Women Leadership in the AGU Chapman Conference Series: Convener Impacts on the Science Program Committee

Science conferences have increasingly come under a spotlight for inclusion and representation of marginalized groups. Here, we report on our analysis of the representation of women in conference leadership with regard to internal structure and dynamics at the Chapman conference series, spanning a period from 2007 to 2019. Chapman conferences are small, focused meetings in the Earth and space sciences, under the umbrella of the American Geophysical Union (AGU). They follow a two-leveled scientific leadership model, starting at conference inception by the organizing conveners and their selection of an invited science program committee. Our main findings were: (a) The average women proportion was less for the conveners (17%) than for the Science Program Committee (SPC) (24%), which is in line with the AGU demographics of attrition, assuming a different mix of career stages among conveners and SPC. At the individual conference level, the unfavorable case that convener or SPC teams were comprised only of men was nonetheless frequent. (b) On average, mixed convener teams, as opposed to all-men convener teams, selected a higher women representation among the SPC members (18% vs. 28%). (c) There were fewer all-men SPC teams when at least one woman was in the convener team (21% vs. 7%). In conclusion, while there was evidence that equitable representation can be achieved in the leadership, it still lagged in a consistent fashion for individual conferences. Targeted efforts for increased representation–especially at the convener level of the two-leveled conference model–are recommended, as increased women representation at the convener level may improve women representation of the SPC.