NCI Women Scientist Advisors
The NIH Women Scientist Advisors (WSA) was established 1992 for IRP women scientists to have an open forum to discuss and exchange ideas. Each WSA is elected by the women scientists of her IC or appointed and serves a two-year term.
The NCI WSA's support and promote career development for the scientific community and address issues that women scientists may face. In addition, they sponsor the NCI Rosalind E. Franklin Award Lecture for Women in Cancer Research each year.
Current CCR WSA Representatives:
Bethesda Campus
Carol J. Thiele, Ph.D. - Pediatric Oncology Branch
Patricia S. Steeg, Ph.D. - Women's Malignancies Branch
Deborah E. Citrin, M.D.- Radiation Oncology Branch
Frederick Campus:
Kylie J. Walters, Ph.D. - Structural Biophysics Laboratory
CCR OD Liaison
Beverly Mock, Ph.D. - CCR Deputy Director
Laura Hooper, Ph.D. - Scientific Program Analyst
Featured Women Scientists
https://ccr.cancer.gov/news/womens-history-month
https://ccr.cancer.gov/news/womens-history-month/featured
A Conversation with the NCI Women Scientist Advisors
Who are the NCI Women Scientist Advisors and what sort of programs and activities are you involved with?
NCI Women Scientist Advisors are part of the NIH Women Scientist Advisors Committee, which was established in 1993 when Dr. Bernadine Healy was NIH director. Dr. Healy created a task force to address concerns about the small proportion of women scientists who were senior investigators at NIH and about pay equity and work-life balance issues. The task force recommended that each NIH institute and center have a Woman Scientist Advisor who was a senior woman scientist.
Our responsibilities include organizing a career development luncheon, sponsoring the NCI Rosalind E. Franklin Award Lecture for Women in Cancer Research, and awarding the annual Women Scientist Advisors mentoring and leadership awards for NCI senior investigators.
In addition to the NCI Principal Investigator Retreat activities, the Women Scientist Advisors support and promote career development for the NCI scientific community and address issues that women scientists may face.
What other activities will NCI Women Scientist Advisors pursue in the coming year?
Since one of our main goals is to promote the careers of female scientists at NCI and NIH, whenever we have outside guests or visiting scholars, we try to find an opportunity for NCI scientists to meet with those visiting researchers. For example, we sponsor brown bag lunches with these guests that are open to anyone who wants to attend. If the guest is a female scientist, we organize an informal lunchtime discussion where she can provide pointers on how she got to her current position.
