File:White House Launch for NSF's Career-Life Balance Initiative (6257905928).jpg

The National Science Foundation (NSF) announced the agency's new Career-Life Balance initiative at the White House on September 26, 2011. In remarks to nearly 200 invited guests, NSF Director Subra Suresh said the agency initiative would help "advance the nation's ability to recruit and retain talented scientists and engineers here at home in the U.S. in our educational institutions." He described the family-flexibility initiative as one of the strategies to broaden participation by those who are underrepresented, especially in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. He said that women earn about 41 percent of the doctorates granted in STEM fields but they account for only 28 percent of tenure-track faculty positions in those fields. While the initiative would help both sexes, the activity is expected to be especially beneficial in efforts to reduce the drop-out rate of women in STEM fields. Women "should not have to choose between their baby and the lab bench," Suresh said. First Lady Michelle Obama applauded NSF for taking practical steps to enable women--and men--to balance work and family. “If we’re going to out-innovate and out-educate the rest of the world, then we have to open doors to everyone,” Mrs. Obama said. “We need all hands on deck. And that means clearing hurdles for women and girls as they navigate careers in science, technology, engineering and math.” The First Lady was introduced by Michelle Del Rio, a graduate student in public health at the University of Texas at El Paso and president of the Association for Women in Science--El Paso, Texas, chapter, who talked about some of the hurdles she has overcome to pursue a science career.

Following the First Lady's remarks, Suresh moderated a panel discussion on career-life balance issues in academia and industry, with panelists Tina Tchen, assistant to the President and chief of staff to the First Lady and executive director for the White House Council on Women and Girls; Dr. Robert Birgeneau, chancellor at the University of California, Berkeley; Dr. Monica Cox, associate professor of engineering education at Purdue University; and Dr. Catherine Hunt, Dow Chemical Company. Among the invited guests at the event were Acting Secretary of Commerce Becky Blank (not pictured), Rep. Chaka Fattah (D-Penn.), Hunter R. Rawlings III, president of the Association of American Universities (AAU), John P. Holdren, assistant to the President for science and technology and the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), and Alan I. Leshner, chief executive officer of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Read more about NSF's Career-Life Balance Initiative.