Dr Livia Bartók-Pártay has teamed up with Dr Erin Teich, Wellesley College, and Dr Rose Cersonsky, University of Wisconsin, to explore the status quo for women in computational materials research in a new article for NPJ Computational Materials.

As the title suggests, anyone thinking that the playing field is level, will be surprised to learn that there is still some distance to go for a fully inclusive and representative research population. While the representation of women in STEM disciplines have improved in past decades, parity is still very far away in many research fields. The paper collects a wide range of typical challenges faced by female researchers, from barriers created by unconscious assumptions and implicit biases on the role and ability of women that affect both research and teaching performance, to consequences of caregiving responsibilities. But by raising awareness and accepting the issues faced women in STEM disciplines, and not forgetting other marginalised identities, there is way towards this end goal, with several suggestions for positive action also discussed in the article.

Read the paper in full at https://www.nature.com/articles/s41524-023-01054-z