This was a fun and inspiring event, presided over by the Diversity Manager for IBM, who is a witty fellow indeed. First he read us a long welcome message faxed in from Vice President Gore. Then, at the last minute, a brief welcome fax from President Clinton arrived and he read that one, too. (I can imagine Bill walking into Al's office and thinking, "Hmmm, I'd better say HI to the WITI conference too...Hey Al can I use the fax when you're done?") You can read Al Gore's statement at the WITI website.
Ten women were inducted, three of whom - Ruth Leach Amonette, Linda Sanford, and Dr. Barabara Grant - found their paths up the ladder at IBM. Grant, who became the first woman general site manager at IBM, earned a PhD in organic chemistry from Stanford in 1974. She told us that she actually wrote in her thesis that she "would have graduated three months earlier had there been a women's restroom in the building," because one of her professors, assuming it would never be used, had the original one turned into his office. Chien-Shiung Wu, one of the discoverers of parity violation, represented physics on the list. (As an aside, for our physics readers :-) out there, take a look at Harvard physicist Melissa Franklin as featured at the WITI website. )
Caltech alum Dr. Misha Mahowald, seen autographing someone's conference program to the right, made the WITI Hall of Fame for her development of the silicon retina and her continuing pathfinding work in neuroscience as a "neuromorphic engineer" at the new Zurich Institut Fur Neuroinformatik.
Mahowald was a subject for the Discovering Women PBS documentary series about women in science. On the first two days she hosted viewings of her show and spoke with the audience afterwards. One question women were curious about was: why did she leave Caltech, and why did she come back? She told the audience about the Caltech tradition of "glomming," about how she was threatened and verbally harassed because she wanted to spend less time with certain Caltech men than they wanted to spend with her. She returned to Caltech after her research mentor Dr. Carver Meade obtained funding so that she could afford to live off campus. She said Caltech undergraduate housing was like fraternity housing, and that more alternatives need to be provided for students who don't like that type of social structure.
On the last day Mahowald hosted a roundtable discussion on "The Feminine in Science". The consensus of the group I was in was that yes, it does seem that ideals and metaphors and manners of group interaction traditionally associated with women or with the "feminine" in Western culture are finally being regarded as "scientific" or are being used by scientists.
One WITI Hall of Fame inductee who made a deep personal impression on me was solid state chemist Dr. Cheryl Shavers, seen fourth from right above networking with senior women at the conference, who is easily the most charismatic woman scientist I have ever met.
Dr. Shavers compared her executive position as General Manager of Advanced Technology Operation at Intel to "The Drop Zone", the amusement park ride billed as the "world's tallest free-fall ride." When Intel suddenyl finds that a peripheral chip supplier can't meet their demand, Shavers is the one they call to assemble a team, build a lab, design a factory and coax the chip designers into sharing the design to save the day. She is also a practicing registered patent agent, a good skill to have out there on the cutting edge of high technology.
Shavers hasn't cast feminism aside in her path to the executive suite. At the conference she was usually visible talking to other women. In her speech she stressed the value of networking, of creating and maintaining a web of contacts with other women, not just senior executive women but admin assistants and receptionists. And of course, not just with other women. She told us that taking the time to chat with building contractors could pay off later if you need to build a whole factory and lab all of sudden in a big hurry.
"Know what it is that you stand for," she emphasized, adding that a strong personal sense of mission is the "warm blanket" that gets her through the difficult times, and helps her choose her battles wisely.