Revisiting POWRE Awardees After a Decade: Continuing Issues for Successful Academic Women Scientists and Engineers

Abstract

Changes occurred during the fifteen year period from 1997 to 2012 in both higher education and STEM. Although numbers and percentages of women increased overall in STEM fields, aggregated data mask vast differences among fields and women’s attrition at every phase of the educational and career STEM pipeline. The quantitative results, and particularly the qualitative responses, to the re-administered POWRE survey provide insights into how this same group of individuals perceives career issues and laboratory climate ten to fifteen years later. Analyses from 2012 suggest that although tight funding and budget constraints present increased challenges, the issues from ten to fifteen years ago persist; balancing work with family responsibilities continues as the predominant challenge. Although the responses about laboratory climate reflect less consensus, the largest number of respondents did suggest that to some degree, their gender led to their being perceived as a problem, anomaly, or deviant in the laboratory or work environment.