Chemistry students with advisers of same gender more likely to succeed

Chemistry students who have an adviser of the same gender publish more papers and are more likely to become researchers themselves, a study of 20,000 US graduates has revealed. This effect is particularly strong in women, who are 50% more likely to become professors if they have been supervised by a woman during their PhD.

Although around 50% of science and engineering graduates in the US – and 41% of UK physical sciences graduates – are women, this does not translate to equal representation of men and women in higher research positions, a phenomenon known as the leaky pipeline. Only 20% of US science professors are female. Researchers are starting to uncover why women leave science as their careers progress, exploring various reasons such as parental pressure.