News Category: News
Elizabeth Croft new chair for Women in Science and Technology 
SCWIST member and University of British Columbia Mechanical Engineering professor Elizabeth Croft is a new chair for Women in Science and Engineering for the BC and Yukon region.
Male graduates had higher earnings than female graduates, at all levels of education
From the National Graduates Survey Class of 2005, published by StatsCan
The difference in annual earnings by level of education differed for males and females who were working full-time (Chart 2.6). For females, the median earnings increased by level of education. For males, the median earnings increased from the college to bachelor level and from the bachelor to master level but stayed the same between the master and doctorate levels.
Across all levels of education, males typically earned more than females (Chart 2.6). Furthermore, as the earnings level (percentile) increased, the gap between the genders increased as well – at least among college, bachelor and master graduates. At the doctorate level, the difference between male and female earnings still existed at the median and the 75th percentile, but was narrower than at other levels of education. At the 25th percentile, however, earnings of female doctorate graduates actually exceeded those of males by $2,400. The largest earnings gap between the genders was at the master level, at the 75th percentile, where gross earnings for males exceeded those of women by $13,000. This pattern did not change from five years before.
Earnings distribution of 2005 graduates working full-time in 2007, by gender and level of study
http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/81-595-m/2009074/activ-eng.htm
Stroke Research at UBC
The results of two studies involving patients who have survived severe strokes indicate that rehabilitation strategies for such patients need to be improved.
PhD student Jodi Edwards discovered that although more Canadians are surviving severe strokes, they are experiencing poorer quality of life after the event. Her study was published in the May issue of the journal Stroke.
Post-doctoral fellow Sean Meehan established that survivors of severe stroke use the prefrontal cortex area of the brain when learning new movements, to compensate for damage to the normally-involved motor region.
“Jodi’s study tells us that quality of life after stroke has decreased in the past decade,” says her supervisor, Lara Boyd, Canada Research Chair in Neurobiology of Motor Learning. “A potential reason for this decline is that while we’re good at rehabilitating patients who have suffered mild to moderately severe strokes, we have very little to offer the increasing numbers of Canadians who have survived a severe stroke. But Sean’s study is pointing to ways to make a major impact in post-stroke care.”
Edwards analyzed public health statistics from 1996-2005, a period when there were many advances in early-intervention treatment for severe stroke. Meehan studied functional magnetic resonance imaging results from health subjects and stroke patients to compare which parts of the brain were engaged in performing new tasks.
“This new information on how the brain compensates for damage suggests two potential strategies for rehabilitation: We could work on restoring the original brain function before the stroke occurred, or by promoting this new pathway,” says Meehan, who is Edwards’ lab mate and also supervised by Boyd.
“The convergence of these findings from seemingly divergent areas of research is telling us that the brain isn’t working in compartments with each area taking charge of certain functions that may be irrevocably damaged by injury or disease,” says Boyd. “Rather, the different domains of the brain are inter-related and may
work together to take on new challenges.”
UBC Alumni Magazine Trek Summer 2010, p. 9
Man, Mouse or Just Plain Chicken?
At the embryo stage, humans, mice and chickens apparently have a lot in common. Their faces, at least, are similar enough to allow Joy Richman to study chicken embryos to learn more about the development of the human face. Richman is a pediatric dentist and development biologist. Her work will provide new understanding around facial abnormalities such as cleft palate, today affecting one in 700 babies born.
“The chicken embryo is ideal to unravel these mysteries,” says Richman, who literally cuts postage-stamp sized windows into eggs that allow her to peer inside to the developing embryos with a microscope.
Many animal faces start out as a rudimentary oral cavity surrounded by buds of tissue called prominences that develop into a face. Richman is trying to discover what it is that, at the molecular level, stimulates indistinct cells to form specific structures of the face. To help, she has been awarded $900,000 from the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research.
Prior to receiving her grant, Richman had established that jaw development is linked to the presence of retinoic acid, a vitamin A derivative and a protein linked to bone formation. She did this by inserting beads containing the acid into a chicken embryo, which subsequently developed bones that would become a beak, where
normally there would be cheek bones.
Now she is investigating the genes that play a role in forming the centre of the face. She has already discovered a gene of interest “because it makes a protein that is secreted outside the cell and as such could play a pivotal role. It may act as an orchestrator, directing nearby cells into required patterns.” The protein is strongly
turned on during beak development, and placing a gene for the protein in an embryo caused the growth of an extra beak. Ongoing research will further determine the protein’s role in forming face and limbs.
“Our work will shed light on inherited birth defects that affect the skeleton including cleft lip, jaw size and shape abnormalities, and disturbances in the bones of the hands and feet,” says Richman. “Our results may also one day help to improve healing after injuries to the skeleton.”
UBC Alumni Magazine Trek Summer 2010, p. 5
Male faculty out-earn females at universities
By Allison Cross – Vancouver Sun – August 11, 2010, p. B2
Male professors at Canadian universities on average earn higher salaries than their female colleagues—with the discrepancy reaching more than $20,000 at some institutions, according to Statistics Canada.
The average salary of a full-time, male teaching-staff member at the University of Toronto, excluding medical and dental faculty, is $20,362 higher than a full-time, female teaching-staff member, data from 2008 and 2009 show.
The University of Calgary has the second-largest gap, with male teaching staff earning $20,147 more than female professors.
Other schools reported similar discrepancies: Dalhousie University ($16,162) and McGill University ($15,082) are two examples.
University officials say these pay discrepancies aren’t a sign of modern bias but the result of former hiring practices that favoured men, the age and rank of professors and the distribution of men and women in different disciplines.
“When you actually factor in all those variables then, in fact, the gender differences in salary largely disappear,” said Edith Hillan, vice-provost, faculty and academic life, at the University of Toronto.
Fields such as business, computer science and engineering tend to pay more and are dominated by men, while female-dominated fields, such as social sciences and the humanities, pay less.
“In general, when you look at the data, unfortunately, I think it’s probably only about 18 to 20 per cent of all full professors [are] women across Canada,” Hillan said. “In a sense … a lot of it is the result of hiring practices in the past.
“At [the University of Toronto] we’re doing pretty well. Over the last few years, through a very proactive recruitment process, we’ve got up to the 50-per-cent mark in terms of woman hires. But most of them are going to be at junior ranks, because that’s the way the bulk of our professors come in.”
Pay gap
How the gender gap plays out in major B.C. universities.
University of B.C.: $16,559
Simon Fraser University: $13,095
University of Victoria: $11,526
University of Northern B.C.: $7,590
Protected ocean areas can’t save coral reefs from climate change, new research shows
By Emily Jackson – Vancouver Sun – August 5, 2010, p. A9
The conventional wisdom that marine reserves can save coral reefs from climate change is wishful thinking, according to Simon Fraser University researchers.
In fact, marine reserves, areas of the ocean that are protected from overfishing and pollution, make coral reefs more vulnerable to higher temperatures, said Isabelle Cote, a professor of tropical marine ecology at SFU who has studied coral reefs for 25 years.
“If they can’t cope with fishing, they can’t cope with climate change either,” Cote said.
Experts have long agreed that reducing fishing and pollution would help coral reefs survive climate change, according to a 2008 report by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network.
But Cote’s research contradicts this.
If it held true, higher water temperatures would cause less suffering for protected reefs than for unprotected reefs, she said.
Cote and her research partner, Emily Darling, analyzed more than 50 publications on the vulnerability of coral reefs to climate change for evidence supporting the theory. None was found.
Coral reef species that can’t deal with typical ocean pressures such as fishing and pollution do survive in protected areas, Cote said.
However, “When there’s a period of really warm waters, these species drop like flies because they’re really sensitive,” she said.
Because coral reefs outside of protected areas deal with more stress, the species they house are more resilient. These “tougher” reefs are more likely to withstand climate change, Cote said.
But that doesn’t mean that marine reserves don’t have a purpose.
“Inside marine protected areas you do get massive increases in diversity, species that you don’t find anywhere else,” Cote said.
Climate models are advanced enough now to predict which areas of the ocean will warm the most in the next 50 to 100 years, she said, and planners should use this information to ensure marine reserves are put in places that are the least likely to warm up.
Even without factoring in the potential for climate change, experts predicted that 15 per cent of the world’s coral reefs will be seriously threatened in 10 to 20 years, according to the 2008 report.
Coral reefs act as barriers during storms, provide seafood, are a source of sand for beaches and are home to millions of species.
And, says Cote, “We’ve only scratched the surface of the potential for these organisms to solve health problems.”
While Cote’s research was done in tropical climates, she said her conclusions might also apply to the temperate waters off B.C. “There are lots of strong parallels between tropical coral reefs and temperate kelp forests,” she said.
B.C. has 148 marine protected areas in place to conserve kelp beds, abandoned canneries and archeological sites.
Canadian scientists lead the way in analysis of Martian atmosphere
Team will develop spectrometer to use in search for signs of life on Red Planet
By Mike Barber – Vancouver Sun – August 3, 2010
A Canadian team will share a lead role in creating an instrument to analyze the levels of methane and oxygen in Mars’s atmosphere, potentially uncovering signs of life on the red planet.
The Canadian Space Agency announced Monday a team of Canadian scientists will develop the Mars Atmospheric Trace Molecule Occultation Spectrometer.
It is an extremely sensitive device that will orbit Mars and document the planet’s chemical makeup, said Victoria Hipkin, a planetary scientist with the agency and the project’s co-leader.
The spectrometer will be placed aboard the ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter, a joint project of NASA and the European Space Agency scheduled to launch in 2016.
If successful, “it would set a very clear pathway for future Mars exploration,” Hipkin said. “It’s a very ambitious mission.”
The spectrometer has its roots in another Canadian endeavour, a satellite measuring trace amounts of gas on Earth that has yielded discoveries on ozone depletion and air quality since its launch in 2003, Hipkin said.
“We’re now applying this amazingly sensitive instrument to the Mars atmosphere to look for signs of activity,” she said. “This is an area in which Canada is currently leading the world.”
The spectrometer will search primarily for methane, which Hipkin called “a potential signature of biology on Mars.”
On Earth, both methane and oxygen are primarily produced by life—methane from algae and the digestive tracts of animals, and oxygen from plants.
“Together, they provide an amazing signature for anyone looking at Earth a long way away to say that there must be active biology on this planet, because those two gases will react together,” Hipkin explained.
The spectrometer will be able to measure how much methane there is at different locations around Mars, and how it changes throughout the seasons.
Areas with higher concentrations would indicate regions on Mars’s surface ripe for further exploration.
“Trying to understand its atmospheric chemistry is a different kind of fundamental look that we’re taking at Mars that hasn’t been done before,” Hipkin said.
“The technique we’re applying to Mars now is the primary one we will use to understand the planets beyond our solar system.”
Canadian sounds alarm on wombat carnage Down Under
Beaver-sized marsupials are dying by the thousands as roadkill on highways around Sydney, ironically in areas identified as reserves
By Randy Boswell – Vancouver Sun – July 22, 2010, p. B3
A young Canadian scientist, who earned her academic spurs studying moose and porcupines in the Great White North, is now grabbing headlines Down Under for her efforts to protect Australia’s iconic wombat, the beaver-sized marsupials that are dying by the thousands as roadkill on highways around Sydney.
University of New South Wales wildlife biologist Erin Roger, an Ottawa native who also went to school in British Columbia and Nova Scotia, has raised alarms over the wombat carnage in southeast Australia, where about 3,000 of the creatures are killed annually by cars and trucks—often, ironically, in areas identified as wombat reserves.
“I am interested in how roads are an often overlooked threat and how we continue to build more and more roads with little regard for the kinds of habitat and species populations we are fragmenting,” Roger said in an interview. “I feel like people have this sense of inevitability when it comes to roadkill, whereas in most other situations that kind of loss of life would be otherwise very concerning.”
Her research, featured last week in the Sydney Morning Herald and on Australian radio, has highlighted the potential need for mitigation measures such as fencing along roadways and animal-crossing structures.
In the Herald article, the Canadian researcher perhaps risked a backlash from Australians by expressing her surprise at the “negative” attitudes many in the country hold toward commons species such as the wombat and kangaroo—treating “icons as pests,” she said.
“The conservation of wildlife populations living adjacent to roads is gaining international recognition as a worldwide concern,” Roger and two UNSW colleagues wrote recently in the journal Population Ecology.
Their study noted that road deaths are having a significant, species-wide impact and are a greater threat to some wombat subpopulations than either of the traditional threats to the animal—diseases such as mange or predation by the dingo and Tasmanian devil.
Ancient underwater ecosystems found off Newfoundland’s coast
By Giuseppe Valiante – Vancouver Sun – July 21, 2010, p. B1
A team of Canadian and Spanish scientists has discovered forms of marine life previously unknown to science, some of which are more than 1,000 years old and hold the secrets to ancient underwater ecosystems.
The Fisheries Department and scientists from three Canadian universities and the Spanish Institute of Oceanography are on a 20-day expedition, using a robot to take pictures and to grab samples of coral and sponges up to three kilometres deep in the waters off the coast of Newfoundland.
The team is studying 11 areas under protection of the North Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) that are, collectively, about 1½ times the size of Prince Edward Island.
These areas are important because they contain the “trees of the ocean,” says Ellen Kenchington, research scientist with the Fisheries Department, who is one of the leaders of the expedition.
The coral that grows in this area can be several metres tall and change the flow of water currents. It also gives shelter to fish and other organisms.
“It’s a similar function a tree would serve in the forest, cutting down wind, providing branches for birds. We have the same type of communities that take shelter down there,” she said.
These coral and sponges—which are extremely fragile—are essential in keeping the areas abundant with the marine life that is fished by many countries around the world, including Canada, the U.S., the European Union and Japan.
Kenchington’s team is assessing whether more of these areas need to be protected from fishing in order to keep stocks sustainable.
During the course of the research, Kenchington’s team says it has discovered at least two new species of coral and six sponges in international waters, thousands of metres down.
Black coral, in particular, cements itself to the bottom of the ocean and can live more than 1,000 years. The coral has the equivalent of growth rings that can be revealed when sectioning its skeleton.
Kenchington said scientists can potentially look at the coral’s chemical composition and determine the temperature of the water and other data from as far back as 1,000 years.
“That’s how we are able to say if there is warming or a change in climate direction,” she said. “In order to understand the present we need to put it into context.”
Donate blood with SCWIST!
SCWIST has recently joined the Partners for Life program with Canadian Blood Services. We have committed to promoting this great program and encouraging our Board, staff and members to donate blood.
Donating blood is simple to do and only takes about one hour of your time. Each donation can help save three lives and donors are eligible to give blood every 56 days. Can’t donate? Recruit a friend or family member to donate on your behalf!
Your donations are automatically counted towards our yearly pledged goal once you register as a SCWIST donor. To register with us please go to https://www.blood.ca/Web/PFL.nsf/Member?openform&Lang=E&SFDS=S&cURL;=/Web/PFL.nsf/French?OpenPage&Category=Forms and enter our Partner ID# soci010593 (4 letters, 6 digits), your name, phone number, date of birth and donor card number if you already have one.
There are numerous blood clinics available. Locations can be found online at http://www.blood.ca/centreapps/clinics/InetClinics.nsf/CVSE?OpenForm&CloseMenu;.
To book an appointment call 1-888-2DONATE (236-6283). Blood, it’s in you to give.
Gender bias in sciences
Women paid less, receive fewer awards, resources
By Margaret Munro, Vancouver Sun, June 24, 2010 – p. B6
Women scientists in every country, including Canada, tend to be paid a lot less than their male counterparts, according to an international survey.
Six to 10 years after completing their PhDs, men’s salaries start to increase relative to women’s, according to the survey of 10,500 scientists that found a pronounced gender pay gap. And the gap widens over time, it found, with men’s salaries 18 to 40 per cent higher than women’s in Australia, Germany, Italy, Spain, the United Kingdom, India, Japan, the United States and Canada. Male scientists in Canada averaged $80,000 US, compared to women whose pay is closer to $65,000.
The finding fits with a notable gender bias in Canadian science, where men win a lot more than big salaries. Last month, the Harper government awarded all 19 of its new $10-million research awards to men. Not only were no women selected for the prestigious prizes, called the Canada Excellence Research Chairs, but there was not a female name on the short list of 36 candidates considered.
The all-male prizes re-ignited a debate over whether gender equality will ever be a reality on Canadian campuses.
“That this sort of thing can still happen is an embarrassment for Canada and profoundly demoralizing for the women scientists in this country,” Lynne Quarmby, a professor in the molecular biology and biochemistry department at Simon Fraser University, said shortly after the all-male prizes were announced.
The results of a career survey in the journal Nature this week show the salary gender bias is an international phenomenon.
It is likely the result of “accumulating inequities in resources and respect,” says Kathleen Christensen, who specializes in workplace issues at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a non-profit research organization in New York.
Women scientists often start their careers with slightly lower salaries, in more poorly equipped labs, with fewer graduate students and appointments to less-prestigious committees, Christensen writes in a commentary.
Technical Interview Tips
by Sabina Nawaz
Three Ways To Find A Twinkle In Their Eye
3 keys to interviewing and hiring a candidate to die for, who you can live with- in the cubicle next to you
I have seen so many of them. They all are well dressed and pleasant. I like many but none has totally hit the mark. I really hope that he is The One.
I had flown back to the East Coast to conduct on campus college interviews sessions as a technical hiring manager on behalf of my company. By 11am I had already seen five candidates. After talking to each person, I’d recommend whether or not we fly them back for a day long interview at our headquarters. Whether on campus or in your office,
if you’ve interviewed candidates, I’m sure you’ve been where I was at this point. While it’s great to see a variety of candidates with many options from which to choose, you also really want the candidate in front of you to succeed. So you can have someone on board as soon as possible, so you can free up your calendar to do the rest of your job, and so you can delegate with confidence that it will be done well.
To help with this, wouldn’t it be great if you could measure the brilliance of the twinkle in their eyes and know your perfect candidate? Unfortunately we are not there. And so each of us develops some techniques, questions, approaches to interviewing. In addition to the specific technical questions you might pose, the points below cover three key areas to consider in helping you identify not just someone who looks good today but someone who will continue to be attractive after you have dealt with the issue threatening your next milestone. A full time hire lasts beyond your current project and might even outlast you.
It’s not just his skill but also his will
Your project was in crisis. His coding skills were superlative and he could definitely hit the ground running. You hired him. It’s been three months since he started. Number of lines of code written to date: zero. One of my hiring mistakes was someone like this. I was so bowled over by his technical prowess that I didn’t pay attention to an uneasy feeling in my gut. My gut was asking me to pay attention to the fact that he had his sunglasses on the whole time we talked. That he never described his specific contributions to a project when I probed behaviorally about his past projects. And that he obliquely blamed many different circumstances for lack of traction. Especially when you are in high need of certain skills and find yourself really excited about someone who is great in that arena, take the time to ask behavioral questions _ aimed at finding out if they’re just smart or if they also get things done. _Many people’s hiring mistakes are not because of a lack of the employee’s skill but a lack of will. We often have a barrage of skill based questions. How often do you ask will based questions?
Example questions:
•Describe your specific role and what you did on a project from start to finish.
•How did you handle unexpected situations?
•What would your manager/co-worker say was your most significant contribution to that project?
Look for:
•Specific contributions vs. generalized words like synergized, facilitated, and teamed up with.
Are others better because of her?
The twinkle in her eye might be bright because of their high IQ. But what about her EQ? Today’s business needs require more and more horizontal integration
and reliance on people across the globe. I currently coach a talented executive who is considering leaving his job because he is miserable every time he has to interact with a peer of his who I’ll call Joe. And the success of their business depends on their ability to work well together. He is not the only one. All of Joe’s peers find him challenging at best. They range from those who tolerate him and limit their interactions as much as possible to my client whose day job requires a heavy dose of Joe’s presence. The company might suffer both a business and talent casualty as a result of this non team player. Do you ask questions aimed at determining whether the candidate will be able to play well with others instead of someone who leaves a wake collateral damage?
Example questions:
•Describe a time when someone else wasn’t pulling their weight on a project that you were both on. What did you do?
•How did you handle a challenging situation with a co-worker?
•If you were to do this again, what would you do differently?
Look for:
•How accountable they are about their own actions and reactions vs. blaming others
•What they have learned through each experience
•How capable they are of challenging and changing their own assumptions and behaviors
Maybe is not an option
I loved the red in that dress. I adored the cute little piping in that jacket. And I absolutely had to have those shoes with the oversized buckles. I bought these three years ago. They still have their tags. Either because they didn’t fit just right or didn’t work with other things in my closet. When something has a spark of potential, I like to keep my options open. For as long as I can. Sometimes even longer than the expiration date for when I can return an unused and unsuitable purchase.
When interviewing candidates who are here to stay, I have to curb this desire. At the end of the interview process, if I don’t have a clear hire/no hire answer, if I’m still thinking of him as a ‘maybe’, then my answer converts to a ‘no hire’. Headcount is precious. And a bad hire will haunt you for several months if not years. If you find yourself hesitant, keep looking.
Sample questions (to ask yourself):
•What is it about this person that I concretely like?
•What is it about this person that I’m hesitant about?
•What did I not hear that I wished I’d heard during the interview?
Look for:
•Your gut reactions. What is it about the person that you may not yet have given voice to that’s making you uncertain?
•Others’ reactions – often they won’t have written it but talking to them could validate and clarify your own concerns
My day on the East Coast college campus ended at 5pm. I interviewed 14 candidates. It’s been five years since I left that company to start my own consulting practice. I’m happy to report that one of the people who I recommended as a ‘fly back’ that day still works there. She demonstrates will and not just skill, those around her love working with her, and she’s one of the first additions to new project teams.
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Sabina Nawaz is an executive coach and leadership development consultant with a global business of clients in 22 different countries and companies worth more than $100 billion. She has deep, hands-on experience having started her career in software development. Sabina brings a C-suite view into a variety of organizations around the world. To learn more about her work, or ask further questions about this article, visit http://www.sabinanawaz.com
