Guest post on Yet Another Mostly Male Meeting (YAMMM) - Programming for Biology

I have posted on Twitter and other places saying that I would be willing to share here anonymous postings about meetings with skewed gender ratios.  I generally am not overly fond on anonymity on the web but realize it has some very important and powerful uses, including protecting people from retribution.  So in the case of meetings with skewed gender ratios, I know from personal experience that posting about them can lead to serious vitriol, threats, and possible repercussions.  I feel confident enough in my status and position to mostly ignore these responses but I know that not everyone is so blessed.

So - here is one such anonymous post I received.
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Last year I was looking around for good workshops to learn programming for biology
(http://programmingforbiology.org/index.html) and
about genome assembly and annotation. I came across the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
course called "Programming for Biology" and applied as they have a good reputation.
I was happy to get in and overall really enjoyed the course. I learnt how to program in
Perl (not Python what I regret a bit), a lot of background on downstream genome analysis
and had a mostly pleasant time. An interesting slogan of the meeting was
"It's not only what you learn here, but also who you meet that makes this workshop so special"
(I am paraphrasing here a bit). Great! But wait are all big players in the field of bioinformatics
guys?

Out of the 10 Guest Lectures ALL were male.

• Scott Cain             Ontario Institute for Cancer Research
• Brian Haas            Broad Institute
• Winston Hide        Harvard School of Public Health, South African National Bioinformatics Institute
• Tomas Marques     Universitat Pompeu Fabra
• Barry Moore          University of Utah
• William Pearson    University of Virginia
• James Robinson     Broad Institute
• Michael Schatz      CSHL
• Jason Stajich          University of California, Riverside
• Paul Thomas          University of Southern California

Only 2 out of the 7 instructors and tutors were female

• Simon Prochnik DOE - Joint Genome Institute, Walnut Creek, CA
• Sofia Robb         University of California, Riverside
• Steven Ahrendt University of California, Riverside
• Dave Messina Cofactor Genomics
• Shawn Rynearson University of Utah
• Deborah Triant University of Virginia
• Ken Youens-Clark University of Arizona

This means only 2 out of 17 teachers were actual women. This together with the fact that
the meeting was also sold as 'who you meet here is important' was the most disappointing
fact. There are so many talented and great female bioinformatics out there it would be
great to see at least some of them present at this workshop in 2015.

P.S.: Don't get me wrong Simon and Sofia are great and organize a lovely meeting. So this
goes under the category 'even when it hurts'.

Four simple tools to promote gender balance at conferences - guest post from Julie Pfeiffer @jkpfeiff

Guest post from Julie Pfeiffer.

Julie Pfeiffer
Associate Professor of Microbiology
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
https://twitter.com/jkpfeiff
http://www4.utsouthwestern.edu/pfeifferlab/Index/Home.html

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Four simple tools to promote gender balance at conferences 

1. Know that you are biased. Identify your biases.

We all have biases and many of them are unconscious. You can discover your own biases using online social attitude tests developed by Project Implicit, a non-profit organization affiliated with Harvard University. The Gender-Science Implicit Association Test is particularly relevant here. It turns out that I have moderate bias linking science with males, as well as other biases. Knowing this fact has been extremely important. It is very difficult to alter unconscious bias, but it is easy to understand that you are biased and edit your actions accordingly. For example, if I need to make a list of potential speakers or authors quickly, the list will be of senior men from the United States. The key is to spend time EDITING the list to ensure diversity.

2. Keep track of numbers.

Most individuals in leadership positions are not seeking to exclude women or other groups from plenary talks, career opportunities, etc. Instead, they simply forget to count. They forget to keep track of gender ratio and other types of diversity. They forget to edit. When leaders/organizers have diversity in mind, diversity is relatively easy to achieve. Two examples illustrate this point:

1) Vincent Racaniello is President of the American Society for Virology and his goal was to put together an outstanding and diverse group of plenary speakers for the annual meeting in 2015. He asked for speaker suggestions via emails and Twitter (https://twitter.com/profvrr). He made a list and he edited it. The result? The best representation of female scientists at a conference I have ever seen--- 50% of the plenary speakers at ASV this year are female.



2) The Associate Editors at the Journal of Virology choose topics and authors for short reviews called “Gems”. The goal was to have high diversity in several areas including author gender, author career stage, author location, and topic. To keep ourselves on track to achieve this goal, we included several extra columns in our author/topic spreadsheet: Female? Non-USA location? Junior PI? This simple reminder in the spreadsheet has helped us select relatively diverse authors and topics: ~30% are female, ~30% are Assistant Professors, and ~20% are at institutions outside the United States.

3. Create lists and ask people for suggestions. 


Trying to come up with names of female scientists de novo can be a challenge. A few months ago, Carolyn Coyne, Erica Ollmann-Saphire, and Clodagh O’Shea made a list of as many female virologists as they could. Over wine, they devised a list of 70 names. We have circulated this list to many of our colleagues and tweeted a request to send missing names. The list is now at 349 and is publicly available (please tweet missing names to https://twitter.com/jkpfeiff). It is much easier to think of diverse options for speakers and authors by using a pre-existing list. Virologists with this list can no longer claim that they “couldn’t think of a female speaker”. Each field could benefit from a list like this, which could also include other underrepresented groups. Several of these lists exist, as has been highlighted on this and other blogs.

4. Speak up and enlist the help of supportive senior faculty.

Expressing concern to conference organizers about low speaker diversity can go a long way. While it may be difficult to change the speaker list close to the conference date, mentioning the lack of diversity could change the future landscape of the conference. I have an example from my own experience: I created an international shitstorm that had a great outcome. In year three of my faculty position I was considering whether to attend a major conference, so I checked the speaker list to help make my decision. Zero of 18 plenary speakers were female. I decided not to attend. Instead, I emailed the conference organizer to express my disappointment with the complete lack of female plenary speakers. His response, over several emails, was less than supportive:

“…. Finally, the gender, race, religion has never been, to my opinion, valuable ways to select presenters of scientific works. The selection of the Plenary Lectures has been made by the Organizing Committee, that comprises a woman, based on the topic, then the best possible speaker on the topic…. I am aware of the current debate in our societies about "minimum numbers". I do not think they would help the cause of women in science.”

While this organizer was not supportive or responsive to my speaker suggestions, five senior (famous) faculty members in the field were hyper-supportive. Upon hearing this story, they each contacted the organizer and expressed their concern about the lack of diversity. It was too late to change the program for the conference that year. However, in every subsequent year, the plenary speakers at this conference have included women and other underrepresented groups. So, it’s possible that a simple email from a young scientist can make a difference, particularly with the help of senior faculty.

Calling attention to meetings with skewed speaker gender ratios, even when it hurts, part 2

A few weeks ago I gave a talk at the Future of Genomic Medicine 2015 (aka #FOGM15) meeting.  The talk seemed to go over well.  I talked right after Martin Blaser in a session on "The Microbiome".  I posted my slides and then a video of my talk as well as notes from the meeting: see My microbiome talk at #FOGM15 - the perils (and fun I guess) of redoing one's talk at the last minute.  And I met some really interesting people at the meeting and enjoyed most of the talks I went to.

But alas, one thing stuck in my head from this meeting.  One single Tweet from someone out there threw me for a loop:

Hey @phylogenomics, 77% of talks at #FOGM15 given by male speakers #justsayin
— Mick Watson (@BioMickWatson) March 6, 2015

And this let to a bit of soul searching on my part.  Some of the conversations on Twitter are captured in this Storify:

Which I guess culminated in a post to the organizers of the meeting

Dear #FOGM15 organizers - next time - you can (and really MUST) do MUCH better with the gender ratio of speakers
— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 6, 2015

Then, when I left the meeting I went to say goodbye to the organizers.  And, well, one of them did not take too kindly to the critique of the meeting, saying that they were doing a better job than other healthcare meetings.  I disagreed and said I thought they could do much better, but I had no numbers to cite at the time and the conversation ended there.

So on the way to the airport I started digging around for some numbers and I found some great resources - especially this from Rock Health.

Reading - The XX Speaker Project — XX in Health re #fogm15 http://t.co/Z5ir26g3qd
— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 7, 2015

And for the last few weeks I have continued to fester wondering - well - should I post more about this?  Should I dig into the gender ratio of the FOGM meetings in more detail?  Well, why do it?  Because I think it is important to know how meetings perform in terms of diversity.  Why not do it?  Well, I like Eric Topol and the other organizers.  And the meeting has many strong points.  But, as I wrote a few days ago - sometimes one needs to call attention to meeting gender ratio issues, even when it hurts.  

So then I decided to dig a little deeper and look at past versions of the "Future of Genomic Medicine".  And, well, when I did this, things just do not look so good (detailed analysis is at the end of the post). (Note - for the numbers i counted all presenting slots - session chairs, keynotes, welcomes, etc.  The numbers are not much different if one counts just "talks").

If one compares these meetings to the ones catalogued by Rock Health, the FOGM meetings are at the low end.  Not the worst certainly.  But definitely not something to be proud of.  And certainly something that could be improved upon enormously.  So I repeat the Tweet I posted during the meeting, and I stand by it, even if it means I am unlikely to be invited back and even if it means pissing off some big shots in the world of genomics ...

Dear #FOGM15 organizers - next time - you can (and really MUST) do MUCH better with the gender ratio of speakers
— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 6, 2015

If you are running a meeting, please consider the ways in which bias may creep into the speaker and session chair slots.  If speakers come from invitations, perhaps the invitation list is biased.  Perhaps certain types of people are more likely to say no to invitations.  Perhaps the timing of the meeting (e.g., on weekend) may lead certain types of people to not be able to participate.  Perhaps the meeting does not provide enough travel funds or child care or the right kind of schedule.  There are so many things that can lead to bias - from explicit bias against certain groups to very subtle implicit biases.  Consider inviting people from diverse career stages, which can open up speaking slots to more women and underrepresented minorities.  Consider providing child care.  Consider asking people why they say no to invitations to try and understand what is going on if many people say no.  Consider asking for help in finding speakers covering the diversity in the field.

If you do all these things, and the meeting still does not have diverse speakers, well, try some other things.  Keep trying to figure it out.  There are resources out there that can help.  Read things like Some suggestions for having diverse speakers at meetings (by me) and Ten Simple Rules to Achieve Conference Speaker Gender Balance (by Jenny Martin) and Increasing Diversity at Your Conference by Ashe Dryden (which is just completely awesome) and How To Create A More Diverse Tech Conference ... and Would I attend my own conference? - O'Reilly Radar by Sarah Milstein.

Why is this important?  Well, speaking at a meeting is important for people's careers.  It helps in merit and promotion and tenure cases.  It helps get their work recognized and known.  Speaking at a meeting is also good practice for speaking at other meetings.  Having diverse speakers also is important in terms of providing role models to attendees.  And having diverse speakers helps a meeting not just be about the same old, white, men talking about their ideas.  Or, in other words, it makes a meeting more, well, diverse.  And almost certainly more interesting.  And so on.  Diversity of speakers at meetings is important for 100s of reasons.  And don't just focus on one aspect of diversity.  I post a lot about women speakers because, well, it is easy to make a reasonable guess as to whether a person is male or female.  But there are MANY other aspects of diversity to consider (see Increasing Diversity at Your Conference by Ashe Dryden (which I referenced above and which really is awesome).

Anyway - if you are organizing a meeting, make sure to think about these issues.  And do something about them.  And if you are invited to a meeting, look at the speaker list (if it is available) and consider saying no to speaking if the meeting has diversity issues (see a post of mine about doing this here: Turning down an endowed lectureship because their gender ratio is too skewed towards males #WomenInSTEM).

And if you are considering attending a meeting, consider diversity of speakers when deciding whether or not to attend.  Meetings with high diversity of speakers should be supported.  Meetings with poor diversity relative to possible candidate speakers (e.g., who is in the field) should be avoided, shunned, and called out.  We need to force change upon some fields and the only way will be to call out the bad apples.  Mind you, it is not possible to know WHY a meeting has a skew in terms of diversity of speakers.  Thus one additional thing to consider is whether something is a consistent pattern.  For example see my post about meetings from the National Academy of Sciences Sackler Colloquia - Apparently, the National Academy of Sciences thinks only one sex is qualified to talk about alternatives to sex #YAMMM. Sadly it seems to me that the FOGM meetings have a consistent pattern of poor representation of women among the presenters.  Unless the organizers commit to changing this, I think people should not attend this meeting in the future.

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Detailed analyses of these meetings are below.

People I have identified as males are labelled in yellow.  People I have identified as females are in green.  I realize that this is an imperfect thing to do.  I may make mistakes in my inferences.  And dividing people into two categories is not representative of the true diversity in the human population.  But I still think this is a useful, informative thing to try to do.

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2015 FOGM (schedule is from the one sent around to participants on 3/4/15)

• Welcome
• Eric Topol
• Pateint #1 - Eunice Lee and Nilesh Dharajiya
• Francis Collins
• Session 1
• Moderator Ali Torkamani
• Diana Bianchi
• Evan Muse
• Stephen Quake
• David Hoon
• Session 2
• Moderator Ali Torkamani
• Mark McCarthy
• Christopher Austin
• George Yancopoulos
• Session 3
• Moderators Nathan Wineinger and Andrew Su
• Atul Butte
• Eric Schadt
• Andrew Su
• Joe Pickrell
• Welcome Day 2
• Patient #2
• Eric Topol
• Session 4: 
• Moderator Ali Torkamani
• Cristian Tomasetti
• Nazneen Rahman
• Roni Ziegler
• Session 5
• Moderators Kristin Baldwin and Fyodor Urnov
• J. Keith Joung
• Fyodor Urnov
• TBD
• Kristin Baldwin
• Session 5
• Moderator Kristian Andersen
• Martin Blaser
• Jonathan Eisen
• Stephen Steinhubl
• Session 6
• Moderator David Goldstein  (he did not show up)
• Elizabeth Worthey
• Ali Torkamani
• Seth Mnookin
• Virginia Hughes

All speaker and session chair slots

• Male: 30 (81%)
• Female: 7 (19%)

Just speakers

• Male: 23
• Female: 6

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2014 - Future of Genomic Medicine VII -  schedule from here

• Welcome
• Chris Van Gorder, FACHE
• Eric J. Topol, MD
• Patient / Family #1
• Session 1
• Frank McCormick
• Bert Vogelstein
• Elaine Mardis
• Robert Nussbaum
• Sarah Jane Dawson
• Michael Pellini
• Session 2
• J. Craig Venter
• Eric Topol 
• Al Gore
• Heidi Rehm
• Muin Khoury
• Session 3
• Moderator Katrina Kelner
• Leonid Kruglyak
• Carl Zimmer
• Magdalena Skipper
• Chris Gunter
• Session 4
• Patient / Family #2
• Athur Beaudet
• Jay Shendure
• Howard Jacob
• Hakon Hakonarson
• David Epstein
• Nir Birzalai
• Ali Torkamani
• Jeffrey Hammerbacher
• Session 5
• Michael Specter
• Jessica Richman
• Andrew Feinberg
• Russ Altman
• Anne Wojcicki
• Harry Greenspun
• Zubin Damania

Speakers

• Male: 25 (76%)
• Female: 8 (24%)

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2013 - Future of Genomic Medicine VI - schedule from here

• Welcome: Eric Topol
• Patient / Family #1
• Session 1:
• Michael Snyder
• William Gahl
• Howard Jacob
• Ali Torkamani
• Gholson Lyon
• Cinnamon Bloss
• Misha Angrist
• Session 2
• Evan Eichler
• Eric Schadt
• Katrina Armstrong
• George Weinstock
• Session 3
• Joe Ecker
• Stephen Kingsmore
• Stephen Quake
• Session 4
• Patient / Family #2
• Siddhartha Mukherjee
• Elaine Mardis
• Daniel D. Von Hoff
• Randy Scott
• Susan Desmond Hellman
• Elias Zerhouni
• Janet Woodcock
• Session 5
• Peter Vesscher
• David Goldstein
• George Church
• Jonathan Eisen
• Atul Butte
• AJ Jacobs
• Neil Risch
• Lonny Reisman
• Daniel MacArthur

Speakers

• Male: 26 (84%)
• Female: 5 (16%)

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2012 Future of Genomic Medicine V - schedule from here

• Welcome
• Chris Van Gorder, FACHE
• Eric J. Topol, MD
• Joseph Beery and Family
• Moderators: Samuel Levy, PhD and Eric J. Topol, MD
• Samuel Levy, PhD
• Matthew J. Price, MD
• Julie Johnson, PharmD
• Michael R. Hayden MB, ChB, PhD
• William E. Evans, PharmD
• Moderators: Evan Eichler, PhD and Sarah Murray,
• Evan Eichler, PhD
• Christofer Toumazou, PhD
• Siddharta Mukherjee, MD, PhD
• Sarah Murray, PhD
• Moderators Nicholas Schork, PhD and Bradley Patay, MD
• Hakon Hakonarson, MD, PhD
• Isaac Kohane , MD, PhD
• John A. Todd, FRS, PhD
• Moderators Eric J. Topol, MD and Nicholas Schork, PhD
• Howard J. Jacob, PhD
• Joseph G. Gleeson, MD
• Stanley F. Nelson, MD
• Lynn Jorde, PhD (note - originalled labelled as female - corrected thanks to comment from Bruce Rannala)
• Eric J. Topol, MD
• Moderators: Aravinda Chakravarti, PhD and Richard Klausner, 
• Aravinda Chakravarti, PhD
• Joseph Nadeau, PhD
• Nicholas Schork, PhD
• Hakon Hakonarson MD, PhD
• Moderator Eric Topol
• Matthew Herper
• Daniel B. Vorhaus, JD, MA
• Issam Zineh, PharmD, MPH
• Moderators: Elaine Mardis, PhD and Jeffrey Trent, PhD
• Richard D. Klausner, MD
• Thomas J. Hudson, MD
• Jeffrey M. Trent, PhD
• Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD
• Elaine R. Mardis, PhD
• Moderators: Samuel Levy, PhD and Fred Gage, PhD
• Fred H. Gage, PhD
• Bruce D. Gelb, MD
• Joseph C. Wu, MD, PhD

All speaker and session chair slots

• Male: 44 (88%)  45 (90 %)
• Female: 6 (12%) 5 (10 %)

Just speakers

• Male: 31 32 (91.4%)
• Female: 4  3 (8.6%)

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2011 Future of Genomic Medicine IV - schedule from here

• Session 1: Moderators: Sarah S. Murray, PhD and Eric J. Topol, MD
• Hannah A. Valantine, MD
• Geoff Ginsburg, MD, PhD
• Steve Shak, MD
• Cinnamon S. Bloss, PhD
• Matthew J. Price, MD
• Session 2: Moderators: Bradley Patay, MD and Nicholas J. Schork, PhD
• Kevin Davies, PhD
• Thomas Goetz, MPh
• Melanie Swan, MBA
• Session 3: Moderators: Samuel Levy, PhD and Nicholas J. Schork, PhD
• Kári Stefánsson, MD
• Aravinda Chakravarti, PhD
• Howard J. Jacob, PhD
• Sarah S. Murray, PhD
• James R. Lupski, MD, PhD
• Nicholas J. Schork, PhD
• Stephen L. Hauser, MD
• David R. Bentley, D.Phil, F.Med.Sci.
• Keynote: Juan Enriquez, BA, MBA
• Session 4: Moderators: Robert L. Strausberg, PhD and Samuel Levy, PhD
• Robert L. Strausberg, PhD
• Elaine R. Mardis, PhD
• Thomas J. Kipps, MD, PhD
• Samuel Levy, PhD
• Daniel D. Von Hoff, MD
• Dennis A. Carson, MD
• Session 5: Moderators: Eric J. Topol, MD and Bradley Patay, MD
• Eric J. Topol, MD
• Amy Harmon
• Misha Angrist, PhD
• Session 6: Moderators: Sarah S. Murray, PhD and Samuel Levy, PhD
• Hakon Hakonarson, MD, PhD
• Mark McCarthy, MD, F.Med.Sci.
• Karen Mohlke, PhD
• Stephen S. Rich, PhD
• Philippe Froguel, MD, PhD
• Muredach P. Reilly, MB, MS

All speaker and session chair slots

• Male: 35 (80%)
• Female: 9 (20%)

Calling attention to poor speaker gender ratio - even when it hurts

So I saw this Tweet earlier today

Will be an excellent symposium! Register here @UCPlantBreeding http://t.co/Nd86UAr3hJ

— Gena Hoffman (@GenaEHoffman) March 24, 2015

And that sounded very interesting. So I clicked on the link to check out the Plant Breeding for Food Security: The Global Impact of Plant Genetics in Rice Production A symposium honoring Dr. Gurdev Khush symposium.  And, then I went to the program.  And sadly I saw something there that was not to my liking.  The speakers were almost all male (men labelled in yellow, women in green)

• Welcome to the Khush Symposium (Alan Bennett)
• The Plant Breeding Center (Charles Brummer)
• The Confucius Institute (Glenn Young)
• Global food production – challenges and opportunities (Ken Cassman) Food production, technology and climate (David Lobell)
• Panel – Impact of Gurdev Khush on plant genetics and food security Tomato genetics
• (Dani Zamir)
• (Pam Ronald)
•  (Gary Toenniessen)
•  (Gurdev Khush)
• Lunch; The California Rice Industry (Kent McKenzie)
• The rice theory of culture (Thomas Talhelm)
• Recent advances in rice productivity and the future (David MacKill)
• Hybrid rice technology contributions to global food security (Sant Virmani)
• Super green rice (Qifa Zhang)
• Tackling the wheat yield barrier (Matthew Reynolds)
• African Orphan Crops – inspiration and execution (Howard Shapiro/Allen Van Deynze)

If this was a symposium outside UC Davis the first thing I would do would be to post about it.  To Twitter or my blog or both.  And to critique them.  Why?  Because there is a bad history in STEM fields of having meetings and conferences have under-representation of women as speakers.  And this has become a passion of mine and I write about it a lot.  But I hesitated.  Why?  Because this was from UC Davis and many of the people involved are friends / colleagues.  I did not want to anger them, or embarrass them.  And I don't think there is any intentional bias here by any means.  But, if I am going to critique people outside UC Davis, it seems like I should also apply the same standards to people inside UC Davis and to colleagues and friends.

So I posted to Twitter a response:

@GenaEHoffman @UCPlantBreeding sadly the gender ratio of speakers is pretty disappointing - looks like about 14:1 M:F #STEMWomen
— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) March 25, 2015

But that did not seem sufficient.  So I wrote up this post.  Underrepresentation of women as speakers is a serious issue in STEM fields.  And it is solvable (e.g., see Some suggestions for having diverse speakers at meetings by myself and the wonderful Ten Simple Rules to Achieve Conference Speaker Gender Balance by Jennifer Martin).

Now - do I know who the possible speakers were for this symposium?  No - I don't really know the field.  Is it possible that there just are no women in the field?  Sure.  But I would bet anything that is not the case here.  Having a meeting where the ratio of speakers is 16:1 male: female sets a bad example.  UC Davis and the organizers of this meeting can do better.  And though this will possibly hurt me in various ways (I already got grief from one person who I will not name for the Tweet), I think it is critical that we call out examples such as this.

And finally I note - I have taken on the issue of women at STEM conferences and meetings because, well, it is easy to identify cases where the numbers are anomalous and it is relatively easy to solve.  But it is also important that we consider other aspects of diversity of speakers (age, ethnicity, career stage, etc).  It is important to have diversity of speakers at meetings for many many reasons.  Speaking is a career building opportunity.  Speakers serve as role models for others.  Diverse points of view are important to have represented.  Bias - whether simplicity or explicit damages the whole practice of science.  And more.  Yes, we need to work on many aspects of diversity in STEM fields.  Improving the diversity of speakers at meetings is but one part of this.  But it is an important part and it is relatively easy to do.  So just do it.  And call attention to it.  Even if it hurts.



UPDATE 3/25 11:29 AM

The meeting organizers have responded on Twitter

@phylogenomics @GenderAvenger Hey Jonathan, we were writing a response & 140 characters didn't cover it. #STEMWomen pic.twitter.com/rmGkSJTUBc
— PlantBreedingCenter (@UCPlantBreeding) March 25, 2015

Storify of some responses here

Today's gender biased meeting-GlycoCom2015-sponsored by @generalelectric @ualberta #YAMMM

Got pointed to this via a Tweet:

@phylogenomics yet another ... http://t.co/lNCJJ6CiLo
— Lewis-X Research (@Lewis_Lab) March 8, 2015

The Tweet pointed to this meeting: Home - Glycomics Official Website of GlycoCom Conference 2015 in Banff, Alberta, Canada.  Lame.  14:1 ratio of men: women speakers.  Just completewly lame.

Confirmed Speakers

• Richard Cummings, Emory University School of Medicine
• Paul DeAngelis, University of Oklahoma and Caisson Biotech LLC
• Donald Jarvis, University of Wyoming and GlycoBac LLC
• Nicole Koropatkin, University of Michigan Medical School
• Mario Feldman, Washington University, St. Louis and VaxAlta Inc.
• Gordon Lauc, University of Zagreb
• Todd Lowary, Alberta Glycomics Centre and University of Alberta
• John Magnani, GlycoMimetics Inc.
• Glenn Prestwich, University of Utah and GlycoMira Therapeutics Inc.
• Peter Seeberger, Max Plank Institute
• Tadashi Suzuki, RIKEN Global Research Cluster
• Ajit Varki, University of California, San Diego
• David Vocadlo, Simon Fraser University and Alectos Therapeutics Inc.
• Michael Wacker, GlycoVaxyn AG
• Robert Woods, Complex Carbohydrate Research Center & Glycosensors & Diagnostics, LLC

The University of Alberta and GE and the other sponsors should be embarassed by this.  

Today's YAMMM - The British Society for Plant Pathology

Well, this is not the most egregious example of a mostly male meeting but it still has some issues: The BSPP - The British Society for Plant Pathology 2015 meeting.  Nine speakers.  Seven male.  And this in a field with plenty of excellent female researchers.

Cassava brown streak disease
(1) James Legg - IITA Tanzania
(2) Stephan Winter - Leibniz Institute DSMZ Germany
(3) Maruthi Gowda - Natural Resources Institute, University of Greenwich

Late blight
(1) Bill Fry - Cornell University
(2) Sophien Kamoun - Sainsbury Lab, Norwich
(3) Jonathan Jones - Sainsbury Lab, Norwich

Rice blast
(1) Sarah Gurr - University of Exeter
(2) Lauren Ryder - University of Exeter
(3) Thomas Kroj - INRA, Montpellier, France

But the weirdest part --  it says

"This year, the BSPP President, Prof. Gary Foster, has only chosen a few invited speakers on specific diseases, and wishes the remainder of the talks to be selected from offered papers."

So does this mean Prof. Gary Foster just picked all speakers?  If so, perhaps Prof. Gary Foster needs to do a little thinking about his possible biases ...

Another "Yet another mostly male meeting (YAMMM)" from BGI

Well just saw an announcement for this meeting on Twitter: The First Announcement of The Tenth Annual Meeting of the International Conference on Genomics (ICG

And I hoped beyond hope that they would have a decent representation of women speakers at the meeting.  Why did I hope this?  Well, in the past, BGI run meetings have had incredibly skewed gender ratios of speakers.  See this post for a discussion of their past record: Kudos to the DOE-JGI for organizing a genomics meeting w/ a good gender ratio - no kudos to BGI - yet again

I guess I had hoped that perhaps they would try to change their practices after I and other people criticized them for their past record.  So - I went to the web site for the ICG10 meeting advertised in the Tweet.  Oh well, silly me for hoping.

On the front page they have 14 speakers they are promoting - all of them male.

Screen shot from ICG10 web site

On the announcement page they have a slightly different list where the ratio is 14:1

• Jef Boeke, NYU Langone University School of Medicine, USA
• Sydney Brenner, 2002 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Singapore
• Charles Cantor, Sequenom, Inc., USA
• Julio Celis, Danish Cancer Society Research Center, Denmark
• Richard Durbin, Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, UK
• Leroy Hood, Institute for Systems Biology, USA
• Thomas Hudson, Ontario Institute for Cancer Research, Canada
• Maria Leptin, Chair of EMBO, Germany
• Maynard Olson, University of Washington, USA
• Aristides Patrinos, J. Craig Venter Institute, USA
• Mu-ming Poo, University of California, Berkeley, USA
• Richard Roberts, New England Biolabs, 1993 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, USA
• Eils Roland, Heidelberg University, Germany
• Mathias Uhlen, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• Tilhuan Yilma, University of California, Davis, USA

Regardless, this is a consistent pattern of not having an even remotely balanced ratio of male to female speakers at their meetings.  And please, avoid their meetings until they change this.

Repeated, extremely biased ratio of M:F at meetings from SFB 680 "Evolutionary Innovations" group #YAMMM

Well, this is disappointing, to say the least - there is a conference coming up in July 2015 on "Forecasting Evolution":  SFB 680 | Molecular Basis of Evolutionary Innovations at the Gulbenkian Foundation in Lisbon.

Here is the listed lineup of invited speakers:

1. Andersson (Uppsala University), (NOTE I AM ASSUMING THIS IS DAN ANDERSSON)
2. Trevor Bedford (Hutchinson Cancer Research Center), 
3. Jesse Bloom (Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center), 
4. Arup Chakraborty (MIT)
5. Michael Desai (Harvard University), 
6. Michael Doebeli (University of British Columbia), 
7. Marco Gerlinger (Institute of Cancer Research, London, 
8. Michael Hochberg (CRNS, Montpellier), 
9. Christopher Illingworth (Cambridge University), 
10. Roy Kishoni (Harvard University), 
11. Richard Lenski (Michigan State University), 
12. Stanislas Leibler (Rockefeller University), 
13. Marta Luksza (IAS Princeton), 
14. Luke Mahler (University of California, Davis), 
15. Leonid Mirny (MIT), 
16. Richard Neher (MPI Tuebingen), 
17. Julian Parkhill (Sanger Institute), 
18. Colin Russell (University of Cambridge), 
19. Sohrab Shah (University of British Columbia), 
20. Boris Shraiman (UCSB), 
21. Olivier Tenaillon (Inserm Paris).

For a whopping 20:1 ratio of men to women or 4.8% women. And this in a field that is just overflowing with excellent female researchers.

So I dug around a little bit.  Here is another meeting from the same group at the University of Cologne - a group known as SFB 680. SFB 680: Molecular Ecology and Evolution: Cologne Spring Meeting 2012.



Speakers:

1. Ian Thomas Baldwin, MPI Jena
2. Nitin Baliga, ISB Seattle 
3. Andrew Beckerman, University of Sheffield 
4. Joy Bergelson, University of Chicago
5. Michael Boots, University of Sheffield 
6. John Colbourne, Indiana University 
7. David Conway, LSHTM London
8. Santiago Elena, IBMCP Valencia
9. Duncan Greig, MPI Plön 
10. Bryan Grenfell, Princeton University 
11. Eddie Holmes, Pennsylvania State University 
12. Peter Keightley, University of Edinburgh
13. Britt Koskella, University of Oxford
14. Juliette de Meaux, University of Münster 
15. Thomas Mitchell-Olds, Duke University
16. Hélène Morlon, Ecole Polytechnique Paris 
17. Wayne Potts, University of Utah 
18. Michael Purugganan, New York University
19. Andrew Rambaut, University of Edinburgh 
20. Walter Salzburger, University of Basel 
21. Johanna Schmitt, Brown University
22. Ralf Sommer, MPI Tübingen
23. Miltos Tsiantis, University of Oxford 
24. Diethardt Tautz, MPI Plön 
25. Daniel Weinreich, Brown University

Session and Meeting Chairs:

1. Michael Lassig
2. Maarten Koornneef
3. Eric von Elert
4. Thomas Wiehe
5. Jonathan Howard

That would be 25:5 or 16.6% female.

And then there was this: Perspectives in Biophysics in October 2014. 

1. Konstantin Doubrovinski
2. Tobias Bollenbach
3. Stefano Pagliara
4. Damien Faivre
5. Ingmar Schön
6. Kurt Schmoller
7. Max Ulbrich
8. Florian Rehfeld
9. Steffen Sahl
10. Timo Betz
11. Alexandre Persat

And this Evolutionary Genomics 2011

1. Rubén Alcázar (MPI for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne)
2. John Baines (Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel)
3. Thomas Bataillon (University of Aarhus)
4. Frank Chan (MPI for Evolutionary Biology, Plön)
5. George Coupland (MPI for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne)
6. Susanne Foitzik (Johannes Gutenberg-University, Mainz)
7. Isabel Gordo (Instituto Gulbenkian, Lisbon)
8. Oskar Hallatschek (MPI for Dynamics and Self-Organization, Göttingen
9. Jonathan Howard (University of Cologne)
10. JinYong Hu (MPI for Plant Breeding Research, Cologne)
11. Jeffrey Jensen (University of Massachusetts, Medical School, Worchester)
12. Michael Lässig (University of Cologne)
13. Dirk Metzler (Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich)
14. Ville Mustonen (Welcome Trust Sanger Institute)
15. John Parsch (Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich)
16. Frank Rosenzweig (University of Montana, Missoula)
17. Christian Schlötterer (University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna)
18. Shamil Sunyaev (Brigham & Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School) 
19. Karl Schmid (University of Hohenheim)
20. Ana Sousa (Instituto Gulbenkian, Lisbon)
21. Diethard Tautz (MPI for Evolutionary Biology, Plön)
22. Xavier Vekemans (University of Lille)

Session and Meeting Chairs

• Wolfgang Stephan
• Michael Lässig
• Berenike Maier
• Wolfgang Stephan
• Peter Pfaffelhuber
• Juliette de Meaux

For a 19:3 ratio or 13.6 % women for the speakers and if you include session chairs it comes to 23:5 or 18 % female total.

And Evolutionary Innovations in 2010. 

Invited speakers:

1. R. Bundschuh (Ohio State University), 
2. C. Callan (Princeton University),
3. A. Clark (Cornell University), 
4. J. Colbourne (Indiana University),
5. E. Dekel (Weizmann Institute),
6. L. Hurst (University of Bath), 
7. S. Elena (Universidad Polytecnica de Valencia), 
8. E. Koonin (National Center for Biotechnology Information), 
9. M. Kreitman (University of Chicago),
10. S. Leibler (Rockefeller University, New York and Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton),
11. T. Lengauer (Max Planck Institute for Informatics), 
12. S. Maerkl (Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne), 
13. C. Marx (Harvard University), 
14. L. Mirny (Massachusetts Intitute of Technology), 
15. V. Mustonen (Sanger Institute), 
16. C. Pal (Biological Research Center, Szeged),
17. D. Petrov (Stanford University), 
18. B. Shraiman (Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics, Santa Barbara),
19. S. Sunyaev (Harvard University), 
20. D. Tautz (Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Biology)

Plus session chairs 

1. Johannes Berg
2. Siegfried Roth
3. Wolfgang Werr
4. Martin Lercher

And addition speakers not listed on their invited speakers page:

1. Michael Lassig
2. Ruben Alcazar
3. Juliette de Meaux
4. Joachim Krug

For a whopping ratio of 27:1 or 3.6 %

The only meeting from them I could find with a decent / non massively skewed ratio was the following very small one: Evolution of Development

1. Cassandra Extavour
2. Angela Hay
3. Felicity Jones
4. Nicolas Gompe
5. Kristen Panfillio
6. Christiane Kiefer

This is a nice case.  But it really seems like an exception in a long list of meetings with a much smaller representation of female speakers than one would expect based on the researchers in the fields.   I think the SFB680 seriously need to consider what is causing these biases and they should do something about it.

---------------------------------------------
See this page for other posts of mine on this and related topics.

Some suggestions for having diverse speakers at meetings

Been having a lot of discussions online in response to my post (Apparently, the National Academy of Sciences thinks only one sex is qualified to talk about alternatives to sex #YAMMM) tracking the awful gender ratio for speakers and session chairs at meetings run by the National Academy of Sciences in their Sackler series.  Some people were asking what one can do to improve gender diversity at meetings so I thought I would post this which I was meaning to do anyway ...

-------------------------------------------------------

I wrote this in an email to a meeting organizer after I had turned down their invitation due to the imbalance in gender of the speakers (more about this another time --- this is not the same case as the one I wrote about here: Turning down an endowed lectureship because their gender ratio is too skewed towards males #WomenInSTEM). 

Anyway, my colleague wrote a long and very helpful email to me after I withdrew from the meeting when I saw the speaker list.  In the email she detailed things that her organization was trying to do to increase diversity of speakers at meetings.  She ended it with this:

Thus, I take your comment to heart and wanted you to know that I care about this issues as well.  I would love to hear how you balance these inequities at your meetings and learn as much as I can.  Thank you for taking the time to bring this up I know how busy you are and appreciate your candor. Truly looking forward to more scientific exchanges and perhaps some education around gender issues.

And I wrote back, quickly, without digging into the literature or all the posts in the world about this some quick suggestions which I think others might find useful. So here is my response - again - was not meant to cover all the things one can do - just examples:

Thanks so much for the response and I am really glad to see all you are trying to do in this area. 

In terms of how we try to balance inequities at meetings I organize I would note a few simple things

1. Do not try to invite only the famous people or the people doing the "top" work.  This usually biases one towards more established researchers (as in, older) and this alas also usually is accompanied by distortion of diversity.
2. DO try to invite people across the breadth of career stages.  Meetings to me should not be only about getting the PIs whose labs are doing the best work to talk.  It should also be about giving opportunities to junior researchers - PhD students, post docs and junior faculty who are doing exciting work - perhaps more focused or smaller scale - but nevertheless exciting.  If one opens up a invited speaker list to people at diverse career stages one generally greatly increases the gender and ethnic diversity. 
3. DO try to invite people from diverse institutions - research universities, research institutes, companies, non profits, NGOs, the press, non research universities, and more.
4. DO try to be flexible about times and dates for talks - I have found that women more than men have other commitments (e.g. kids) for which they cannot change dates of activities. 
5. DO try to provide child care assistance (as you are doing).
6. DO try to make sure women are on the organizing committee See http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2014/01/the-easiest-possible-way-to-increase-female-speakers-at-conferences/282858/
7. DO make sure to provide travel funds.
8. DO try to include some talks on related areas that may not be the main theme of the conference.  For example history of science and ELSI related topics increase the pool of women and speakers with diverse backgrounds which can be invited.
9. DO ask the women who turn down invitations if they care to say why.
10. DO commit to spending a decent amount of time searching for qualified female speakers.  Sometimes there are people who fit ALL the goals of a meeting and they are just missed because women on average have lower public profiles than men doing the same type of work.

Just some ideas off the top of my head.

Jonathan

see also 

http://www.stemwomen.net/jonathan-eisen/ 

and 

http://phylogenomics.blogspot.com/p/posts-on-women-in-science.html

Apparently, the National Academy of Sciences thinks only one sex is qualified to talk about alternatives to sex #YAMMM

Just got this email from Francisco Ayala:

January 9-10, 2015 

In the Light of Evolution IX. Clonal Reproduction: Alternatives to Sex 

Organizers: Michel Tibayrenc, John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala 

Beckman Center of the National Academies, Irvine, CA 

Evolutionary studies of clonal organisms have advanced considerably in recent years, but are still fledgling. Although recent textbooks on evolution and genetics might give the impression that nonsexual reproduction is an anomaly in the living world, clonality is the rule rather than the exception in many viruses, bacteria, and parasites that undergo preponderant asexual evolution in nature. Clonality is thus of crucial importance in basic biology as well as in studies dealing with transmissible diseases. 

This Colloquium will bring together specialists in various disciplines, including genetics, evolution, statistics, bioinformatics, and medicine. A balance will be sought between the various disciplines, including clonal animals and plants, animal and human cloning, pathogens, and cancer studies.   

Registration is now open http://www.nasonline.org/programs/sackler-colloquia/upcoming-colloquia/ILE_IX_Clonal_Reproduction.html

Registration fee is $150. 

Graduate students and postdoctoral researchers are eligible for discount fee of $100. 

All meals, break and reception refreshments listed on the agenda are included in the registration fee.
For more information, contact sackler@nas.edu.

Could be interesting right?  Alas, then, I clicked on the link.  And I discovered the meeting could also be referred to as "Only one sex talks about alternatives to sex".  Men are highlighted in yellow. Women highlighted in green. (Note - I am making some guesses as to gender but I think these are reasoably accurate).

Organizers: Michel Tibayrenc, John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala 

I. General Considerations  

• 8:30 AM Overview: The ILE Series. John C. Avise  
• 8:40 AM Introduction and Chair, John C. Avise  
• 8:40 AM  Can eukaryotes be considered clonally propagating cell lines with intermittent sex?, Dave Speijer, University of Amsterdam 
• 9:30 AM Cancer in Parasitic Protozoan Trypanosoma brucei and Toxoplasma gondii, Zhao-Rong Lun, Sun Yat-Sen University 
• 10:40 AM Mathematical Models of Clonality, Dominik Wodarz, University of California, Irvine 
• 11:30 AM The Cost of Sex: Why Aren’t We All Clonal?, Claus-Peter Stelzer, University of Innsbruck 

II. Clonality in Multicellular Organisms  1:30 PM Chair, Zhao-Rong Lun

• 1:30 PM  Genets, Ramets and Unisexual Reproduction in Plants, Spencer C.H. Barrett, University of Toronto
• 2:20 PM Clonality in Asexual Invertebrate Animals, John M. Logsdon, Jr., University of Iowa
• 3:30 PM Natural Clonality in Vertebrate Animals, John C. Avise, University of California, Irvine
• 4:20 PM Artificial Cloning of Domestic Animals, Carol L. Keefer, University of Maryland

Keynote Address 

• 6:45 PM Introduction, Michel Tibayrenc
• 6:50 PM Cloning Humans: Biological and Ethical Considerations, Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine

III. Clonality in the Microbial World  

• 8:00 AM Chair, Carol L. Keefer  

• 8:00 AM Clonality and Intracellular Polyploidy in Virus Evolution and Pathogenesis, Esteban Domingo, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid

• 8:50 AM The Impermanence of Bacterial Clones, Howard Ochman, University of Texas, Austin
• 10:00 AM Clonal Reproduction in Fungi, John Taylor, University of California, Berkeley
• 10:50 AM Clonal Reproduction in Parasitic Protozoa, Michel Tibayrenc, IRD, Montpellier, France

IV. Clonality, Cancer, and Evolution

• 12:50 PM Organismal Fitness, Somatic Evolution, and Cancer, James DeGregori, University of Colorado School of Medicine
• 1:40 PM Cancer and Pathogens as Clonal Processes, Edwin L. Cooper, University of California, Los Angeles
• 2:50 PM Stem Cell Competitions: Evolution, and Cancer Progression, Irving Weissman, Stanford University
• 3:40 PM Clonal Reproduction: An Evolutionary Curse or Blessing?, Marcel E. Dorken, Trent University
• 4:30 PM Concluding Remarks, Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine

So - whether you count just speakers, or speakers plus session chairs, the gender ratio is not good.  Really there is only one woman as far as I can tell involved with this meeting.  Sadly this is not the only meeting at the NAS Beckman Center with gender issues.  See this post for example Today's YAMMM (Yet Another Mostly Male Meeting) Brought to You by CIFAR & NAS.  Does NAS even make any effort in regard to diversity of speakers?

UPDATE 10/25/14 - Some responses from Twitter

@phylogenomics Sydney Kustu once told me that the only place she didn't wait in line at the ladies room was at the Nat. Acad.
— Lisa Gorski (@StringDruid) October 25, 2014

@phylogenomics forwarded your blog post to degregori. will be interested to see thoughts from speaker's perspective. #grrrrr
— speach (@speach) October 25, 2014

@phylogenomics So lame. Great topic tho. :(
— CatOptrics (@CatOptricsII) October 25, 2014

Awful MT@phylogenomics: Apparently, the NAS thinks only one sex is qualified to talk about alternatives to sex #YAMMM http://t.co/QacAzxvzgF
— Jin Montclare (@jkmontclare) October 25, 2014

For more on this topic see my other posts on "Diversity in STEM"

UPDATE 2: 10/26 - New NAS Sackler meeting after this one - better but barely in gender ratio

The next Sackler meeting after this one is on "Drawing Causal Inference from Big Data".  Here are the speakers they list with the same colors as used above.

• Edoardo Airoldi, Harvard University
• Susan Athey, Stanford University 
• Leon Bottou, Microsoft Corporation 
• Danah Boyd, Microsoft Corporation
• Peter Buhlmann, ETH Zurich 
• Susan Dumais, Microsoft Corporation
• Dean Eckles, Facebook 
• James Fowler, University of California, San Diego  
• Michael Hawrylycz, Allen Institute 
• David Heckerman, Microsoft Corporation 
• Jennifer Hill, New York University 
• Guido Imbens, Stanford University
• Michael Jordan, University of California, Berkeley 
• Steven Levitt, The University of Chicago 
• David Madigan, Columbia University
• Thomas Richardson, University of Washington 
• Bernhard Schölkopf, Max Planck Institute 
• Jasjeet Sekhon, University of California, Berkeley 
• Cosma Shalizi, Carnegie Mellon University  
• Richard Shiffrin, Indiana University 
• John Stamatoyannopoulos, University of Washington 
• Hal Varian, Google, Inc. 
• Bin Yu, University of California, Berkeley 

That is a ratio of 18:5 or 21% women.  Not sure what the gender balance is for people working on "big data" but still, given the Sackler's recent issues with gender ratio in fields with an almost 50:50 ratio of men:women I am not willing to give them the benefit of the doubt here.  And I note - the link they provide for Susan Athey goes to the web site of Richard Shiffrin.  So I am just going to assume that the name on the list is correct not the link to Shiffrin.

UPDATE 3: 10/26 - Made a Storify to track discussion of this.

UPDATE 4: 10/26 -- and another recent Sackler meeting

Epigenetic changes in the developing brain: Effects on behavior

This meeting was held March 28-29, 2014 at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C. and organized by Donald W. Pfaff (The Rockefeller University) and Eric Barrington Keverne (King’s College, Cambridge).

• Introduction and welcome, Donald Pfaff and Barry Keverne
• Session I. DNA methylation (Chair, Tom Insel)
• Mechanisms that establish and maintain genomic methylation patterns in mammalian tissues, Tim Bestor, Columbia University
• Signaling networks that regulate synapse development and dysfunction, Michael Greenberg, Harvard University
• Impact of early life experiences on DNA methylation: Implications for brain development and behaviour, Frances Champagne, Columbia University
• Session II. Histone modifications (Chair, Barry Keverne)
• A histone methylation network regulates epigenetic inheritance, Yang Shi, Harvard University
• Global Epigenomic Reconfiguration during Mammalian Brain Development, Joseph Ecker, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
• H3.3 nucleosomal dynamics regulate synaptic development and plasticity in postreplicative neurons, Ian Maze & David Allis, The Rockefeller University
• Steroid hormone actions on histone tail modifications in the brain, Donald Pfaff, The Rockefeller University
• 14th Annual Sackler Public Lecture
• Introduction – Diane Griffin, Vice President, National Academy of Sciences
• Deconstructing circuits for motor behavior, Thomas Jessell, Columbia University
• Session III. Genomic imprinting (Chair, Rusty Gage)
• Genomic imprinting,action and interaction of two genomes in mother, Barry Keverne, Cambridge University
• Epigenetic regulation of imprinted gene loci, Marisa Bartolomei, University of Pennsylvania Medical School
• Monoallelic gene expression, Andrew Chess, Mount Sinai Hospital
• Session IV. Non-coding RNA’s (Chair, Don Pfaff)
• Linking RNA to Nuclear Architecture, John L. Rinn, Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT
• Human retrotransposons ("jumping genes") in health and disease, Haig Kazazian, Johns Hopkins University
• Session V. CNS applications (Chair, Tim Bestor)
• Mobile Element Activity in Evolution and Disease, Fred Gage, Salk Institute
• The Epigenetic Language of the Circadian Clock, Poalo Sassone-Corsi, University of California, Irvine
• Epigenomics of Major Psychiatric Disease, Art Petronis, University of Toronto
• Imprinting mechanisms underlying Prader Willi and Angelman syndromes, James Resnick, University of Florida
• Closing remarks: Brain Exceptionalism, Tom Insel, Director, National Institute of Mental Health, NIH

So - if you just count all the speaking / session chair slots that comes to 24 slots to men and 3 to women for a wonderful 11% female percentage.  Even if you count just speakers (and not session chairs) the #s don't look good.  Looking pretty bad NAS Sackler meetings.

UPDATE 5: Copying in my analysis of gender ratio at the most recent Sackler meeting on Symbioses becoming permanent: The origins and evolutionary trajectories of organelles which I refer to above but only via a link out to my post.  Here is the speaker analysis:

• Organizers: W. Ford Doolittle, Patrick Keeling, and John McCutcheon
• Distinctive Voices Public Lecture presented by Michael Gray, CIFAR Advisor, Dalhousie University
• Session 1: Genomes (evolutionary rates, oddities, and reduction)
• Introduction and welcome remarks – W. Ford Doolittle, CIFAR Advisor & Patrick Keeling, CIFAR Program Director and Senior Fellow
• John McCutcheon, CIFAR Associate Fellow, University of Montana
• John Archibald, CIFAR Senior Fellow, Dalhousie University, Nuclear organelles 
• Andrew Roger, CIFAR Senior Fellow, Dalhousie University, Organelle reduction 
• Siv Andersson, Uppsala University, Alphaproteobacterial genome evolution 
• David Smith, University of Western Ontario, Roots of genomic architecture variation 
• Daniel Sloan, Colorado State University, Cytonuclear co-evolution under extreme mitochondrial mutation rates
• John Allen, University College London, Why keep genomes?
• Session 2: Integration/Control (trafficking, signaling, transporters)
• Debash Bhattacharya, Rutgers University, Transporters in organellogenesis 
• Nancy Moran, University of Texas, Austin, Insect endosymbionts 
• Geoff McFadden, University of Melbourne, Diversity of protein trafficking
• Chris Howe, Cambridge University, Why integrate?
• Steve Perlman, CIFAR Fellow, University of Victoria, Maternal transmission, sex ratio distortion, and mitochondria 
• William Martin, Düsseldorf University, Endosymbiont and organelle, what’s the difference? 
• Moriya Okhuma, Riken University, Metabolic integration across endosymbiotic communities
• Session 3: Theories and Models
• Eors Szathmary, Loránd University, A fresh look at cooperation in some major transitions, especially the origin of eukaryotes
• Marc Ereshefsky, University of Calgary, Evolutionary individuality
• Peter Godfrey-Smith, City University of New York, Individuality and the egalitarian transitions 
• Maureen O’Malley, University of Sydney, Philosophical Reflections on Endosymbiosis: Implications for Evolutionary Theory
• Toby Kiers, University Amsterdam, Bacterial cooperativity
• Closing remarks J. McCutcheon

That is a ratio of 19:4 for speakers slots for men vs. women.  Sensing a pattern anyone?

UPDATE 6: I feel much better now looking at the meeting before the developing brain meeting.  It is so much better (not). 

In the Light of Evolution VIII: Darwinian Thinking in the Social Sciences. January 10-11, 2014 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA. 

• Organized by Brian Skyrms, John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala
• I.  Evolution of Social Norms
• Bargaining and Fairness, Kenneth Binmore, University College London
• Cooperation, Natalia Komarova, University of California, Irvine
• Friendship and Natural Selection, James H. Fowler, University of California, San Diego
• Reputation and Punishment, Michihiro Kandori, University of Tokyo
• II. Social Dynamics
• The Replicator Equation and Other Game Dynamics, Ross Cressman, Wilfrid Laurier University
• Payoff-Based Learning Dynamics, Alvin Roth, Harvard University
• Strategic Learning Dynamics, David K. Levine, Washington University
• Cultural Evolution, Marcus W. Feldman, Stanford University
• Keynote Address:  Public Goods: Competition, Cooperation, and Spite, Simon A. Levin, Princeton University
• III. Special Sciences
• Evolutionary Demography, Kenneth W. Wachter, University of California, Berkeley
• Folklore of the Elite and Biological Evolution, Barry O’Neill, University of California, Los Angeles
• Economics, Ted Bergstrom, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Psychology, Dale Purves, Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School
• IV. Applications
• Evolutionary Implementation in Mechanism Design, Éva Tardos, Cornell University
• Some Dynamics of Signaling, Brian Skyrms, University of California, Irvine
• The Rate of Innovation Diffusion in Social Networks, H. Peyton Young, Oxford University
• Homophily, Culture, and Coordinating Behaviors, Matthew O. Jackson, Stanford University

That is 15:2 males to females in speaking slots and also three main organizers. 

Update 7: A trend in meetings coorganized by John Avise and Francisco Ayala

I note the meeting above in Update 6 is the second recent meeting coorganized by John Avise and Francisco Ayala with a highly skewed gender ratio.  So I decided to go back and look at other meetings they coorganized.  For example here is the next most recent one.

In the Light of Evolution VII: The Human Mental Machinery

Organized by Camilo J. Cela-Conde, Raúl Gutiérrez Lombardo, John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala

This meeting was held January 10-12, 2013 at the Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center in Irvine, CA.

•  I. Theory of Mind 
• Theory of Mind: Darwin’s legacy, John Searle, University of California, Berkeley
• Human mind and brain – pathological evidence, Robert E. Clark, University of California, San Diego 
• Theory of Mind in Other Primates, Robert M. Seyfarth, University of Pennsylvania
• II. Cognition
• Evolution of Working Memory, Peter Carruthers, University of Maryland
• The evolution of episodic memory, Norbert Fortin, University of California, Irvine
• Natural Basis of Cognition, Terrence J. Sejnowski, Salk Institute for Biological Studies
• Human and Animal Consciousness, Michael T. Alkire, University of California, Irvine
• Co-Evolution: Culture, mind and brain, Chet C. Sherwood, George Washington University 
• Keynote Address 
• Unusual and Exceptional Capacities of the Human Mind, James L. McGaugh, University of California, Irvine     
• III. Evolving Piece by Piece: Levels of Modularity in Neurobiology
• Neuronal Networks of the Moral Judgment, Patricia Churchland, University of California, San Diego
• Pathological Altruism, Barbara A. Oakley, Oakland University
• Theory of Justice in Non-Human Primates, Sarah F. Brosnan, Georgia State University
• Evolutionary Dynamics of Altruism, Martin Nowak, Harvard University
• Human and Animal Neuroeconomics, Michael Platt, Duke University 
• IV. Aesthetics 
• Music and the Brain, Robert Zatorre, Montreal Neurological Institute 
• Aesthetic and Ethnic Emotions, Oshin Vartanian, University of Toronto, Scarborough
• Aesthetic Perception: Mind and Brain , Camilo J. Cela-Conde, University of the Baleares Islands, Spain

That is a ratio of 14:3 for speakers of men: women. 

UPDATE 8: The next most recent meeting coorganized by Avise and Ayala

In the Light of Evolution VI: Brain and Behavior
January 19-21, 2012
Arnold and Mabel Beckman Center
Organized by Georg F. Striedter, John C. Avise and Francisco J. Ayala

• Session I. Brains in History: Descent with Modification
• Chair, John C. Avise, University of California, Irvine
• Evolution of Brain Development, Georg Striedter, University of California, Irvine
• Evolution of Neuronal Cell Types, Nipam H. Patel, University of California, Berkeley
• Homology and Homoplasy of Behavior and Neural Circuits, Paul S. Katz, Georgia State University
• Evolution of Cognitive Traits, Lucia F. Jacobs, University of California, Berkeley
• Session II. Brains in Ecology: Adapatation by Natural Selection
• Chair, Georg Striedter, University of California, Irvine
• Adaptation of Neuron-typical Molecules and Processes, Harold H. Zakon, University of Texas, Austin
• Evolution of Specialized Sensory Systems, Kenneth C. Catania, Vanderbilt University
• Evolution of Specialized Motor Systems, Andrew H. Bass, Cornell University
• Evolving Neural Mechanisms of Social Diversity and Cognition, James L. Goodson, Indiana University
• Keynote Address
• Introduction, Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine
• Evolution of Centralized Nervous Systems, R. Glenn Northcutt, Scripps Institution of Oceanography
• Session III. Evolving Piece by Piece: Levels of Modularity in Neurobiology
• Chair, Lucia F. Jacobs, University of California, Irvine
• Molecular Models in Neurobiology, Kenneth S. Kosik, University of California, Santa Barbara
• Devolpmental Modules in Nervous Systems, Leah A. Krubitzer, University of California, Davis
• Neuroanatomical and Physiological Modules, Jon H. Kaas, Vanderbilt University
• Modularity of Cognitive Processes, Jessica F. Cantlon, University of Rochester
• Session IV. Human Evolution: Brains and Behavior
• Chair, Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine
• Molecular Aspects of Human Brain Evolution, Todd M. Preuss, Emory University School of Medicine
• Evolution of Primate Brain Morphology, Suzana Herculano-Houzel, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro
• Evolution of Primate Brain Functions, Lizabeth M. Romanski, University of Rochester
• The Evolution of Human Cognition, Clark Barrett, University of California, Los Angeles
• Concluding Remarks
• Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine

That isa ratio of 17:6 if one includes all slots (chairs, speakers, etc) or 14:5 if you just include speaking slots. 

UPDATE 9: This is NOT just about speaking at meetings.

I note - many of the Sackler meetings turn into special collections in PNAS and thus the limited representation of women speakers (which is a problem) is made worse by then directly affecting publishing in PNAS.

UPDATE 10: 10/27/14. Going back to another Avise/Ayala meeting from 2001

In the Light of Evolution V: Cooperation

Organized by Joan E. Strassmann, David C. Queller, John C. Avise, and Francisco J. Ayala
January 7-8, 2011

(Note Joan Strassmann is one of my favorite scientists and people on the planet - great to see her in a role as coorganizer here)

• Session I. Foundations of Cooperation
• John C. Avise, University of California, Irvine, Chair
• Insect Societies: pinnacles of cooperation - Peter Nonacs, University of California, Los Angeles
• Families in vertebrates - Dustin R. Rubenstein, Columbia University
• The major evolutionary transitions In bacterial symbiosis - Joel L. Sachs, University of California, Riverside
• Kin, kith, and kind: the varieties of social experience - David C. Queller, Rice University
• Session II. Genetic Basis of Cooperation and Conflict
• David Queller, Chair
• Altruism and cheating in a social microbe, Dicytostelium discoideum - Joan E. Strassmann, Rice University
• A prokaryotic model system -Greg Velicer, Indiana University
• The evolution of restraint in simple communities - Ben Kerr, University of Washington
• Selfish genetic elements - Jack H. Werren, University of Rochester
• Banquet Lecture
• Francisco J. Ayala, University of California, Irvine, Introduction
• Evolution of insect society: eat, drink and be scary - Gene E. Robinson, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Session III. Hamiltonian Medicine
• Joan E. Strassmann, Chair
• Genomic imprinting, helpers at the nest, and age at menarche David Haig, Harvard University 
• Pathology from evolutionary conflict - Steven A. Frank, University of California, Irvine 
• The sociobiology of drug resistance and pathogen virulence - Andrew Read, Pennsylvania State University
• Microbial sociality: implications for disease - Kevin Foster, Harvard University
• Session IV. Are Humans Different?
• Francisco J. Ayala, Chair
• Cooperation and conflict in traditional cultures - Beverly I. Strassmann, University of Michigan 
• The cultural niche - Robert Boyd, University of California, Los Angeles
• Social Bonds to Social Preferences; the foundations for human moral sentiments  - Joan Silk, University of California, Los Angeles
• What does primate cooperation tell us? - Dorothy Cheney, University of Pennsylvania
• Concluding Remarks
• John C. Avise, University of California, Irvine

So - for speaking and chairing slots - that comes to a ratio of 17:5 male to female.  Even with Joan Strassmann being involved as a coorganizer (and she is truly wonderful in a million ways) this meeting still has the NAS and Avise/Ayala pattern of very few female speakers or session chairs, even in fields where ther are many candidates.  Yuck.

I think I would make one recommendation out of this to begin with - John Avise and Francisco Ayala should not be allowed to run any NAS meetings again.  And NAS needs to have and use policies on educating meeting organizers about gender bias and requiring some type of efforts to have reasonable representations of diversity among speakers and chairs.

UPDATE 11: Meetings from 1990s I went to while in graduate school

Just scanned in notes from some of these NAS Beckman Center meetings that I attended while in graduate school at Stanford.  I added them to my collection of "Retroblogging Meetings and Seminars: Posting Scans of Notes".  The meetings then had even worse gender ratios of speakers.

1994: Tempo and Mode in Evolution.  See scans here. All speakers except one were male.
1997: Genetics and the Origin of Species. See scans here.