Molecular Biology of the Cell Vol. 21, 3821–3822, November 15, 2010 ASCB 50TH ANNIVERSARY ESSAY A Richer and More Diverse Future for Cell Biology Sandra L. Schmid,* Molly Carnes,† Ursula Goodenough,‡ Nancy Hopkins,§ Phoebe Leboy, Sandra Masur,¶ and Virginia Valian#; on behalf of the ASCB Women in Cell Biology Committee *The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA 92037; †University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53706; ‡Washington University, Saint Louis, MO 63130; §Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139; University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104; ¶Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, NY 10029; #Hunter College, New York, NY 10065 Our vision: within the next few decades the composition of the faculty of cell biology, and of all biological science de- partments, will reﬂect the diverse composition of the grad- uate students in those departments. We are far from that reality today. Disparities in representation exist for both gender and race. Tyrone Hayes’ essay in this volume pro- vides a compelling discussion of the challenges faced by people of color in the sciences. Here we focus on gender. Fully 50% of current biology Ph.D. graduates are women. Most of those women continue training as postdoctoral fel- lows. Yet the percentage of women declines with each ad- vance along the tenure-track academic career path, so that 20% of full professors in the biological sciences are women (c17 Committee on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, 2007); the number drops to 15% in top-tier institutions (Handelsman et al., 2005). At almost every major scientiﬁc conference the featured speakers are predominantly (typically more than 70%, and sometimes almost exclusively!) male. Meeting organizers will reasonably point out that the outstanding scientists invited as featured speakers are drawn from the pool of more established investigators. Thus the number of invita- tions to women is in fact proportional to their numbers in the senior faculty ranks. Often implicit in this argument is the notion that earlier differences in the numbers of women graduates are largely responsible for the paucity of women speakers and that it is just a matter of time before balance is achieved. However, the numbers show that the mere pas- sage of time is not enough. A 2003 National Academies of Science (NAS) report comparing percentages of women assis- tant, associate, and full professors relative to pools of Ph.D.s who graduated 0 – 6, 7–15, or 16 years, respectively, before 2003 has documented a 20% drop in the proportion of women at each stage (c17 Committee on Maximizing the Po- tential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, 2007). The women (and men) who leave academia and use their scientiﬁc training to follow other career paths contribute signiﬁcantly to society in diverse and valuable ways. So why is the loss of women important, and how does it affect cell DOI: 10.1091/mbc.E10-09-0772 Address correspondence to: Sandra Schmid (slschmid@scripps.edu). © 2010 S. Schmid et al. This article is distributed by The American Society for Cell Biology under license from the author(s). Two months after publication it is available to the public under an Attribution– Noncommercial–Share Alike 3.0 Unported Creative Commons License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0). Clockwise from top: Sandra Masur, Ursula Goodenough, Phoebe Leboy, Molly Carnes, Virginia Valian and Nancy Hopkins. Cen- ter: Sandra L. Schmid. biology and biomedical research? Creating and maintaining diversity in science is important for several reasons. First, diversity provides a greater opportunity for innovation: breakthroughs emerge by looking at complex problems from diverse perspectives. Second, as some businesses are realizing and several studies have shown (Page, 2007; Polzer et al., 2002), inclusive enterprises with a diverse work force that recognize and value unique individual contributions tend to be more successful than more homogeneous ones. Third, as the complexity of scientiﬁc problems increases, the need to build and to work within inter- and multidisci- plinary teams increases. Women leaders have documented success in building inclusive teams that solve complex prob- lems (Eagly and Carli, 2007; Caliper, 2005). Fourth, huge resources are invested in training graduate students and postdocs. Therefore, according to the NAS report (c17 Com- mittee on Maximizing the Potential of Women in Academic Science and Engineering, 2007), “neither our academic insti- tutions nor our nation can afford such underuse of precious 3821