Two Cornell research teams have each received National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants to identify factors influencing the careers of women in biomedical and behavioral sciences and engineering.

Wendy M. Williams, professor of human development, and Stephen J. Ceci, the H.L. Carr Professor of Developmental Psychology, both in the College of Human Ecology (CHE), received $1.4 million over four years to establish the Cornell Institute for Women in Science (CIWS). The money will fund a series of studies that aim to assess and reduce gender bias in recruitment, mentorship and evaluation in science, technology, engineering and math fields, commonly known as STEM fields.

Also awarded were Yael Levitte, executive director of the CU-ADVANCE Center, and Sharon Sassler, associate professor of policy analysis and management (PAM) in the CHE, who received a three-year, $539,000 grant to analyze the entrance and retention of women in STEM occupations, focusing on two cohorts coming of age at different times. A third collaborator, Jennifer Glass, formerly of the Cornell PAM department, is now a professor of sociology at the University of Iowa.

For their project, Williams and Ceci will conduct three large-scale experiments, a national canvass of deans and provosts, and an educational campaign to disseminate the findings of the studies. Data will be collected on STEM professors and graduate students at the top 80 research universities across the U.S.

The project will explore how women and men are recruited to and informally trained in graduate school, and how they are evaluated when they apply for their first tenure-track position. The researchers seek to better understand, and ultimately improve, behavioral norms that may consciously or unconsciously lead to gender-biased recruitment, mentorship and evaluation environments.

"Our results will help hone unbiased, effective recruitment, mentorship and evaluation practices, leading to greater gender fairness in the scientific recruitment, training and job-placement processes," the researchers said in their proposal.

Levitte, Sassler and Glass will examine their hypotheses by using two national surveys of women and men to explore the roles of attitudes, family background, personal characteristics and institutional environments in shaping career pathways over time.

The data sets, the National Longitudinal Surveys of Youth, consist of more than 12,000 women and men who were first interviewed in 1979 and are now in their 40s, and of women and men who were teenagers in 1997 and are now in their late 20s.

The team will try to answer such questions as: Why are women who major in STEM disciplines less likely than men to enter into related occupations that utilize their training? How do institutional environments and programs influence the decision to enter and remain in a science occupation? In what ways do marital status and family composition shape careers for STEM employees? Do these factors have different effects on women and men?

The researchers will look at such issues as what factors contribute to women leaving jobs in the sciences and how marriage and family affect retention in those occupations. They also will draw from existing quantitative research to examine the "leaky pipeline," in which women leave their professions even after many years of higher education.

"If they left, what occupation did they go into?" Sassler said.

Levitte said the team hopes their findings may someday influence policies for recruiting and retaining women in STEM fields. The research will also benefit the goals of the CU-ADVANCE Center, a National Science Foundation-funded center seeking to increase representation of women faculty at Cornell in STEM fields.

The two grants are part of 14 grants awarded, totaling $16.8 million, in response to a 2007 National Academies report, "Beyond Bias and Barriers," that called for a broad, national effort to maximize the potential of women scientists and engineers.