The importance of mentoring networks for female scientists

‘When people decide to drop out of the academic chemistry career track, they often do so because they’ve encountered some kind of roadblock and they can no longer see themselves thriving in that environment,’ says chemist Brandi Cossairt from the University of Washington, US. One solution she saw was to set up the US-based Chemistry Women Mentorship Network (ChemWMN). ‘There’s a lot of other roles that mentors can play, but I feel that one of the critical ones to maintain women in [chemistry] careers is to intervene in those moments and say “Let’s talk about this”.’

The statistics for women in academic chemistry are still bleak – in the UK, data from 2018 showed that while 44% of undergraduate chemistry students are female, only 9% of chemistry professors are women. The issues leading to this attrition have led female chemists like Cossairt to come together to share their own experiences with junior colleagues and students.

The SCS Swiss Women In Chemistry network, launched in 2019 under the umbrella of the Swiss Chemical Society, came out of concerns that women were under-represented within the society. Rachel Hevey, a chemist at the University of Basel, set up the network with several other professors. One of the first things requested was a mentoring programme. ‘We’re now just starting the fourth year of the programme and I think we have 35–40 mentor–mentee pairs – it’s been growing every year,’ says Hevey.