Who are the most influential female scientists in the world? To answer this question, Resesarch.com, a top academic platform for researchers, did, well, research. The platform lived up to its name! Let’s talk about the 2022 list of the world’s top female scientists they recently released and the underrepresentation of females working in the field that it brings to light.
Gathering the data for the list
To gather the information, Research.com compiled data from Microsoft Academic Graph and Google Scholar. The ranking is based on the h-index of each scientist. A total of 166,880 scientists were examined.
To be included on the list, the scholars were examined for the h-index, the number of contributions made within their given field, awards, and accomplishments. Only the top 1,000 female scientists with the highest h-index were featured in the ranking.
Female underrepresentation in science research
The goal of the project is to bring awareness to female scholars. Ironically, it is a research project about females to highlight the lack of females in the science research field.
Unfortunately, academic research continues to be a male-dominated field. So, bringing representation to females in the industry who are achieving so much is essential.
Sadly, females comprise only about 33 percent of those who work in science research globally. While that number is higher than it once was, getting it higher is important. Equal representation happens through communicating the issues and doing work like the project by Research.com that I’m highlighting in this article.
Hopefully, more females in the next generation will go into STEM fields. A career as a scientist provides a great intellectual challenge, and making discoveries is exciting.
Males have historically dominated STEM fields, and there still is a stereotype against females going into those areas. They may be seen as less competent than males, for example. However, the female aptitude for STEM isn’t less than the male aptitude. But the fear of sexism and being at the receiving end of misogyny can lead females to look for jobs and educational programs in other areas.
Unfortunately, this is a societal issue that needs changing. It starts with how we talk with young females, encouraging them to pursue the sciences and other careers in STEM. It can be as simple as explaining that they won’t have to choose between a family and a career as a scientist one day.
They can also get excited about the opportunities by looking at the achievements of top female scientists. With that said, let’s look at who made the top of the list this year.
Takeaways from the top female scientists in 2022
The world’s greatest scientist on the Research.com list is Professor Joanne E. Manson of Harvard Medical School, known for her pioneering work on epidemiology and women’s health. Her h-index is 308, which makes her the eighth-best scientist in the gender-neutral world rankings.
Female scientists in the United States dominate the list, with 623 female scientists in 2022, accounting for 62.3% of the overall ranking. Eight of the ten top 1% of scientists are from the United States. The UK ranks second with 96 scientists. Germany is third, with 42 scientists currently in the ranking.
Compared to the top scientist rankings by sex, the top six countries remain unchanged. But Japan has made the giant leap from just one female scientist in the ranking of best females to 16th in the non-gendered rankings (9th in the world), and males are consistently among the country’s top scientists.
Harvard University still dominates the academic environment as the highest institution, with 40 female scientists in the ranking. The National Institutes of Health comes first with 34 scientists, and Stanford University is third with 28 scientists.
The world’s top female scientists have published most of their research in the medical field, with 468 of her ranked scientists (46.8%) publishing the majority of their papers in this field. increase. Other popular research areas among female scientists are physics (10.4%), genetics and molecular biology (8.7%), and biology and biochemistry (8.2%).
Do you work in the field of science? Have you ever thought of pursuing an academic career path in science? Why or why not?
Yes, females are underrepresented in many aspects. Wow – including Science? I’m not a Scientist and honestly hadn’t given much thought to how women are represented here, until now. Thank you for this enlightening piece – that I hope educates and also may encourage someone (females) to consider this path. 😉
Yes, I’m hoping more girls go into the STEM fields! Science IS a field that women can rock at!