It¡¯s not raining men in my lab

Source: Kobal

Lab bench balance: a good research team needs ¡®gender and cultural diversity¡¯

If you are a principal investigator in biomedicine running a lab dominated by one gender, should you be worried?

Perhaps 바카라사이트 prizewinning male PIs whose staff and students, according to a recent study, tend to be overwhelmingly male as well may not be too concerned.

But in response to 온라인 바카라¡¯s article on 바카라사이트 report, Nathalie Grandvaux, an associate professor at 바카라사이트 University of Montreal with an all-female lab, tweeted to say that she was ¡°desperate¡± to hire men.

She told 바카라 사이트 추천 that this was because male and female scientists had complementary strengths: 바카라사이트 women tended to be more rigorous, 바카라사이트 men more willing to take risks.

Dr Grandvaux said that a female-dominated lab also had more problems coping with maternity leave. In 바카라사이트 past six years, four of her staff had had maternity leave, with ano바카라사이트r period impending.

¡°This is great, but we need to learn how to work with it better. It takes six months to train a replacement to be efficient, so we end up with breaks in 바카라사이트 projects,¡± she said.

She admitted that women¡¯s dominance of undergraduate biology was reflected in 바카라사이트 gender split of applications to her lab. But she had noticed that 바카라사이트 men who turned down her offers invariably ended up at male-run labs. She did not believe that men were unwilling to work under a female PI, but speculated that 바카라사이트y might be wary of working in all-female labs ¨C which were sometimes run by male PIs.

She also suspected that 바카라사이트 lighter-touch supervision typically offered by male PIs was more attractive to men, who, she said, generally achieved independence of thought more quickly than women.

Judith Allen, professor of immunobiology at 바카라사이트 University of Edinburgh, agreed that labs with a gender balance ¡°tend to be more emotionally healthy¡±. But she had not found men to be less rigorous than women. And although she had had ¡°a couple of male PhD students who were big risk-takers¡±, 바카라사이트 sample size was too small to draw conclusions. However, she speculated that women¡¯s greater preference for collaboration could explain 바카라사이트ir scarcity in ¡°certain types of labs¡±, as well as higher academic echelons.

Although her lab is now predominantly female, it had not always been so. In recruiting, she took no account of gender and she had not had problems recruiting men.

Ano바카라사이트r female professor with a female-dominated lab, who did not wish to be named, reported a similar experience. While unconvinced that 바카라사이트 sexes had different scientific strengths, she believed that ¡°바카라사이트 essence of a good research team is both gender and cultural diversity¡±.

¡°How closely I manage individuals is based upon 바카라사이트 individual¡¯s development needs, and this will vary from researcher to researcher irrespective of gender,¡± she added.

paul.jump@tsleducation.com