18.1 Oceanography for Pdfs.Indd

AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF WOMEN IN OCEANOGRAPHY Th is article has been published in Oceanography, Volume 18, Number 1, a quarterly journal of Th e Oceanography Society. Copyright 2005 by Th e Oceanography Society. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any portion of this article by photo- copy machine, reposting, or other means without prior authorization of Th e Oceanography Society is strictly prohibited. Oceanography Vol.18, No.1, Mar. 2005 65 Send all correspondence to: [email protected] or Th e Oceanography Society, PO Box 1931, Rockville, MD 20849-1931, USA. INTRODUCTORY LETTER FROM PEGGY DELANEY In the following pages, you will have the opportunity to explore scientifi c autobiographies of more than 150 modern women oceanographers. These personal portraits give direct and compelling glimpses into the accomplishments, motivations, challenges, and lives of women scientists who come from a range of countries, institutions, career paths, job titles, levels of seniority, and areas of emphasis in ocean sciences. Why autobiographies? A number of years back, I taught two undergraduate seminars on “women in science” at the University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC). I found that my fascination with exploring the statistical data—the representation of women in different areas of science, the pipeline issues about career pathways, the different demographics in different fi elds and countries, the programs that worked to improve science teaching, the changes through time in women’s representation in science—was matched only by the students’ fascination for stories. While they patiently listened to, read about, and thought about data and their implications, what they most wanted was to read about, hear about, and think about individual women in science—what they had done, how they had faced challenges, what they found rewarding, and why. I decided to explore that same balance in this issue, combining a series of articles largely about data (see issue introduction for an overview of these) with the stories of individual women oceanographers. To accomplish fi nding the stories, we used what I term a “viral communication campaign” to solicit potential contributors by e-mail invitation. We started with a list of women oceanographers I could think of—women I had worked with, women in my e-mail address book, women I had been on committees with, women I had been in graduate school with, women I had met at meetings—and complemented this list with contacts that Ellen Kappel, editor of Oceanography magazine, had accumulated, including asking all of the women authors of articles in this issue. There was no attempt to be systematic or comprehensive, no research on web sites to fi nd more names, and only a very few screening rules applied. For example, I didn’t include women who were currently graduate students or post-doctoral scholars in my initial solicitations, although we didn’t turn these contributions away if they arrived. Because of the very idiosyncratic nature of the starting list and my desire to be as comprehensive as possible, I included a request in the invitation that each woman pass the invitation along to at least two other women oceanographers (the viral component), and I asked the article authors to contact an even larger number. We asked contributors to provide an autobiographical sketch that covered both the pro- fessional and the personal, asking for a contribution roughly 400 words accompanied by one graphic, either a graphic or picture related to their research or a photo of the scientist in any setting. Although contributors were free to focus on any topics they wished in the broad sense of scientifi c autobiography, we asked them to think about a series of specifi c questions in framing their responses (see box). Th is article has been published in Oceanography, Volume 18, Number 1, a quarterly journal of Th e Oceanography Society. Copyright 2005 by Th e Oceanography Society. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any portion of this article by photo- 66 Oceanography Vol.18, No.1, Mar. 2005 copy machine, reposting, or other means without prior authorization of Th e Oceanography Society is strictly prohibited. Send all correspondence to: [email protected] or Th e Oceanography Society, PO Box 1931, Rockville, MD 20849-1931, USA. We gave a relatively short timeline for contributions, and we watched with growing glee as they fl owed in. We answered questions about contributors and contributions. We applied no strict limits other than length, and we offered no restrictions on how the invitation could be passed along. We allowed broad interpretation of the boundaries of oceanography. When asked, for example, whether someone who considered herself a marine biologist or a geologist could contribute, we said, yes, if she also considered herself an oceanographer. We assured women that the timing of an invitation’s arrival did not refl ect any assignment of status; there was no A-list or B-list of invitees. We addressed fears about seeming too negative or too explicit about concerns, fi nding that pieces were written in balanced fashion. We were impressed by the growing reach of our invitation as responses moved beyond our initial viral inoculation. Some themes stand out in reading through the autobiographies. Mentors and mentor- ing play a major role in many careers, both in presence and absence at different career stages, and many women link this to the great joy they fi nd in teaching about oceanography. Some women knew from an early age that they wanted to be oceanographers, oth- ers decided later, and some didn’t address this issue. Liking a challenge, enjoying solving problems, and working out puzzles are all defi ned as rewarding and compelling. The SUGGESTED TOPICS FOR AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES (1) What are your scientifi c and research interests? (2) How did you choose your fi eld of study? (3) What have you found most rewarding about being an ocean scientist and why? (4) What have been your greatest career challenges? How have you responded to these challenges? (5) How have you balanced your career and personal life? How has this balance infl uenced your career choices and your personal life? (6) Are the conditions for women in your area of the fi eld different now than when you began your career? If so, how has that affected your work? (7) What other topics or issues would you like to address? Th is article has been published in Oceanography, Volume 18, Number 1, a quarterly journal of Th e Oceanography Society. Copyright 2005 by Th e Oceanography Society. All rights reserved. Reproduction of any portion of this article by photo- copy machine, reposting, or other means without prior authorization of Th e Oceanography Society is strictly prohibited. Oceanography Vol.18, No.1, Mar. 2005 67 Send all correspondence to: [email protected] or Th e Oceanography Society, PO Box 1931, Rockville, MD 20849-1931, USA. interdisciplinary nature of oceanography is important to many. Love of their work and their careers shines through in many autobiographies, with their greatest joy often found at sea or in the fi eld, regardless of harsh conditions. The interactions, relationships, and collaborations with colleagues and students are mentioned as being fulfi lling. Research funding comes through as a signifi cant and growing challenge, specifi cally for those on “soft money.” Career paths were sometimes mentioned as non-conventional or circu- itous, with some contributors acknowledging obligations to family and/or children as a contributing cause to what they perceived as slow progress. A signifi cant proportion of sketches acknowledge the diffi culties and challenges of balancing career and family life. A number mention the effects of overt or implied discrimination, and some women refer to the combined and added challenges of representing a minority ethnic or racial group. Because of the nature of the “viral communication” used to solicit autobiographies, there is a lot missing. The autobiographies focus most heavily in academic research oceanography, with more limited representation of women in mission-oriented agencies, gov- ernment agencies, non-profi t agencies, and other non-academic career paths in oceanography. There were worries expressed as autobiographies were composed and edited about seeming too negative or about offending potential employers, collaborators, and colleagues. Some women may have chosen not to participate or not to be as forthcoming as they might have been otherwise as a result. There are a suspiciously large number of scientists whose career paths at one time intersected with UCSC over the past two decades, my time on the faculty here, or with the MIT/WHOI Joint Program in the late 1970s and early 1980s (my graduate school days). In closing, I hope you fi nd these stories as interesting as I do, and I thank all of the contributors for their generosity. Acknowledgements. I would like to thank Lisa Borok, Visitor Programs Manager at the UCSC Seymour Marine Discovery Center for organizing the Fall 2004 public seminar series “Women Who Turn the Tides: Setting New Benchmarks in Marine Science,” and for inviting me to design and host a panel discussion in that series about “Women in Marine Science: Discussing Careers and Inspirations.” I would like to thank the panelists at that discussion for allowing me to “test drive” these questions on them in a very public setting. I would like to thank Alison Trybom, UCSC, for her able summary notes about the autobiographies. I would especially like to beg the indulgence of all those I missed in the viral campaign; omissions were not deliberate. Peggy Delaney Guest Editor 68 Oceanography Vol.18, No.1, Mar. 2005 Fatima Abrantes Principal Researcher, Instituto Nacional de Engenharia, Tecnologia e Inovação, Lisbon, Portugal, [email protected] Although always fascinated by the ocean, since my early years It was then time to come back to PGS and pay back to my in Angola, a career studying history was my high school dream.

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