WICB Speaker Referral Service

Women in Cell Biology (WICB) Committee Speaker Referral Service Organizers of scientific meetings, scientific review panels, and university symposia/lecture series are increasingly aware that a balanced gender representation at the podium or in the review process makes for a better and more interesting outcome. WICB has developed two processes that allow organizers, early in meeting planning stages, to receive a list of outstanding women in relevant field(s), women whom they can then consider as invitees and reviewers.

The Referral Process

  1. Send an email to WICB Committee member and ASCB past president Harvey Lodish at Lodish@wi.mit.edu, with a brief description of the planned conference/symposium/lecture series/review panel. Key words are particularly helpful—diabetes, proteomics, membrane transport, etc. You’re welcome to include the venue—Keystone, University of Massachusetts, etc.—but if you’d prefer to omit this, that’s fine.

  2. Lodish has an extensive list of female speakers who have won awards or given Symposium talks at recent ASCB meetings or who have organized Minisymposia in specific research areas. If necessary, he will send the materials you provide to other members of the WICB Committee, who will send back to him, within three days, names of women with whom they are either directly familiar or who are recommended by trusted colleagues in the relevant fields.

  3. Lodish will confirm that potential women speakers are appropriate for the conference or panel, locate the websites of these women, confirm that they are research-active and appropriate, and compile a list that includes title, institution, research description, and contact information.

  4. Lodish will send you the list and you can take it from there.

OR

The Do-It-Yourself Process

Click here to browse the current list of recommended outstanding female speakers.

Don’t See Your Name? This list represents ASCB awardees and speakers at ASCB Symposia and Minisymposia since 1998. If we missed you, please let us know wicb@ascb.org.

WICB welcomes feedback wicb@ascb.org from meeting organizers on this service.

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