Women To Watch 10.12.25 - Flipbook - Page 42
The reasons range widely, experts say, from
women facing the lingering, ages-old stereotype
that boys are better at math and science, to the
women lacking role models both in their college
faculties and the leadership ranks of workplaces,
to the difficulty of carving out time to have children
and maintain a work-life balance.
“The culture of STEM was designed historically for men with a wife at home,” said Phyllis
Robinson, a biology professor at the University of
Maryland, Baltimore County. “It’s a rough-andtumble enterprise. The practice of science is pretty
time-consuming, and it’s pretty gendered.”
Still, Robinson, who created the UMBC faculty
42 | 2025 | WOMEN TO WATCH
group WISE, for Women in Science and Engineering, there’s been “a huge change in the environment for STEM women” over the years.
There are differences within the fields — Robinson said her own is considered the “kindest,” and
indeed more women than men earn undergraduate
biology degrees. But moving up in the postgraduate ranks, they again increasingly lose their share:
They constitute less than a third of tenure-track
professors in the life sciences and just over a fourth
of the full professor positions.
Other STEM fields, such as computer science,
have even fewer women, with just over 20% of
undergraduate degrees going to them.
“It can be very isolating,” said Carolyn Seaman,
a professor of information systems and director of
the Center for Women in Technology at UMBC.
“In classes, you’re not seeing anyone who looks
like you.”
CWiT, as it is known, offers what’s jokingly
known as a “concierge service” to support undergrads in computing and engineering with scholarships, community building events and peer, faculty
and industry mentoring — all of which have been
found to help with retention.
“Female students are socialized early on that
tech is not for them,” that tech is not for them,”
Seaman said. “When it becomes hard — it’s hard
