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"Nagaoka, Lisa Ann"
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Breaking In
By showcasing the stories of eight women scientists who have achieved successful careers in the academy, industry, and government, Breaking In offers vivid insights into the challenges and barriers that women face in entering STEM while also describing these women's motivations, the choices they made along their paths, and the intellectual satisfactions and excitement of scientific discovery they derive from their work.
Breaking In underscores issues aspiring women scientists will encounter on their journeys and what they can do to forestall potential obstacles, advocate for change, and fulfill their ambitions.
eBook
Resource depression, extinction, and subsistence change in prehistoric southern New Zealand
Humans have been modifying their environment throughout prehistory. While many studies have examined the human impact on the environment, few have explicitly examined how foragers adapt to the changing environmental situations that they have created. The goal of this analysis is to study the relationship between human foraging economies and human-related environmental change in southern New Zealand. Foraging theory is used to generate predictions about subsistence change resulting from the declining abundance of important resources such as moas and seals. In particular, these predictions examine changes in (1) the kind of resources exploited (foraging efficiency), (2) the number of resources utilized (diet breadth), (3) the habitats exploited (patch use), and (4) the processing and transport of skeletal elements. The predictions are tested using the large assemblage of vertebrate faunal remains from the well-stratified and well-dated Shag River Mouth site. My analyses demonstrate that as the high-ranked taxa decline, overall foraging efficiency declines. The decline is significant enough that diet breadth expands to include low ranked taxa within patches already utilized, as well as the addition of previously ignored patches. Resource depression is identified as the cause of the decline in foraging efficiency. As foraging efficiency declines, the utilization of individual prey items also changes. For moas, field processing of carcasses increases, with an increasing tendency to transport high utility elements. The increase in selectivity indicates that transport costs are increasing as local population of moas decline. In contrast, seals are used more intensively over time, i.e., a broader range of high and low utility elements are transported to the site, suggesting that local populations of seals are used throughout the occupation of the site and that transport costs of seals remain relatively stable. This study shows that using foraging theory models to structure analysis provides a more fine-grained spatial and temporal resolution of subsistence change in southern New Zealand than has been previously achieved. In addition, these models articulate various subsistence decisions that are usually treated separately. The study also contributes to the foraging theory literature by demonstrating how both the prey and patch choice models can be applied archaeologically.
Dissertation
The Realities of Choice
For the eight women we interviewed, interest in science began at a young age and was actively encouraged by a parent or other relation. In some cases, the women had mothers who had themselves specialized in a STEM discipline or had an active interest in it. Sharon Hays observes,
Mom ... had a huge influence on my decision to study science, although I didn't realize it until more recently. ... She got a job running the anatomy and physiology lab at a local community college. When her students dissected frogs or pigs, she brought home the extra specimens, and we'd carry out the experiment at home.
Book Chapter
Hidden Choices
Unlike conscious bias, which results in the prejudicial treatment of or beliefs about individuals or groups of individuals based on faulty perceptions and a refusal to revise our opinions, hidden choices are made instinctively. Unconscious biases permeate society at three fundamental levels-individual, institutional, and societal. Institutional bias surfaces when policies and procedures at academic institutions and in the workplace sustain practices that put women at a disadvantage. Institutional biases can affect men as well, but in many instances these practices disproportionately affect women. Societal bias has to do with ingrained beliefs and assumptions about preferences and abilities (those based on gender in this instance) that govern a society's norms and help shape its culture. They are systemic in nature and as such can have a powerful influence on behavior. Institutional policies, such as family leave and spousal accommodation, attempt to mitigate some of the issues women face by providing a forum for dialogue, specifically about work-life issues.
Book Chapter
The Realities of Breaking In
Women in the United States have made great strides in establishing parity with their male counterparts in terms of educational attainment. According to the US Census, in 2012 more women than men over the age of twenty-five held bachelor's degrees (or higher) in the United States. As undergraduates, women are less likely to major in a STEM field and more likely to switch to a non-STEM field before degree completion. Within academia and industry, women make up an even smaller proportion of the positions in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. In academia, women held about 29 percent of tenured or tenure-track positions in STEM departments in 2010, with women filling 19 percent of full professorships. In terms of gender parity, almost every Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development country graduates women in lower proportions to men in the STEM fields. The exception is Turkey, where nearly 60 percent of the graduates in STEM fields are women.
Book Chapter
Choices
The widening disconnect between the skill sets of many high school and college graduates and STEM job growth in the United States reveals the implications of not effectively tapping into the potential. Programs that target young people and illustrate how the STEM disciplines change the world can build interest. Angela Hessler conducts Take Your Daughters to Work Days at Chevron to expose young girls to career choices in the sciences. The need for mentoring and role models continues throughout a woman's career. Mid-career mentoring/advice and information on advancement or even on pursuing new opportunities with the skills and knowledge learned is nonexistent. A more fundamental way to address societal bias is to embrace and accommodate gender differences while recognizing that women are just as smart and capable as men, thus creating a better work environment for everyone. Large-scale national efforts have moved women forward in the country.
Book Chapter