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Balancing family life with a science career

Nature Immunology volume 16, pages 787–790 (2015)Cite this article

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Women are underrepresented in the science and engineering fields. Difficulties in balancing family life and work have a big role in women's opting out of scientific career paths. Institutions and funding agencies need to work harder to reverse this disparity.

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Figure 1: Priority plot.
Figure 2: Demographics of general population versus scientists and engineers.

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Acknowledgements

I thank my colleagues and friends (M. Furniss Weisberg, A. Pyle, S. Kaech, O. Colegio, V. Greco, V. Horsley, M. King, K. Politi, S. Eisenbarth, K. Toomre, M. Tokuyama and E. Foxman) for contributing thoughts and experience that helped me formulate the ideas presented here; M.F. Weisberg for editorial advice; my husband and our daughters for supporting my career as a scientist; and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Yale University School of Medicine, in particular R. Alpern, C. Slayman and R. Flavell, for providing a supportive environment.

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  1. Department of Immunobiology, Department of Molecular Cellular and Developmental Biology, Akiko Iwasaki is with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Yale University School of Medicine, New Haven, Connecticut, USA.,

    Akiko Iwasaki

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  1. Akiko Iwasaki
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Correspondence to Akiko Iwasaki.

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Iwasaki, A. Balancing family life with a science career. Nat Immunol 16, 787–790 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ni.3199

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