The Women of CPAESS

An MIT blog posting The Gender Gap in STEM: Still Gaping in 2023 shows that women only represent “24% in the United States, 17% in the European Union, 16% in Japan, and 14% in India” so there is plenty of room for women to be in a position to achieve that afforded to their male counterparts. Some of the contributing factors to this gender gap include stereotypes and lack of encouragement, a lack of role models, unconscious bias, and work-life balance imbalances. Some of the helpful strategies suggested are encouraging girls to pursue STEM education, creating inclusive workplaces, promoting female role models, providing professional development opportunities, addressing structural barriers like gender pay gaps and lack of family-friendly policies, and encouraging women to stay in STEM careers. Some of the noted benefits of these strategies are promoting diversity and inclusion, economic growth, improved research and improved products and services, as well as social progress.

CPAESS takes this the advancement of Earth system science very seriously, including having a holistic and equitable approach to hiring and providing opportunities for our staff. We have women at CPAESS who communicate to the world ongoing discoveries aboard ocean exploring vessels, who regularly fly into hurricanes to collect critical scientific data, who contribute to and assist with the annual Arctic Report card, and who model and study the effects of coronal mass ejections of the Sun  - among many other important tasks. We sincerely appreciate all the women on our team, from researchers to business staff, who daily support Earth system science and are paving paths for the future!