We want to put our members in the spotlight! For the Meet the WISE series, we interview WISE members in different stages of their career across the university. We hope that their stories, experiences and career paths can be an inspiration to other women at 果冻传媒.
Hello! Can you start by introducing yourself and the research that you're doing here at 果冻传媒?
My name is Jemima Tabeart. I'm an assistant professor at CASA (Centre for Analysis, Scientific Computing and Applications) in the Mathematics and Computer Science department. My work focuses on two areas. The first is numerical linear algebra, which is solving big algebraic equations on a computer efficiently, and the second is applications to data assimilation, which is about how you combine information from a dynamical system with measurements. Think about the weather forecast. To get a good forecast, you need a good initial guess about the current state of the atmosphere, which you get by combining measurement information with model information from a previous forecast
How did you get interested in science and how did you choose mathematics as your career path?
I enjoyed mathematics at school, but I did not find it that challenging. In the United Kingdom, where I'm from, maths is a typical subject to do at university if you are not sure what career path you want to follow, which I think is quite different in other countries. I liked maths and it has a lot of career options, so I thought I would try it. It turned out I liked university maths even more, because it was more interesting. Then, at each stage I was like, oh, well, I guess I'll just get a job in industry after this. But I kept finding it interesting and there kept being new challenges, so I just kept going.
What has been your experience with the WISE network?
I joined the WISE network very recently, so I've only been to one WISE event, which was the annual event. This was very nice. I liked the balance between personal experiences and high-level discussion. It was also just a really nice chance to network with people from other departments. I'm in contact with lots of people in mathematics and computer science, but there's obviously a lot more departments where some of the challenges are quite different. It was very good to connect with other people across the university and at different levels of seniority.
How is the gender balance in the mathematics department and how was it back in the UK?
In my cluster, it's now good. We have two full professors and an associate professor who are women. There were recently also six new positions, for which four women were hired. But if you look back like 8 years, there were no or very few women. I think people appreciate having a more diverse group, but we're all aware that this is a recent development.
In the UK, it depended on where I worked. At the university where I did my PhD, the University of Reading, there was a reasonable amount of gender balance and women at all levels of seniority. One of my female PhD advisors got promoted to full professor shortly after I graduated. But during my postdocs in Edinburgh and Oxford, this was not the case. In my group in Edinburgh, I think only 10% of the permanent staff were women. So that was not great, I much prefer having more women colleagues.
What do you think causes this gender disparity in science?
A lot of my colleagues who were women decided to leave after the PhD or a postdoc for career stability reasons. I think my male colleagues think about this less. They might like having some stability, but it's not something that really drives them. The idea also seems to be that you can have more flexible career types in industry or in other jobs, such as part-time working. The perception in academia seems to be that you have to work 150% to even stay at the minimum level. I don鈥檛 think this is true, but people don't want that lack of balance, so they feel like they have to go do something else.
How do you experience the demanding working conditions in academia?
I don't work in an experimental lab-based role so that might be different. In my experience, you can work 40 hours a week, but you do get less done than a colleague who works 60 hours a week. This means that you have to be more selective about what you do. I have very rarely worked on weekends since my PhD, I've typically worked from 9:00 to 5:00. Part of the reason for this was that I wasn鈥檛 so tied to an academic career. If I wasn't able to make it like that, then I don't want to do it! I have lots of other interests. Obviously, there are times when there are lots of deadlines or you have teaching preparation, where you have to do more work. But that should then be balanced with other times, where you're able to be a bit more flexible. Compared to peers, who do work a lot on holiday or on the weekends, I publish fewer papers. But that is okay, it is not my goal to publish a million papers.
You said women maybe prefer more stability in their jobs and this is why they don't choose academia. Did you face any of these kinds of challenges?
I don鈥檛 have kids and I don鈥檛 really want children, so this removes one aspect. But at some point, it鈥檚 terrible moving house all the time and losing your support network. I think this affects people of all genders but maybe some people feel it more than others.
In terms of how my gender has actively affected things, people can take you less seriously, especially if you鈥檙e younger. It can be difficult and demoralizing that people don鈥檛 take you as seriously as male colleagues of the same age or career stage. I have also never been asked if I was a PhD student as many times as when I moved to the Netherlands. People seem to perceive this as flattering, but at some point, I鈥檇 like to be recognized as a bit more senior. I personally haven鈥檛 had it so bad, but I have friends who experienced things like harassment or bullying due to gender issues. That can happen to anybody but does more disproportionately happen to certain groups.
In your opinion, what could be done to reduce the gender disparity in science?
My position was only open to women for the first six months of the job advert, although to be honest, I don't know how I feel about that. I think you have to make an effort to get more women candidates or candidates from diverse backgrounds. Initiatives like this encourage people to reach out to lots of people and look not just at their immediate network. Some minimum requirements of who you're going to interview from your shortlist for jobs would be helpful.
I also think it helps having people that encourage you. I had very good grades when I was a student, but I never thought about doing a PhD. And then some professors basically said, oh, maybe you would consider this. I didn't think I was smart enough to do this, which in hindsight is not true! I wonder how much this was affected by the fact that I only had one class taught by a woman in my four-year degree. I don't know how much you then internalize that this is not a path for women. Whereas the people who encouraged me were men, and then I thought maybe this is something I could do. But there is evidence that shows people are more likely to encourage people that resemble them. What academics can do is to encourage people in your class, who you think might want to stay in science, because they might not have thought about it as an option. Particularly women, but also people who for example are just more shy.
Do you have a role model that you are inspired by?
During my career, having mentors, who were able to do really cool science and be great mentors, and have lives and take holiday, was very important. It is quite encouraging to see people who are working part time, or just working one full time job, and still make progress and have a good career in science. It's sometimes difficult because people can be dismissive of these efforts, especially people who didn't see that there was much of a problem in the first place. But it鈥檚 better for all of us and for science if we have a diverse workforce.
My PhD supervisors were particularly important to me. I had a team of four supervisors, three women and one man, and all of them were very successful in science, but also made it a very big priority to have lives outside of work. One of my PhD advisors, Nancy Nichols, was in her 80s and one of the only women in her field, which she started. She spent her career mentoring and encouraging people, including a lot of women, and she is super inspiring. Another PhD advisor, Sarah Dance, got loads of grants and worked part time and made it to full professor. These were very personal examples who showed me that it's possible.
Mentoring in academia is very important, but sometimes it's underrated or underestimated in the work hours.
It is really important. Part of your job as a supervisor is as a manager and managing people is also about managing those aspects that can make work-life balance more challenging or more difficult. Especially if you're asking people to move country or move institution, that's going to have an impact on work. It's important to support your students there, and also to help give them insight into what things in academia can be different from other workplaces. Part of your role as supervisor is helping your students network with other people and explaining some of the slightly weird things about academia.
But having mentors that aren't just your supervisors is also really important. It's good as a supervisor to facilitate that, because sometimes a student is having a difficult time and doesn't want to necessarily talk to you about it, but they should be able to go to other people that are not directly their scientific boss.
Do you have tips for finding mentors, besides a direct scientific advisor?
You can have mentors at your level, for example people you meet at conferences or in broader networks. Something like WISE is great because you can connect with people at the same or different career stages within the same system but that are not necessarily in your everyday workplace. I also have a lot of peer mentoring with friends from previous jobs or people I connected with at conferences. When you start your PhD, you do not know yet that these people are going to be a source of support for you possibly for the rest of your career. We need to encourage people to build these important relationships. They are the same people who keep staying around and who you keep bumping into, so that can be a real source of support.
What are your hopes for women in academia?
I hope that everybody, no matter their gender or country of origin or sexual orientation, can have an equal chance to have a great career in science. And that in the workplace, academics will encourage their students no matter their background. But it is also important to acknowledge that there are things that interfere with your career and life such as war, genocide, the rise of the far right, and climate change. It is not enough to encourage people to continue with a PhD or continue in academia, but you have to actively fight to improve conditions for everybody. It鈥檚 not great if I, as a white middle class woman, have a job, while other people from other backgrounds are going through horrible things and science isn鈥檛 even their top 10 challenge. Both on the day-to-day business level and also on the equality level it's really important to use your voice.
You say scientists should be more involved in society and the decision-making processes that affect us. What steps do you think scientists can take themselves?
You can do things both at a scientific and policy level, depending on your area of interest. In terms of decision making, there's using your science knowledge for good. You can make choices about what projects you get involved with, or whether you're going to work on specific things. For example, if you work in energy, maybe work on the green energy transition. But even if you just do pure mathematics, it's not apolitical.
And you can use your voice to raise awareness of the challenges that other people have. For example, I've been to quite a few conferences where presenters can't present because their visas haven't come through, and that's not affecting everyone from every background equally. But you can also speak with people in your life about how these political decisions affect things in your workplace or the people in your team. Or you can speak to your representatives to show what the impact is on people around you and on science.
What would be your advice for a fellow researcher that wants to start their career tomorrow?
The most important part is that there's lots of nice scientific problems to work on. But the people you work with are the most impactful on how enjoyable your life is. Keep going as long as it鈥檚 fun. You have the right to choose who to work with, unlike in many other jobs, and there are lots of great people out there. It鈥檚 totally reasonable to work with people who are good collaborators and nice to work with, and then the good science will come.