To celebrate International Women’s Day 2025, we are excited to share a collection of blog posts showcasing the work of some of the BES community. In each post, they discuss their experiences in ecology, as well as what this year’s theme, ‘Accelerate Action’, means to them.
What work do you do?
I’m Lead Editor at Ecological Solutions and Evidence and a Full Professor at Northern Illinois University. That means I keep pretty busy teaching undergraduates and graduate students and also do research as a Restoration Ecologist/Conservation Biologist. My field research is in two main areas: 1. North American grasslands, where I study the impact of management like the reintroduction of bison on community composition and ecosystem functioning. 2. Oceanic islands, where I study the role seabirds play as conduits of ecosystem recovery after the removal of invasive mammals.
How did you get into ecology?
I used to think I would be a veterinarian, but once I realized that would involve putting animals to sleep, I sought a different path. I went to a smaller high school in the Midwestern USA and when I had taken all the science classes they had to offer, they had to send me to the community college or vocational school of my choice. Of all places, in Des Moines, Iowa, there was a vocational school that offered a marine biology class. I got SCUBA certified, went to dive in the Florida Keys for spring break, and saw my professor identify each and every living thing and immediately knew I wanted that depth of knowledge. Once I realized I could study animals without hurting them via ecology, I was hooked.
Who inspires you?
So many people I could never name all of them! My mom worked as a flight nurse on a helicopter when I was growing up and I saw her working 12- and 24-hour shifts and saw that a woman can both have a family and a career. Once I was in graduate school, my school didn’t have any women tenured professors and I thought I might have to give my dream up. So I sought a post-doc advisor who could help me see what I wanted to be. Dr. Erika Zavaleta had just had her third baby when I arrived as a new post-doc in her lab with my 8-week old firstborn. I could never ‘be’ Erika – she’s a force of nature – but my experience in her lab helped show me again that it was possible to be the scientist I wanted to be and the mom I wanted to be. Now that I’m a senior academic, the graduate students I mentor and meet are some of my biggest inspirations. They never stop pushing for what they want, and it’s incredible to see them grow over the years from uncertain about themselves to confident and excellent scientists. My fellow colleagues who are also moms are who help get me through some of the toughest times in academia. I’ve gone from a PhD school with no tenured women to being surrounded by women and allies for women, and that is inspiring all on its own. I’m co-writing a grant with some of my favorite colleagues to fund a program to help make our graduate program more welcoming and free of harassment, and each of those colleagues is an inspiration to me. We know that academia is second only to the US military in rates of sexual harassment, and we are all banding together to try to make sure our graduate students don’t experience what many of us have.
How do you think we could ‘accelerate action’ within ecology and science, to move towards gender equality?
When you start with a system made for men by men, it can be really hard to change the culture, but that’s what we have to do to move towards gender equality. Gender equality can’t just be a “woman’s issue”; we need actively engaged men as allies pushing changes toward gender equality. We have to normalize normal working hours rather than competing on who can overwork themselves the most. We have to normalize balancing work with outside lives, whether that be family, friends, hobbies, or all of the above. We have to do the work to understand how to make sure everyone feels welcome in field settings, including easy but oft-ignored details like stating where bathrooms are, providing regular breaks and access to bathrooms, and co-drafting codes of conduct with our teams.
One of the main reasons so many talented women leave science is the high rates of sexual harassment. Therefore, we have to put in place and communicate escalating repercussions for harassing behaviors. Repercussions for sexual harassment have to be just as strong as repercussions for scientific misconduct such as faking data. We have to move beyond whisper networks, where women communicate with each other on which scientists to avoid to full-throated public reckonings for harassers that ensure they aren’t just passed from one university to the next. The National Academies of Science in the U.S. released a report that details issues and potential solutions to sexual harassment in science that has way more than I can say in a blurb on what people at every level can do to address this problem.
Research shows what I’ve noticed throughout my career: women leaders are collaborative, inspiring, effective, and foster positive working environments. Therefore, one of my mantras is “Let Women Lead”. Lastly, the intersection of gender and race is critical here because women of color experience the negative consequences of gender inequity at the highest levels, so approaching gender equity from an intersectional lens is paramount.
