About BUWIB

Founded by women graduate students in the Boston University Department of Biology, our group strives to contribute to the success of women in biological sciences by providing a forum to address issues specific to women and networking opportunities to foster mentoring relationships between women faculty and graduate students.

We organize informal lunches where faculty, BU alumni, and other speakers from academia and industry can share their perspective on career development in science and help with challenging career decisions for both men and women.

Additionally, we support BU’s WISE (Women in Science and Engineering) program in mentoring and community outreach, career development, and addressing issues specific to women.

Why BUWIB?

Often times, people ask us why Women in Biology was formed. We definitely agree that equality in the sciences, particularly in biology, has become more prevalent in the past few decades. Nonetheless, it seems that while women graduate students seem to be on par with their male counterparts, women further down the academic or industry pipeline seem to be lagging. This is why we felt it was necessary to create a group that would promote women to continue in scientific career paths. Also, our group fosters the development and mentoring of women graduate students. We believe that women who have positive experiences in graduate school are more likely to continue in the sciences.

The following data about women in the biological sciences have been collected from the National Science Foundation, Division of Science Resources Statistics, Scientists and Engineers Statistical Data System (SESTAT).