Human Development

CIWS conducts research and disseminates information on various topics relevant to women’s experiences in scientific careers.  CIWS’s program of work includes:

• Basic experimental research (e.g., studies of authorship credit as a function of gender in collaborative research settings, influences of gender identity/stereotype threat on women’s career trajectories, characteristics of mentorship as a function of mentor and mentee gender). 
• Applied research (e.g., national canvasses of higher-education policymakers and administrators on key gender-related issues in science, creation and dissemination of training materials for recruitment and interviewing in the sciences).
  
• Demographic/lifecourse synthetic studies (e.g., women’s experiences as scientists, and how they differ from men’s; overarching literature reviews of critical inputs into the development of girls versus boys that contribute to differential outcomes of women versus men scientists).
  

Currently, CIWS is supported by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, and is headquartered in the Department of Human Development at Cornell University.

• Wendy M. Williams, Professor
• Stephen J. Ceci, H.L. Carr Professor

Read more about our N.I.H. grant's goals

Just Released:

• Ceci, S. J. & Williams, W. M.  The Mathematics of Sex: How Biology and Society Conspire to Limit Talented Women and Girls (Oxford University Press, 2009) 
  

Related Publications:

• Ceci, S. J., Williams, W. M., & Barnett, S. M. (2009, March). Women's underrepresentation in science: Sociocultural and biological considerations. Psychological Bulletin.
  
• Williams, W. M. (2001).  Women in academe and the men who derail them: How ineffective mentorship derails women's academic careers.  Chronicle of Higher Education, Invited Back-Cover Editorial, July 20, 2001.
• Ceci, S. J. & Williams, W. M. (Eds.) (2007). Why aren't more women in science? Top researchers debate the evidence. Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association Books.
  

CIWS is part of a program of research and education-outreach focused on the developmental trajectories of underrepresented youth, and why these youth often do not choose careers in science. This work includes the creation of curricula for school-aged children to strengthen their scientific reasoning skills (“Thinking Like A Scientist”), the study of factors that lead to group disparities, and the broad, national and international evaluation of programs targeting the narrowing of achievement gaps.

Affiliates
In addition to Professors Williams and Ceci, many individuals participate in the research and translational activities, some in CIWS, others in the larger program.

• Susan M. Barnett, Ph.D.
• Stephen Hamilton, Professor
• Jeffrey M. Valla, M.A.
• Cagla Aydin, M.A.
• Jessica Zulawski, B.A.
• Laurie Rubin, M.Ed. (Ithaca City School District)

Non-Cornell Collaborators

• Heiner Rindermann, Professor, University of Graz, Austria
• Paul Papierno, Ph.D.