Dr. Fernanda Staniscuaski, Associate Professor at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in … [+]
Brazilian molecular biologist Fernanda Staniscuaski has been leading efforts to find hard data on women’s participation in science, especially during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
Staniscuaski, an associate professor at the Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre and founder/coordinator of the Parent in Science Movement, says that she once worked on on insecticidal proteins, but since having a child, she has pivoted her research and founded the movement to support parents in science.
“Since I’ve started is this new research area, my main project has been to deeply analyze the impacts of parenthood on the academic career of Brazilian scientists, taking into consideration all intersections with parenthood, such as gender, race, social status and more,” she says, adding that the the Parent in Science movement was founded to provide support to mothers facing barriers as women in STEM.
“The aim was to promote institutional changes to ensure they are not forced to choose between motherhood and a career in science, thus contributing to gender and race equality in science,” Staniscuaski says,”When we first started our movement in 2016, there was still a lot of resistance to talking about motherhood within the academic and scientific environment.”
Then came the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Overnight, we found ourselves facing the reality of remote work amidst many care obligations (whether for children or the elderly, or for other family members who required special attention), which was now entirely our responsibility, 24 hours a day,” she says.
In a scientific paper published in 2021, “Gender, race and parenthood impact academic productivity during the COVID-19 pandemic: from survey to action,” Staniscuaski and her coauthors conducted a survey during the months of April and May 2020, a period in which almost the entire country was in some degree of lockdown; the survey was answered by more than 14,000 graduate students, post-docs and professors/researchers from all regions of Brazil.
“The data obtained in our survey made clear the need for immediate action to prevent the pandemic from causing a setback in all the progress made in relation to gender and race issues in science,” she says, adding that analysis from the survey served as the basis for institutional action plans that were shortly after put into practice in different institutions.
In 2021, The Parent in Science Movement was awarded the Nature Springer Research Award for Inspiring Women in Science.
“It was such an honor to have our work recognized with such a prestigious award,” Staniscuaski said.
Small Town to Big Conversations
Staniscuaski grew up in the small southern Brazillian town (Erechim) in Rio Grande do Sul state known for being one of the first planned cities along modern lines built in the country.
“Since I was a teenager I had no doubt that I wanted to be a scientist, even though I wasn’t quite sure what it meant at that time,” she says, adding that although there were no direct mentors early on, news of a scientific discovery sparked her interest.
“I was in high school when the cloning of Dolly the sheep was announced,” she says, “I thought it was fantastic; I even bought books on the subject at that time and to this day I have kept a folder of news clippings from science newspapers and magazines that I collected during my high school years.”
Staniscuaski says she was fascinated by genetics, but then I found my way into another area during college, going on to work in a research lab.
“My career has been pretty linear and continuous, following the extremely demanding and expected (and to be honest, unrealistic for most people) steps: from undergrad to PhD to Post-doc to Professor,” she says, adding that her life then changed when she became a parent.
The Parent in Science team
Another biologist from South America with a focus on a more inclusive environment for women in STEM is Maria Claudia Segovia Salcedo.
Segovia, an associate professor at the University of the Armed Forces (ESPE) in Ecuador is co-founder of the Ecuadorian Network of Women Scientists and is helping to create a seed bank of Andean mountain plants.
