Dr. Sarah Davies was recently featured in The Brink’s article, “Sexism and Racism in Science: How the Coronavirus Pandemic Exposed Everything.” The Brink interviewed Dr. Davies about her new PLOS Biology paper, “Promoting inclusive metrics of success and impact to dismantle a discriminatory reward system in science.” The paper is the product of a collaboration between Dr. Davies and 23 others, including BU’s Dr. Wally Fulweiler, Dr. Colleen Bove, and Dr. Hanny Rivera. An excerpt of The Brink article is below:
In science, career progress—or lack thereof—is typically determined by certain criteria, such as how often a researcher’s studies are cited by other scientists, and by the number of papers they publish in prestigious, high-impact scientific journals (which often comes with an expensive price tag paid by a paper’s authors). Those metrics, however, are biased against already marginalized groups in science—namely, those who don’t identify as white males—and ensure that sexism and racism continue to plague the field, according to 24 researchers who have penned a new PLOS Biology piece on the topic.
Sarah Davies, the piece’s co-lead author and a Boston University College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of biology, says the time crunch and workload created by the coronavirus pandemic was a tipping point for many marginalized researchers. “I’ve never been busier, so it was an interesting choice to take on a ‘perspectives’ piece outside my field of [marine biology] research,” she says. “But the coronavirus pandemic created the perfect storm of being ‘over it.’” For Davies, that meant the daunting task of navigating a changing work and research environment while juggling childcare amidst the pandemic.
Read the full article here.