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Category Archives: Jonathan Eisen
Tony Rodriguez Illustration of Me for WiredUK
OK so I have not worn a tie in a very long time and I pretty much don't wear a lab coat too often either but I totally love this:
See the whole story here.
See the whole story here.
Posted by in Jonathan Eisen, microbiome, news, press, Tony Rodriguez
Post-doc w/ me, Jessica Green, Jay Stachowicz, and Jenna Lang on seagrass microbiomes
Postdoctoral Position in Microbial Ecology and Evolution
Jessica Green at the University of Oregon Green (http://pages.uoregon.edu/green/) is currently seeking a postdoctoral researcher to explore fundamental questions in microbial ecology and evolution. Applicants should have a PhD in a biological, computational, mathematical, or statistical field with extensive training using theory and/or modeling to understand the ecology and evolution of complex biological communities, and strong writing skills. Experience developing and applying quantitative phylogenetic ecological methods is highly desirable, but not explicitly required for candidates who have otherwise demonstrated strong quantitative skills.
The successful candidate will play a key role in the Seagrass Microbiome Project (http://seagrassmicrobiome.org) in collaboration among Jonathan Eisen https://phylogenomics.wordpress.com), Jay Stachowicz http://www-eve.ucdavis.edu/stachowicz/stachowicz.shtml, and Jenna Lang (http://jennomics.com/) at the University of California, Davis. The Seagrass Microbiome Project aims to integrate the long interest in seagrass ecology and ecosystem science with more recent work on microbiomes to produce a deeper, more mechanistic understanding of the ecology and evolution of seagrasses and the ecosystems on which they depend. Our studies of the community of microorganisms that live in and on seagrasses – the seagrass “microbiome” – will contribute to a broader understanding of host-microbe systems biology, and will benefit from ongoing University of Oregon research programs including the Microbial Ecology and Theory of Animals Center for Systems Biology (http://meta.uoregon.edu/) and the Biology and Built Environment Center (http://biobe.uoregon.edu/).
The position is available for 1 year with the possibility for renewal depending on performance. The start date is flexible. Please email questions regarding the position to Jessica Green (jlgreen).
To apply
A complete application will consist of the following materials:
(1) a brief cover letter explaining your background and career interests
(2) CV (including publications)
(3) names and contact information for three references
Submit materials to ie2jobs. Subject: Posting 14431
To ensure consideration, please submit applications by November 1, 2014, but the position will remain open until filled.
Women and minorities encouraged to apply. We invite applications from qualified candidates who share our commitment to diversity.
The University of Oregon is an equal opportunity, affirmative action institution committed to cultural diversity and compliance with the ADA. The University encourages all qualified individuals to apply, and does not discriminate on the basis of any protected status, including veteran and disability status.
Posted by in eisen lab, Jay Stachowicz, Jenna Lang, Jessica Green, jobs, Jonathan Eisen
Turning down an endowed lectureship because their gender ratio is too skewed towards males #WomenInSTEM
Just got this invitation. I have edited it to remove some of the identifying factors since I think the specific details do not matter.
Dear Dr. Eisen:
I am writing to invite you to present a lecture in the endowed XXXX Lecture Series at XXXX Univsersity. The XXXX Lecture is a platform to allow leaders in the areas of XXXX to communicate research advances to a general audience. Recent speakers include XXXX and XXXX and XXXX. For your talk, we were hoping you could discuss advances in understanding human microbiomes and their significance to health. I think this is an enormously important area that the general public is still largely unaware of, and also an area with incredible promise that will see exponential progress going forward. I know this is relatively short notice, but we are hoping that the lecture would be sometime in October or November of 2014.
The lectureship includes an honorarium of $2,000 in addition to covering your travel, lodging, and meal expenses. Because XXXX we generally hold duplicate lectures XXXX on consecutive evenings (typical Tues-Wed or Wed-Thurs). Speakers generally arrive early in the afternoon of the day of the first lecture, and depart after the second lecture the following day. Between the two lectures there will be a dinner and meetings with research or medical groups and an outreach activity in which, if you are willing, you would XXXX.
We would be honored to have you speak in the XXXX series and hope you will be able to fit us into your busy schedule.
Sincerely,
XXXXWell, wow. That would be really nice. I do not think I have ever given a named lecture before. Then I made one fateful decision - I decided to look up who had spoken at the lecture series previously. And, well, it was not what I wanted to see. And another lecture series from the same institute had the same problem. Bad gender ratio of speakers. So, after some thought and a brief discussion with a post doc in my lab Sarah Hird whose opinions I trust on such issues. I wrote this to the people who invited me:
XXX
Thank you so much for the invitation and the respect it shows to me that I would be considered for this. However, when I looked into past lectures in this series I saw something that was disappointing. From the site XXXX where past lectures are listed I see that the ratio of male to female speakers is 14:3. I note - the XXXX lecture series - also from XXXX - also has a skewed ratio (11:2). As someone who is working actively on multiple issues relating to gender bias in science, I find this very disappointing. I realize there are many issues that contribute to who comes to give a talk in a meeting or seminar series or such. But I simply cannot personally contribute to a series which has such an imbalance and I would suggest that you consider whether anything in your process is biased in some way.
Sincerely,
Jonathan Eisen
UPDATE 7/22/2014
The person who invited me responded to my email. Here is what this person wrote:
UPDATE 2: Storify of responses The person who invited me responded to my email. Here is what this person wrote:
Jonathan:
Thanks for response and your concern. I noted this uneven representation also when I took over the series a couple years ago and have worked (not as successfully as I would have liked) to get more balance. For example, in trying to book the XXXX lecture this year I have been turned down by XXXX, but did manage to book XXXX. For the XXXX lecture series, a related but separate series aimed at professional rather than the lay public audiences that I also run, I was turned down by XXXX, but I’ve booked XXXX. You have been the sole male invite to either series this year. But I will agree that in previous years the ratio has not been as good as I would like. In part this is because it seems even harder to book top female speakers than males speakers - presumably because they are in such demand and are always asked to be representative on a million committees etc, but in past XXXX I did bring in XXXX and XXXX. For the XXXX lecture I brought in XXXX last year. So numbers are getting better, and this year the ratio will be at least 2:1 (max) in favor of females.
But you point is well taken, and perhaps I can even things out a little with your help. Although I think microbiomes are an incredibly important and under appreciated area, this is not my area of research, so I don’t know the players. If you can recommend female researchers in this area who are dynamic speakers that would be able to give a very publicly accessible talks (TED talk level) on the topic, and ideally are also doing great research too, I would be happy to invite them.
Best,
XXXXSo then I wrote back
Ruth Ley at Cornell is great - works on evolution of microbiomes and
has done some fantastic stuff in humans and plants. See
https://micro.cornell.edu/people/ruth-ley. And gives very good talks.
Katie Pollard at UCSF is completely brilliant and awesome and gives
amazing talks
http://www.docpollard.com. She works on many things including microbiomes
Jessica Green http://pages.uoregon.edu/green/ at Oregon does not work
on human microbimes per se but does work on microbiomes in buildings
and connects that to human microbiomes. She is also a TED fellow and
has given two great TED talks and is one of the best speakers I know.
Julie Segre at NHGRI is great too. Hard core medical microbiome work:
http://www.genome.gov/Staff/Segre/.
UPDATE 3: Some links writing about this
- PZ Myers at Pharyngula: Commitment
- Feminist Philosophers: A great model from STEM
- Vous n'invitez pas assez de femmes, ce sera sans moi
- A scientist sets an example for the church
For related posts by me see my collection on Diversity in STEM. Some key posts of possible interest include:
- What to do when you realize the meeting you are speaking at is a YAMMM (yet another mostly male meeting)?
- Another Mostly Male Meeting from UCSD- should be called "Food and Fuel for the 19th Century"
- Kudos to the DOE-JGI for organizing a genomics meeting w/ a good gender ratio - no kudos to BGI - yet again.
- YAMMGM - yet another mostly male genomics meeting (series): Plant Genomic Congresses by Global Engage
- Q-Bio conference in Hawaii, bring your surfboard & your Y chromosome b/c they don't take a XX
- A scientific study of gender bias in scientific conferences: new #PLoS One paper from #UCDavis
- Diversity (of speakers, participants) at meetings: do something about it
- A conference where the speakers are all women?
- Not protesting this commencement address: Nancy Hopkins at BU on Gender Bias in STEM
- is Sexxing up your scientific journal OK? The Journal of Proteomics seems to think so
- STEM Women: How Men Can Help, w/ Professor Jonathan Eisen (hey, that's me)
- Crosspost from PLOS Biologue: Working to increase diversity of PLOS Biology Academic Editors and Advisory Board members
Posted by in gender bias, gender ratio, Jonathan Eisen, Women in STEM
ASUCD (Associated Students, #UCDavis) Excellence in Education Awards
Very proud of this. I was a finalist in the "Excellence in Education" awards given out by the UC Davis Undergraduate group ASUCD Associated Students, University of California, Davis. And David Coil, Project Scientist in my lba was another finalist. The award for my college (College of Biological Sciences) went to Jay Rosenheim, who is a great teacher, so no shame in losing to him.
Anyway - here are some pics.
Just got back from @ASUCDofficial Excellence in Education awards - check out @davidacoil - one of the finalists pic.twitter.com/AMOztcwApx
— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) June 3, 2014 Oh and here is another finalist for the @ASUCDofficial Excellence in Education awards - me - pic.twitter.com/OKwBEdRUWH
— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) June 3, 2014 Some more pics from the @ASUCDofficial Excellence in Education awards https://t.co/aQaLv18u7p #ucdavis
— Jonathan Eisen (@phylogenomics) June 3, 2014 Anyway - here are some pics.
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| One of the ASUCD members doing introductions |
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| Another ASUCD |
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| David Coil getting is certificate |
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| Hey, that's me |
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| Jay Rosenheim getting his certificate |
Posted by in #UCDavis, ASUCD, David Coil, Jonathan Eisen, teaching
Quick Post – Interview of me is up on the Story Exchange re: #WomenInSTEM especially at conferences
For some other background on my work and posts in this area see this page with a compilation of my Posts on diversity (gender, etc) in science.
Some selected ones are below:
- Pete Seeger, RIP, on women in engineering - The Tree of Life
- Important new paper on impact of having women as conveners on gender ratio of speakers
- Diversity (of speakers, participants) at meetings: do something about it
- Storified tweets from the #UCDavisADVANCE Symposium on Increasing Diversity of STEM Faculty
- Perhaps this meeting should be renamed "Of Microbiomes and Men" ....
- Another genomics meeting featuring men men men and men: International Forum on "Genomics, Innovation and economic growth"
- Important read for those interested in gender, family & academia: Do Babies Matter
- Q-Bio conference in Hawaii, bring your surfboard & your Y chromosome b/c they don't take a XX
- YAMMGM - yet another mostly male genomics meeting (series): Plant Genomic Congresses by Global Engage
- ICG Europe starts w/ "Omics & the future of man" & sticks to men the rest of the time
Posted by in Candice Helfand, diversity, Jonathan Eisen, Story Exchange, women in science, Women in STEM
STEM Women: How Men Can Help, w/ Professor Jonathan Eisen (hey, that’s me)
Just got done with an interview "STEM Women: How Men Can Help, with Professor Jonathan Eisen" done via Google Hangout with Buddhini Samarasinghe and Zuleyka Zavallos.
Video of the chat has been posted to Youtube.
And there is a Google Plus Event Page here.
Video of the chat has been posted to Youtube.
And there is a Google Plus Event Page here.
Posted by in Buddhini Samarasinghe, Jonathan Eisen, STEM, women in science, Women in STEM, Zuleyka Zavallos
Posted by in cat microbiome, Jonathan Eisen, lolcat biology, microbenet, microbiome, science caturday, science lolcat
Better late than never – video interview of me from #AAAS2012 – Evolvability, the Built Environment and Open Science
Well, better late than never. An interview of me by Stan Malloy at the AAAS Meeting
from February 2012 has been posted at MWV Episode 72 - Jonathan Eisen - Evolvability, the Built Environment and Open Science. From their site
See the interview via Youtube below:
On this episode, Jonathan talks about "evolvability," the probability that organisms can invent new functions. To do this, he has been using genome data in conjunction with experimental information to try and understand the mechanisms by which new functions have originated.
Another area of interest for Eisen is the "built environment." We live and work in buildings or structures which are non-natural environments, new to microbes. These "new" environments represent a controlled system in which to study the rules by which microbial communities form.
Jonathan is interested in these environments as basic science vehicle and he shares the importance of studying the built environment for science and human health.
Finally Jonathan explains his interest in "open science," the ways in which science is shared. At it's core, Eisen wants to leverage cheaper technologies to accelerate the progress of science in a positive way.
This episode was recorded at the American Association for the Advancement of Science Meeting in Vancouver, British Columbia on February 18, 2012.
See the interview via Youtube below:
Posted by in AAAS, Jonathan Eisen, Microbeworld, Stan Malloy