Science in the New Millennium, Dr. Donna J. Nelson, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Oklahoma

4/12/07

Science in the New Millennium, Dr. Donna J. Nelson, Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Oklahoma

Wow, this seminar was interesting. First I had lunch with Dr. Donna Nelson and the members of the WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) organization. During lunch Dr. Nelson answered our questions and talked about being a woman professor. She then started to talk about the number of women and minorities that are professors. Dr. Nelson completed research on the number of Assistant, Associate, and Full Professors in the top 50 departments in 14 science and engineering specialties. I found out that Dr. Nelson was going to present her data at an Advance Distinguished Speaker Series Seminar at 4:00, so I went to the seminar. This is where she showed the data. It was jaw dropping. The number of African American Assistant professors is pitiful. Needless to say the number of associate and full professors is worse than pitiful. I will let you interpret the data yourself. Check out Dr. Nelson’s work at http://cheminfo.chem.ou.edu/faculty/djn/djn.html, the tables with the data are at http://cheminfo.chem.ou.edu/faculty/djn/diversity/top50.html, and the final report is located at http://cheminfo.chem.ou.edu/faculty/djn/diversity/briefings/15Jan04Briefings.html.

Dr. Nelson has presented her finding in many lectures and has testified before congress.

This has inspired me to really think about obtaining a PhD. I am starting to think seriously about this and about the subject area that I would like to pursue. I have 4 more classes to go for my master’s. But apparently, I was supposed to be thinking about the PhD even before I started the masters. :-)

Michelle

References

Nelson, D. J., Ph.D. (2007, April 12). Science in the new millennium. Lecture presented at The
ADVANCE Distinguished Speaker Series, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Catonsville, MD.