A personal note to the reader, July 23: In this story, I referred to an account by Connie St. Louis of comments by Sir Tim Hunt on June 8 at a World Conference of Science Journalism luncheon sponsored by the Korean Federation of Women in Science and Technology.
Subsequent and more fully reported accounts have led me to re-evaluate my personal stance on Sir Tim Hunt as expressed in this article. While I personally might have chosen to offer different comments than he if asked to briefly address this group at a luncheon, I'm now reasonably certain that his words on women in science were self-deprecating, as based on the circumstances of his courtship and marriage to immunologist and University College London's Gender Equity Champion, Professor Mary Collins; and that his overall message was to congratulate the Korean women scientists in attendance for their ability to perform at a level that becomes all the more impressive in the face of outdated attitudes about women in science as exemplified by his self-parody.
Certainly under the magnifying glass the last six weeks, no accounts of misogyny or sexist behavior have been uncovered against the Nobel laureate; to the contrary, he has been widely heralded by collaborators, former trainees, and students worldwide as most supportive in the career development of women scientists. His own 2001 Nobel lecture acknowledges the work of his women collaborators and students as emphatically as that of the men, going as far as identifying their specific experiments as turning points in understanding the dynamics of proteins that control the cell division cycle. The main section of this lecture closes as follows:
"One final comment. The decade starting in about 1986 was a fantastic experience for anyone working on the cell cycle. Discoveries emerged from all sides and unexpected quarters at a headily bewildering rate. The culture was generous and open, and the field attracted extremely talented scientists who were very much fun to work with and talk to. I would like to thank them. This Nobel prize honours them all."
I count dear friends and colleagues among those who have expressed opinions on and accounts of this episode. Speaking for me and me alone, I wish to offer my sincere apologies to Sir Tim Hunt and Professor Mary Collins for unfairly characterizing him in this article as sexist and denouncing what now appears to be a selectively-edited account of his luncheon comments. The groundbreaking work of you and your colleagues has led to a recently-approved drug which my own mother will receive to treat her metastatic breast cancer. For this, I am grateful. In addition, I apologize to Dr. Debra Laefer for cluttering my representation of her award-winning research with my own counter-productive overshadowing of her own work and have published an excerpt of this article to fully feature her project. I have also edited the title of this piece (previously, "The Art Historian-Turned-Civil Engineer Who Should've Overshadowed Tim Hunt") to reflect Sir Tim's role at the conference in leading the session promoting the ERC-funded Advanced Project Grants to Dr. Laefer and Dr. Jennifer Gabrys.
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University leaders often speak of the need for the humanities to interface more effectively with those in science and engineering. Scientists, informal science education, science communication and journalism are among the most obvious of those relationships. But in following last month's annual meeting of the World Conference of Science Journalists held in Seoul, South Korea, I learned of an outstanding mid-career scientist who has dug deeper, as it were, in applying academic cross-fertilization to her career.
"I decided I wanted to devote my life to saving old buildings," said Debra Laefer, PhD, an associate professor at University College Dublin. "To do that, I needed a really big toolbag. So I finished my art history degree at Columbia and stayed on and enrolled in an undergraduate civil engineering program, went through my degrees and worked in the construction industry in New York City."
Debra Laefer, PhD, in one of her research environments, shown here visiting the San Matteo water... [+]
Click here to jump to Page 3 to continue the discussion of Dr. Laefer's project
An aside: a Nobel laureate's support undermined by his own comments
Laefer was one of two recipients of European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Project grants who were featured to WCSJ journalist attendees in a session chaired by Sir Tim Hunt, a now-former member of the ERC Scientific Council and 2001 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine for his laboratory's discovery of cyclins, the crucial dynamic regulators of cell division.
The ERC was the first pan-European funding agency, established by the Council of the European Union in 2006 with a seven-year budget of €7.5 billion. Just last week, the ERC announced their 2015 Advanced Grant awards to 190 researchers at a total of €445 million.
Earlier on June 8, Hunt had presented a keynote address on creativity in science that was paired with that of Deborah Blum, the 1992 Pulitzer prize-winner for beat reporting.
A lunch then followed to honor Korean women scientists sponsored by the Korea Federation of Women's Science and Technology Association. There he gave his infamous and indefensible comments on his "trouble with girls" in the laboratory setting that led to his resignation from an honorary post at University College London, the Royal Society's Scientific Advisory Council, and the aforementioned ERC post. The sexism inherent in Hunt's comments–regardless of the intent–led women scientists and engineers around the world participated in a Twitter campaign where they posted photos at instrumentation with the most involved garb of their discipline under the hashtag #distractinglysexy.
Blum, who on July 1 took the helm of the Knight Science Journalism Program at MIT, provided the most concise overview and analysis of these events on June 16 at The Daily Beast. The article included Hunt's apology to the KOFWST.
Update: A reader has asked why I did not publish a full transcript of Sir Tim's comments. The problem is that a full transcript or recording do not appear to exist. Following the initial tweet by Connie St. Louis, the context of these comments and those following have been a matter of debate. Perhaps the most comprehensive compilation can be found in the latter half of the 7th July post by Louise Mensch at Unfashionista.
However, the story continues to have legs through the Charleston massacre at the Emanuel AME Church and the 10th anniversary of the 7/7 terrorist attacks in London, with some superb ethical treatments of the story here at Forbes by the chemist, philosopher, and ethicist, Janet Stemwedel. Her essay, 'What If Tim Hunt Had Done It Differently,' provides several thoughtful jumping off points for further discussion.
On the other hand, the response in Britain has been much more heated and, judging from the online comments at several news outlets, much more in favor of Hunt with claims that he was ousted/asked to resign prematurely, particularly by the leadership of University College London. Former member of Parliament and journalist, Louise Mensch, has sharply criticized how the story has played out, from the original reports of Hunt's comments to the subsequent handling of the episode by the British media. In 2011, Mensch was the target of an anonymous internet troll, later identified, who threatened the safety of her children.
Dame Athene Donald, PhD, a professor of physics in the Cavendish Laboratory at University of Cambridge, sat somewhat in the middle in support of Hunt at her Occam's Typewriter blog. There she proposed that all in science take the opportunity to make pledge one action to support women in science (and engineering) under the hashtag #just1action4WIS.
Promoting ERC-funded women scientists
Sir Tim Hunt, ERC Science Advisory Council member and 2001 Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine, was also at the conference to showcase the work of two ERC-funded women scientists and engineers: Laefer and Jennifer Gabrys, PhD, at Goldsmith's, University of London. Drs. Laefer and Gabrys were the only two of 5,000 ERC grantees to be selected to represent the ERC to the international science journalism conference.
I was able to reach Dr. Laefer for a Skype video interview on June 11 while she was in Germany on her return trip from Seoul. Her first comments were that the WCSJ conference gave her and other scientists a rare opportunity to interact with science journalists from around the world.
"It was fantastic. It was my first experience with the world of journalism. I went to the editors' panel on how to pitch science and I learned so much." Laefer even wrote her first press release that covers her five-year, €1.5 million project: Rethinking Tunneling for Urban Neighbourhoods (RETURN). "As a scientist, I feel so ignorant about how to communicate my research with the general public and to science journalists, so I found it super helpful."
Her ERC research that she discussed in Korea is particularly timely in that the city of Dublin is about to get its first underground Metro. The first tunnels will go under historic Georgian Dublin.
"So as we put these tunnels under these reinforced masonry buildings, we cause a lot of problems," says Laefer. "How do we rethink that risk assessment?"
Laefer has been studying a 1.5 square kilometer section there and developing models to that will guide mitigation of damage to historic structures.
"We're really concerned because this is the heart of the architectural conservation district and there's not been a lot of experience tunneling in Ireland," adds Laefer. "It's not like London where you know how the clay responds and you've got tons of experience in tunneling and great soil models."
The approach that Laefer's group is taking is to first use aerial laser scanning to extract building geometries into data forms compatible with computational engineering models. The 40 billion data points must then be segregated based on whether they belong to the buildings or to surrounding areas such as roads and vehicles.
Laefer notes that while the human eye can make these distinctions, the researchers need to use Laser Detection and Ranging, or LiDAR, to convert the visual attributes into data that can then feed into subsequent computations that incorporate the material properties of each data point. The approach even considers the effect of parts of the facade, such as the lintels that support the masonry over windows and entranceways, in their measures of building stiffness.
This study site includes where the tunnel boring machinery will first be started, where they first dig the hole and sink the equipment, as well as the first two metro stops. "We now have condition assessments for 450 structures," says Laefer. "We came up with some slightly-less favorable outcomes than the environmental assessment consultants."
Preserving heritage and the economic impact of the built environment
Laefer did her PhD work in civil and environmental engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign with Edward J. Cording, PhD, who had directed underground construction projects from the subway chambers and tunnels of the Metro in Washington, DC, during the early 1970s to water supply tunnels in the soft rock of Utah and Nevada.
Laefer's independent research program has flourished at Dublin. "My research topics are much more core to European thinking, so it's somewhat 'easier' to get funding and access to things and people." She notes, for example, that much of the international tunneling expertise is in Europe, with Germany being the major producer of tunneling equipment.
The European funding environment is equal to or more competitive than in the States–the latest ERC Advanced Project funding rate was 8.3 percent. But Laefer says that European thinking on her science also extends to economics and reflects a sentiment of "preserving heritage and that your built environment is actually a revenue generator," particularly in terms of tourism.
But it took time to turn grant reviewers her way when it came to computing tunneling stress on old buildings. Some commented that her models were "ugly." Laefer says that the computer advances in gaming and virtual reality have misled some to think that it's easy to now represent visual attributes of cities and the underground.
Voxelization (turning into cubes): an aerial laser scan of central Dublin along Dawson Street. All... [+]
"But visual details have very little impact on our world," says Laefer. Her models have to integrate the exact geometry of buildings as well as the geometry of windows that controls a building's stiffness and the response to ground movements.
She says that a lot of the initial work done by her group was misunderstood by reviewers. "When I first applied to the ERC, I got four reviews back. Two were clearly from computer science and two were from civil engineering," says Laefer. "The computer scientists said, 'this work has already been done.' And the civil engineers wrote back and said, 'wow, this work is so difficult, it could never be done.' At that point, I realized I had a communication problem."
Laefer's team ultimately scored the ERC funding as the agency modified the structure of review panels. But as she began to convince reviewers that she had the technology and expertise, she also convinced stakeholders of the economic case for her work. The mitigation of damage to historic buildings can often be five to ten percent of a project, meaning that reducing costs in a several billion dollar initiative will more than pay for the cost of her ERC project.
Laefer says that the ERC funding, starting in January, 2013 has made all the difference in the quality of people she could recruit and the level of training that she can provide for them. "Not just for sending them to conferences but also sending them to another institution for a few months it's a funding level that's not available in a lot of grants. So the students and postdocs are taking great advantage of these opportunities and we've won two international awards this year, one at a masonry meeting and one for a paper in Geomatics.
Laefer's perspective on sexism in science and engineering
When we turned to her interactions with Tim Hunt at the WCSJ conference, Laefer expressed disappointment upon learning of Hunt's comments after she had already left Korea. I asked [light-heartedly] if she felt belittled at the ERC session he chaired to showcase her work with that of Dr. Gabrys.
"Absolutely not. He was lovely and gracious and I was really shocked by his comments," said Laefer. She said that my interview request email was the first she heard of the lunch comment episode.
Laefer has had her own experiences with sexism in engineering where it is perhaps even more rampant than in the biomedical sciences.
"I was the first female at UIUC to get a technical engineering Ph.D. in 50 years and the second ever. I then worked in the New York City construction industry in the early 1990s where contractors would ask if my Daddy owned the firm. I've been at engineering scholarship applications processes where I was told that the only reason she got to that stage in the process was because the initial interviewer had the hots for me," Laefer said.
"Eventually the dinosaurs die. In the 1990s, I would rarely take offense at a remark like that coming from somebody who is my grandfather's age," added Laefer. "So it is disappointing to still see comments like that coming from someone who is my father's age."
In response to Hunt's comments that "girls cry" and that makes it hard to critique their work, Laefer gave some perspective. "The bottom line is that students cry. They cry if they're girls, they cry if they're boys. Getting a PhD and doing top science is tough and a lot of people don't make it and that's hard to swallow for all people."
'Outdated attitudes toward vulnerable populations'
Laefer says she was somewhat less bothered by that part of his lunchtime comments than how he began to describe his experience with women in the laboratory.
"The one part of his statement that I think was the most telling was not the part that they [The Guardian] highlighted. But the start of that sentence was that 'you fall in love with them' and I think this is about" – and Laefer shook her head – "outdated attitudes towards vulnerable populations."
Laefer's comments in this respect are worthy of sharing with readers directly because they show how Ireland addresses the relationship between university faculty and students:
Thank God that universities have and continue to slowly move towards standards of conduct that are better than what has reprehensibly happened.
In Ireland, if you do any work outside the classroom with a student– let's say an independent research project over the summer– you're actually supposed to be Garda-vetted. This is going through a process of police screening because student until they are 22 are considered vulnerable populations. Our students are vulnerable: We pay their salaries, we control their careers, and we should be held to a very high ethical standard. So for me, the really troubling part of that statement was the first part. The rest was just unfortunate.
It shows a certain appreciation for that power structure. Let's say I have a Ph.D. student and I have a conflict with them. If I choose to abuse that relationship– and this isn't just about becoming involved with the students but includes things like cutting off their funding or more subtle things like I stop reviewing the drafts of their work or fail to give them timely feedback–that student has relatively few avenues of recourse. It's not like leaving a job and finding another one. At UCD, the advisory committee not only handles academic progress but also examines if the student is being treated ethically.
In the intervening month of global attention to Tim Hunt's remarks, their fallout, and the discussion of sexism in science and engineering, I asked Laefer this week if she had any further reflections.
She replied, "In a time when women are desperately needed to fill the ever-increasing gap in the available workforce for technology jobs, the comment was insensitive and hurtful. While probably said in jest and without much thought, it is this underlying attitude that has help keep women's enrollment in engineering programmes at less than 25% for over 30 years."
Finally, I asked Laefer if she had any closing comments for Forbes readers–those who might be interested more in the business applications of basic research. Laefer said that work that is perhaps a few steps ahead of purely basic studies can clearly benefit industry, as in the case of her research team. She felt that the current push by university administrations for faculty to pursue entrepreneurial projects and spin out companies was not necessarily the best use of their limited time, given the ever increasing workload on faculty and unfunded mandates.
