image: This is the cover of Oceanography, Volume 27, Number 4, Supplement, December 2014. view more
Credit: The Oceanography Society
The Oceanography Society (TOS) is pleased to announce publication of "Women in Oceanography: A Decade Later." This supplement to the December issue of Oceanography magazine reviews the progress that has been made over the last 10 years in addressing barriers to career advancement for women oceanographers and where further attention to this issue might still be needed. TOS published its first "Women in Oceanography" volume in March 2005.
Progress is evident from the demographics of oceanography graduate students: in the last decade, the number of women students has equaled that for men. While encouraging, this volume also shows that men continue to outnumber women at other levels and in other aspects of the field, a difference that cannot be solely ascribed to the pipeline issue. The story is told through statistical measures, longer narratives, articles describing some innovative US programs that were conceived to promote women and retain them in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields, and one-page autobiographical sketches written by women oceanographers.
"This supplement provides an analytical perspective of the gains made by women oceanographers over the past ten years and identifies areas where improvements are still needed" said Susan Lozier, a professor of ocean sciences at Duke University and president of The Oceanography Society. "Also included in this supplement is a multitude of personal stories that reveals the challenges, opportunities and rewards of a career in oceanography for women. I find these stories particularly inspiring."
The more than 200 autobiographical sketches provide a broad view of the types of research that oceanographers conduct. They also describe what the women have found the most rewarding about their careers, what their greatest challenges have been and how they responded to them, and how they balance work and personal lives. Women whose sketches were published in the first "Women in Oceanography" volume describe their career path over the last ten years and any challenges they faced, and provide advice for young women oceanographers.
"Women in Oceanography: A Decade Later" is available online at http://www.tos.org/oceanography/archive/27-4_supplement.html.
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The Oceanography Society was founded in 1988 to disseminate knowledge of oceanography and its application through research and education, to promote communication among oceanographers, and to provide a constituency for consensus building across all the disciplines of the field. It is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization incorporated in the District of Columbia.