The barriers to success for women in academia arise from long standing systemic issues which result in reduced retention of female academics, the so called 'leaky pipeline', unfortunately these barriers have only become greater since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Along with unconscious bias in hiring and promotions and fewer grants awarded to female researchers, the pandemic has seen the majority of caregiving responsibilities fall onto women for children and elderly family members. The response to this increasing burden on female academics needs to be addressed to prevent the loss of women in academia in even greater numbers. WIRI will be joined by Prof. Pamela B. Davis and Dr. Rosarii Griffin for a discussion on these issues of retention and frameworks for action to address these problems.

Discussion will be held online via Zoom. Audience questions will be taken at the end. Questions can be submitted anonymously.

If you require Sign Language, please contact us at womeninresearchireland@gmail.com

MEET THE PANELISTS:

Prof. Pamela B. Davis, MD, PhD is currently Arline H. and Curtis F. Garvin Research Professor and Professor at the Center for Community Health Integration, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

She became dean of the School of Medicine and senior vice president for medical affairs at Case Western Reserve University in 2007 after serving as interim dean during the previous year. She stepped down in 2020 to serve as the Arline H. and Curtis F. Garvin Research Professor in the Center for Community Health Integration. She received her BS in chemistry, summa cum laude, from Smith College in 1968, and the doctorate in physiology and pharmacology in 1973 and her medical degree in 1974, both from Duke University.

In 2014, Dr. Davis was inducted into the Institute of Medicine, now known as the National Academy of Medicine. She was also elected as the 2015 Chair of the Medical Sciences Section of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, where she was elected a fellow. In 2020 she was inducted into the National Academy of Inventors. For more than 40 years, she has been funded by the NIH, and has served on the Advisory Council to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, and the Advisory Council for National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences. Most of her more than 150 peer reviewed papers report research in cystic fibrosis, but in 2021 her research focus shifted to using informatics approaches in large databases to gain insight into important clinical problems, most recently the reciprocal interaction of COVID and several chronic conditions, and she is supported by the NIH for this work in the Multiple Principal Investigator mode.

Dr Rosarii Griffin Interim Director of the Centre for Global Development, UCC

Dr Rosarii Griffin is currently the Interim Director of the ‘Centre for Global Development’ at University College Cork, Ireland. Rosarii also lectures and researches in ‘education for global sustainable development’; gender, disability studies and research methodology (quantitative and qualitative research methods) to undergraduates and postgraduates at University College Cork, Ireland. Her main expertise resides in the area of ‘International and Comparative Education’ (D.Phil, Oxford University). She is a Professional, experienced Researcher, involved in numerous European Horizon 2020 (EUH2020) multi-Euro Projects. Rosarii is Chairperson of UCC’s Researcher Staff Association (UCCRSA). She is elected the International Officer for Ireland’s National Research Staff Association (IrishRSA) and is also Secretary and Director of the International Consortium of Researcher Staff Associations (ICORSA). Rosarii is a longstanding Fellow of London’s Royal Society of Arts, UK. Finally, in her free time, Rosarii likes to read, run, play tennis and the piano. She is also the proud mother of two vivacious teenage girls.