Women in Science Past Workshops
2025 | 2024 | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | 2016
2025 Women in Science Workshop
Cultivating Resiliency: Thriving in Science Careers
The journey of a scientist, whether in academia, industry, or extension work, is often marked by high expectations, demanding workloads, and the pressure to secure funding, publish research, and navigate career transitions. For women in our sciences, these challenges are further compounded by the realities of fieldwork, workplace dynamics, and balancing professional and personal responsibilities. Cultivating Resiliency is about recognizing these pressures and equipping women with the tools to navigate setbacks, manage stress, and build sustainable careers in science. This workshop explored strategies for developing mental resilience, fostering supportive networks, and maintaining motivation in the face of obstacles. It was the culmination of the 2025 Women in Science theme of Cultivating Resiliency. Features throughout the year included webinars (Cultivating Mental Wellness and Cultivating Respect). Through shared experiences, expert insights, and interactive discussions, we aim to empower women to thrive - not just survive - in their scientific careers.
2024 Women in Science Workshop
Developing Programs to Support Women in Agronomy, Crops, and Soils, Panel Discussion
How can we build better programs and policies that break down the barriers many women still face in our sciences and related fields? Are you ready to take action at your institution, but don’t know where to start? Through this workshop, we will walk through some of the challenges and triumphs that panelists, representing government, academia, and industry, have faced when developing highly innovative and successful programs that support women in agriculture. Participants gained ideas for how they can initiate or engage in similar efforts at their institution, along with general tips on how to better support women in agronomy, crops, and soils.
2023 Women in Science Workshop
Overcoming Gender Bias
Women encounter many barriers to advancement into leadership positions, and these barriers include gender-based discrimination as well as unconscious gender bias. Many companies and universities have shown their commitment to gender equality by establishing family friendly policies and facilitating women’s careers and professional networks. Nevertheless, unconscious gender bias continues to impact women in the workplace, and more must be done to enable highly skilled women to advance into leadership positions. Attendees were provided with a review of unconscious gender bias and its role in impeding women’s career advancement before discussing how to mitigate and overcome unconscious gender bias.
Thank you to the Agronomic Science Foundation for their funding of this program.
2022 Women in Science Workshop
How Bystanders Can Change the Conversation
Presenters: PowerPlay & Interactive Development Group
Social justice and gender equity are important in many personal and professional lives. As leaders in our fields, we see the opportunity (and perhaps the responsibility) to use our positions of relative privilege to increase opportunities for others. Bias is a systemic prejudice for, or against something or someone, based on things like stereotypes. Biases can adversely impact our judgment, causing us to make non-fact-based decisions in favor of one person or group to the detriment of others. People can have biases that are either conscious or unconscious. There are endless types of biases, common types include gender, race, age, national origin, and ability. We all learn and absorb them from our environments starting at an early age, depending on the context in which we were raised. Unconscious biases can become codified into the daily fabric of our organizations. They can be built, systemically into recruitment processes, performance management systems, and leadership development programs.The workshop provided attendees with skills to recognize individual bias as well as to respond to systemic bias, through the unique presentation of PowerPlay (a professional applied theatre company) - a program of the University of New Hampshire.
A special thank you to the Agronomic Science Foundation for their support of this program.
2021 Women in Science Workshop
Mentoring Throughout Your Career, Panel Discussion
The value of mentoring is sometimes not recognized until years after it occurs; this workshop will explore the benefits of being both a mentor and a mentee throughout one's career. The workshop began with an overview of mentoring, then a panel of mentors discussed their experiences, tips, and lessons learned. Then attendees participated in flash mentoring breakout sessions of various categories to work in small groups, meet experienced mentors, and network. The categories included different career and life stages, such as early scientist, industry, government, mid-career scientists/post tenure, administration, NGO, caregivers of children or elderly parents, mindfulness, and work-life balance. The workshop also touched on mentoring across diverse cultures, background, and levels of experience.
2020 Women in Science Workshop (Virtual)
Emotional Intelligence in the Workplace: Dealing with Conflict and Difficult People
Speaker: Marilyn Orr, Leadership Coach, Capacity Building Coaching
The 2020 ASA, CSSA, and SSSA Women in Science Committee Workshop provided attendees with the opportunity to develop skills to effectively deal with conflict. Emotional intelligence is a valued skill both in the workplace and in our personal lives as well. It helps improve communication, management, problem-solving, and relationships. It also is a valued skill when dealing with persistent conflict and difficult people in the workplace, which can impact morale, damage professional relationships, and weaken organizational results. This workshop focused on what emotional intelligence is how it can help in both professional and personal lives when dealing with conflict and difficult people.
A special thank you to PBI-Gordon and USDA-NRCS for their financial support of this workshop.
2019 Women in Science Workshop
Finding Voice: The Art of Advocacy
Speaker: Marilyn Orr, Leadership Coach, Capacity Building Coaching
The world we live in asks that we find ways to make our accomplishments known in order to advance in our careers. However, many of us have learned from a young age that “bragging” isn’t acceptable. Despite that, to be successful, scientists need to have the skill of “positive self-promotion,” or the ability to advocate for ourselves and others. These are powerful tools, but often take practice as well as a willingness to step outside our comfort zone. This workshop focused on developing this skill by exploring exactly what advocacy is (for ourselves and others), the value and perceptions of advocacy (or “tooting our own horn”), and the potential consequences of being uncomfortable with self-promotion. Then, using cases and examples participants explored how to move beyond being uncomfortable, consider strategies to comfortably employ in order to have our efforts and accomplishments acknowledged and rewarded, and address advocacy of others as valuable for connection in the world of science. Special Thanks to our Sponsors, Bayer Crop Science and ASA, CSSA, and SSSA for providing support for this workshop.
2018 Women in Science Workshops
2018 SSSA International Meeting
The Panel Discussion on the Dual-Career Problem was held at the SSSA International Meeting on January 8, 2019. The panel looked at the problem of spousal placement. Panelists shared information on their personal experiences with Dual-Career placement and Science Administrators from institutions having formal spousal placement policies.
Panel Discussion members consisted of: 1) scientists who have personally experienced spousal placement; and 2) administrators who can speak to official university spousal placement policies.
2018 ASA, CSSA Annual Meeting
Perspectives on Leadership Development for Women As Change Agents
The future of agriculture requires all hands-on deck to solve some of the world's toughest problems. In the current political landscape, it is even more important that we provide tools and tactics, support networks, and increased awareness towards a momentum that strives for innovation, excellence, and boundless inclusion. Participants at the workshop heard and learned from a panel of influential professional women in our sciences, from a broad pool of domains, as they first shared their personal perspectives on leadership and then held a panel discussion. All were invited to the networking reception. Our esteemed panel included: Dr. Shannon Hauf, Global Cotton, Wheat, and Specialty Crops Technology Lead, Monsanto; Dr. Mary Stromberger, Associate Dean of the Graduate School, Colorado State University; Dr. Nora Lapitan, Research Division Chief, Bureau for Food Security, U.S. Agency for International Development.
Dr. Shannon Hauf's Presentation Slides
Dr. Nora Lapitan's Presentation Slides
Thank you to our corporate sponsors for supporting this Women in Science workshop!
2017 Women in Science Workshop
The 2017 Women in Science Workshop was held at the Annual Meeting in Tampa, FL, October 24. The workshop featured a presentation by Sabine Grunwald, PhD Leader of UF Mindfulness and Professor of Pedometrics, Landscape Analysis, and GIS Laboratory in the Soil and Water Science Department at the University of Florida.
Multi-tasking, overloaded schedules, and high demands often keep us incredibly busy and stressed. It seems paradoxical to meet both the demands and goals of our work and personal life. To balance our expectations, our career goals as scientists, while also living a deeply fulfilling and happy life can be challenging. Women particularly suffer from those competing demands. To keep us healthy and in the “green zone” depends how we relate to stress and life as a whole. There has been ample research evidence that mindfulness practices allow us to unplug and be more present—deliberately paying full attention to what is happening around you and within you (in your body, heart, and mind) in the present moment. The practices of mindfulness cultivate the ability to become more aware of thoughts, emotions, and actions, and thus, give us the tools to live up to our highest potential. Join us at this workshop where we will explore the work–life balance and several mindfulness practices.
Special Thank You to our Coporate Sponsors - Monsanto and Bio Huma Netics - for supporting the Women in Science Workshop.
2016 Women in Science Workshop
The 2016 Women in Science Workshop was held at the Annual Meeting in Phoenix, November 8. The workshop featured a presentation by Michael S. Seaver - an executive coach and leadership consultant from Seaver Consulting LLC - a group activity, an in-depth look at leadership best practices, and inspirational stories of successful leaders.
The workshop covered:
- Styles of Leadership - There are seven styles of leadership - charismatic, participative, situation, transactional, transformational, quiet, and servant - each with certain personality traits of that leadership style.
- Building Relationships - There are trust-building best practices that help with opening lines of communication, managing time, sharing resources, and more.
Special Thank You to our Coporate Sponsors - Monsanto and Bio Huma Netics - for supporting the Women in Science Workshop.