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Gender disparities among independent fellows in biomedical research

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Independent fellowships provide an opportunity for junior scientists to found their own lab directly after completing their PhD. However, these positions show a striking gender bias that has remained consistent for almost 30 years.

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Figure 1: Few women are hired as independent fellows.
Figure 2: Independent fellows typically become productive tenure-track faculty members.
Figure 3: Gender balance of the applicant pools for the DP5 and for three independent fellow programs.

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Acknowledgements

The author is grateful for helpful comments from Joan Smith, Jackie Giovanniello, and Christine Scaduto.

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Correspondence to Jason M Sheltzer.

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The author is an independent fellow at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory.

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Sheltzer, J. Gender disparities among independent fellows in biomedical research. Nat Biotechnol 36, 1018–1021 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt.4274

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