Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

Who asks questions at astronomy meetings?

Nature Astronomy volume 1, Article number: 0153 (2017) Cite this article

Subjects

Over the last decade, significant attention has been drawn to the gender ratio of speakers at conferences, with ongoing efforts for meetings to better reflect the gender representation in the field. We find that women are significantly under-represented, however, among the astronomers asking questions after talks.

Conferences act as a microcosm for our field, with the same biases and barriers to inclusion that affect the careers of astronomers played out in person instead of in abstract. The networking that occurs at conferences is essential to career development, and the in-person interactions between researchers have the potential to shape entire subfields. Recently there have been strong gains in the fraction of women speaking at conferences, as seen in the data collected from 2008 to 2013 by the American Astronomical Society Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (https://cswa.aas.org/percent.html). However, less is known about the nature and equity of the actual interactions scientists have at these conferences, such as in the question and answer (Q and A) sessions following each conference talk. This prompted us to conduct a volunteer-driven study of gender ratios in conference talks. Now in its fourth year, this ongoing survey has revealed many interesting biases in conference talks and questions.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: The fraction of male and female questioners and speakers at four successive AAS winter meetings.
Figure 2: The fraction of questions asked by women as a function of the minimum number of questions asked during each talk.

References

  1. Davenport, J. R. A. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1403.3091 (2014).

  2. Pritchard, J. et al. Astron. Geophys. 55, 6.8–6.12 (2014).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Schmidt, J. S. et al. Preprint at https://arxiv.org/abs/1704.05260 (2017).

  4. Anderson, G. & Ivie, R. Demographics Survey of 2013 US AAS Members (AIP, 2013).

    Google Scholar 

  5. Moss-Racusin, C. A., Dovidio, J. F., Brescoll, V. L., Graham, M. J. & Handelsman J. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 109, 16474–16479 (2012).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  6. Schmid Mast, M. Hum. Commun. Res. 28, 420–450 (2002).

    Google Scholar 

  7. Brescoll, V. L. Admin. Sci. Q. 56, 622–641 (2011).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Prescod-Weinstein, C. Nat. Astron. 1, 0145 (2017).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by a National Science Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship under award AST-1501418.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sarah J. Schmidt is at the Leibniz-Institute for Astrophysics Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482, Potsdam, Germany.,

    Sarah J. Schmidt

  2. James R. A. Davenport is at the Department of Physics & Astronomy, Western Washington University, Bellingham, Washington 98225, USA.,

    James R. A. Davenport

Authors
  1. Sarah J. Schmidt
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. James R. A. Davenport
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Sarah J. Schmidt or James R. A. Davenport.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and Permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Schmidt, S., Davenport, J. Who asks questions at astronomy meetings?. Nat Astron 1, 0153 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-017-0153

Download citation

  • Published:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-017-0153

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing