit higher. For example at SB5 the ratio was about 35%. I conclude that it is likely that p > 20% in Synthetic Biology. Given that for p = 0.2 the Pr (F=1) < 0.05 I therefore conclude that the null hypothesis (that having one female out of 26 key participants) can be rejected - and that this meeting has a biased ratio of males: females.

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UPDATE 2: Here is the full email I received, just for the record

ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE 09/15/12http://w-qbio.org/abstracts.html

THE FIRST ANNUAL WINTER Q-BIO MEETING
Quantitative Biology on the Hawaiian Islands
February 18-21, 2013http://w-qbio.org/

The Winter q-bio meeting brings together scientists and engineers who are interested in all areas of q-bio. Each year, the meeting will rotate on the Hawaiian Islands with a different thematic focus within q-bio. The focus for the meeting this year will be Synthetic Biology, with about half of the invited speakers chosen as renowned experts in this area.

SPONSORED BY:UC San Diego's Division of Biological Sciences and BioCircuits Institute
San Diego Center for Systems Biology
University of Hawaii
Office of Naval Research

2013 CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
Jim Collins, Boston University
Johan Elf, Uppsala University
Michael Elowitz, California Institute of Technology
Timothy Elston, UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine
James E. Ferrell, Stanford University
Martin Fussenegger, ETH Zurich
Leon Glass, McGill University
Terry Hwa, University of California, San Diego
Roy Kishony, Harvard Medical School
Galit Lahav, Harvard University
Andre Levchenko, Johns Hopkins University
Wendell Lim, University of California, San Francisco
Andy Oates, The Max Planck Institute, Dresden
Bernhard Palsson, University of California, San Diego
Gurol Suel, UT Southwestern Medical Center
Chao Tang, Peking University
John Tyson, Virginia Tech
Craig Venter, The J. Craig Venter Institute
Chris Voigt, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Ned S. Wingreen, Princeton University

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS:
Bill Ditto, University of Hawaii
Jeff Hasty, UC San Diego
Bill Hlavacek, University of New Mexico
Alex Hoffmann, UC San Diego
Brian Munsky, New Mexico Consortium
Lev Tsimring, UC San Diego

***REGISTRATION NOW OPEN***
Registration fee covers conference venue, opening reception, banquet, coffee & snacks.

EARLY BIRD ($450.00) REGISTRATION DEADLINE: December 1, 2012
REGULAR REGISTRATION ($550) DEADLINE: February 5, 2013

REGISTER NOW: http://w-qbio.org/abstracts.html

HOTEL: A block of rooms have been reserved for registered conference participants available for a negotiated rate of $199 per night at the Hilton Hawaiian Village in Waikiki. The rooms are available on first come first serve basis and will be available soon, so book early!

CONTRIBUTED TALKS: If you wish to present your work at the conference, either as an oral talk or a poster, you must submit an abstract through the conference website by the September 15th deadline. Abstract guidelines and submission information at:http://w-qbio.org/guidelines.pdf

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: September 15, 2012
Accepted abstracts will be announced October 31, 2012.

We encourage you to forward this message to any colleagues that may be interested in taking part in this exciting event.

Questions should be emailed to: coordinator@w-qbio.org

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UPDATE 3: (9/18/2012)

Some comments/responses about my post or related posts

• Geek Feminism Blog | Women, feminism, and geek culture
• How not to organize a meeting | Pharyngula
• Ed Yong, Science Writer
• Meeting & Conference News « Cyme & Cystidium
• Want more women at STEM conferences? | MetaFilter
• Storification of some tweets about this

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UPDATE 4:  (9/18/12)

Plus some links that may be of relevance

• MOVING TOWARD FACULTY GENDER EQUITY AT UC
• Sex and Science: How Professor Gender Perpetuates the - Economics
• Engineering gender parity - - The Washington Post
• Why do so few women speak at science meetings? : Article : Nature
• Patching a leaky pipeline.
• Review Gender inequity: challenging business as usual.
• Swinging pendulums.
• Science gender gap probed.

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UPDATE 5: 9/19/12

Some more links of relevance

• Scientists, Your Gender Bias Is Showing
• http://www.aas.org/cswa/percent.html

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UPDATE 6: 9/23/12

Some more links on the recent PNAS paper on gender bias and evaluating scientists

• Scientists, Your Gender Bias Is Showing | Cosmic Variance ...
• New study shows gender bias in science against female students ...
• Smoking Gun on Sexism?
• Science Confirms The Obvious: Science Faculty Think Female ...

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UPDATE 7:  9/23/12

Interesting article on gender and invitations to write major reviews

• Gender bias in leading scientific journals

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UPDATE 8: More follow up to the Gender Bias study from PNAS 9/26

• Are Scientists Sexist? New Study Identifies A Gender Bias
• Study shows pervasive gender bias in science
• Gender Bias Blocks Women in Science
• The Persistence of Gender Bias
• Gender Bias in Hiring: Even Scientists Do It

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UPDATE 9: Other posts on gender bias of interest

• On Seminars and the Sex Ratio of Geosciences Departments

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UPDATE 10: 11/21/13

Just got this in my email.  Kudos to the people behind qBio for adding more women to their planning committee and adding a many women to the speaker list.

***ABSTRACT SUBMISSION DEADLINE EXTENDED TO MONDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2013***
http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/

UPDATE:  In response to participant interest, the submission deadline has been extended to December 2, 2013.  This year 15 contributed talks will be selected from the submitted abstracts to be presented with the invited talks during the plenary sessions.  Contributed talks will also be selected for parallel breakout sessions which commence in the late afternoon.

THE SECOND ANNUAL WINTER Q-BIO MEETING
Quantitative Biology on the Hawaiian Islands
February 17-20, 2014
http://w-qbio.org/

The Winter q-bio meeting brings together scientists and engineers who are interested in all areas of q-bio. The venue for 2014 is the Hilton Waikoloa Village, which is located on the Kohala Coast of Hawaii’s Big Island. The resort lets you experience breathtaking tropical gardens, abundant wildlife, award-winning dining, world-class shopping, art and culture, and an array of activities. The Island of Hawaii is the youngest and biggest in the Hawaiian chain, providing a vast canvas of environments to discover--home of one of the world’s most active volcanoes (Kilauea), the most massive mountain in the world (Maunaloa), and the largest park in the state (Hawaii Volcanoes National Park).

SPONSORED BY:
UC San Diego BioCircuits Institute and the San Diego Center for Systems Biology
The University of Hawaii at Manoa
UC San Diego Divisions of Biological Sciences and Engineering
The Office of Naval Research

2014 CONFIRMED SPEAKERS:
Naama Barkai, The Weizmann Institute of Science
Sangeeta Bhatia Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Hana El-Samad, University of California, San Francisco
Zev Gartner, University of California, San Francisco
Taekjip Ha, University of Illinois
Shigeru Kondo, Osaka University
Arthur Lander, University of California, Irvine
Andrew Murray, Harvard University
Steve Quake, Stanford University
Petra Schwille, Max Planck Institute
Christina Smolke, Stanford University
Aleksandra Walczak, Laboratoire de Physique Théorique

CONFERENCE ORGANIZERS:
Kevin Bennett, University of Hawaii at Manoa
William Ditto, University of Hawaii at Manoa
Hana El-Samad, University of California, San Francisco
Jeff Hasty, University of California, San Diego
Alexander Hoffmann, University of California, San Diego
Galit Lahav, Harvard University
Eva-Maria Schoetz-Collins, University of California, San Diego
Chao Tang, Peking University
Lev Tsimring, University of California, San Diego

***REGISTRATION NOW OPEN***
Registration fee covers conference venue, registration reception, banquet, coffee & snacks.

EARLY BIRD REGISTRATION ($500/$425 Student) DEADLINE: December 20, 2013
REGULAR REGISTRATION ($600/$525 Student) DEADLINE: January 31, 2014
LATE REGISTRATION ($675/$600 Student) After January 31, 2014

REGISTER NOW: http://w-qbio.org/

HOTEL:  A block of rooms has been reserved for registered conference participants at a negotiated rate of $199 per night at the Hilton Waikoloa Village. The rooms will be available soon on a first-come, first-served basis, so book early!

CONTRIBUTED TALKS:  If you wish to present your work at the conference, either as an oral talk or a poster, you must submit an abstract through the conference website by the November 5th deadline. Abstract guidelines and submission information at: http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/

ABSTRACT DEADLINE: EXTENDED UNTIL MONDAY, December 2, 2013 (Extended due to large volume of interest!)
Accepted abstracts will be announced by December 6, 2012.  You may submit your abstract now and if accepted, still register by the early bird registration deadline of December 20, 2013.
Abstract guidelines and submission information at: http://w-qbio.org/abstracts/

We encourage you to forward this message to any colleagues that may be interested in taking part in this exciting event.

Questions should be emailed to: coordinator@w-qbio.org