Professors Robinson Fulweiler and Sarah Davies were coauthors on an essay, “Rebuild the Academy: Supporting academic mothers during COVID-19 and beyond”, in PLOS Biology and were featured in BU Today’s article “Let Us Be the Architects of a New World” because of their contribution to ending inequality in the field of scientific research.
Women—particularly mothers, and especially mothers of color— were hugely affected by the pandemic, losing jobs in greater numbers than men, handling the increased amount of housework that quarantine created and spending longer time tutoring their children who are now studying online.
“We kept [seeing new peer-reviewed publications] and reading [about these studies in the news], which showed moms were being badly impacted, and a lot of the lead authors on these papers were men,” says ecosystems ecologist and biogeochemist Robinson Fulweiler, a BU College of Arts & Sciences professor of biology and of earth and environment, who has been an advocate for women in academia even before she became a mom to two children, ages three and one. “The news was reporting these studies as if they were a surprise…but there’s already been a lot of data gathered about this issue. But there have been no solutions. Our level of frustration peaked. We decided we need to make a plan to fix things.”
Therefore, Dr. Fulweiler found Dr. Davies, a fellow marine scientist and a BU College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of biology. They got together a group of mothers in academia with a variety of backgrounds and at various stages of their careers to speak out to address workplace inequalities. The thirteen researchers authored a manifesto for supporting mothers in academia, that layouts policies that would support women, and particularly mothers and parents of color, to help women succeed in a field traditionally dominated by white men.
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