Connie L. McNeely

Natural Sciences Doctoral Attainment by Foreign Students at U.S. Universities

The nearly sixty thousand foreign students who attained natural sciences doctorates at United States (U.S.) universities from 1980 to 2005 are conceptualized and analyzed as a case of highly-skilled migration. Multivariate regression analyses of tendencies for foreign students from over 147 countries and regions to attain doctorates in the natural sciences at U.S. universities indicated a two time-period model corresponding to Cold War and post-Cold War eras. Highly-skilled migration patterns for the purposes of natural sciences doctoral education at U.S. universities appear to have become depoliticized with the end of the Cold War, with U.S. universities acting as de facto recruiters of a globally diverse and talented population of foreign doctoral students for the U.S. scientific workforce. These results also suggest the need for an expanded longitudinal study of this phenomenon, addressing policy implications and measuring global science and technology doctoral education migration networks in light of changing political, social, and economic conditions across countries and regions.

Advancing Women in Science: Policies for Progress

Over the past few decades, policy issues about the participation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields have been discussed less in terms of human rights and social justice, and increasingly in terms of national development and international competitiveness. In today’s ever expanding knowledge-based and innovation-driven global economy, nations must maximize the development and utilization of all of their human resources. Therefore, enhancing opportunities for STEM education and careers for all segments of the population has become a priority on many policy agendas.

Conceptualizing STEM Workforce Migration in the Modern World Polity

Focusing on highly-skilled labor populations in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields, we offer a conceptual schema and approach to capture the complex dimensions and dynamics of labor migration and mobility relative to processes of brain drain, brain gain, brain circulation, and brain waste in the world today. Combining insights from sociology and applied mathematics, we invoke a conception of the modern world polity that incorporates a predator-prey logic in a robust and flexible analytical framework that can be adapted as a tool for model development. Aimed at providing a better understanding of STEM workforce migration across and within different levels of analysis, the primary purpose of this approach is to enable policy analysts and decision-makers to simulate and explore various mechanisms and factors affecting the processes in question and to identify pivotal areas for further research.

An International Perspective on Advancing Women in Science

Many countries have implemented policies to increase the number and quality of scientific researchers as a means to foster innovation and spur economic development. In many cases, policy interventions have sought to increase participation by those who have traditionally been underrepresented in science, with particular reference to women. Today, even in countries with persistently strong patriarchal regimes, the extension of educational opportunities to women has been framed as a means of making better use of the potential pool of science and engineering innovators (Bielli et al. 2004; UNESCO 2007, 2010; CNRS 2004; NRC 2011). Women and also, in many countries, members of ethnic minority groups traditionally have been limited in access to high-quality education, with concomitant occupational outcomes. Positing the importance of education to development and progress, universal primary education is one of the United Nation’s eight Millennium Development Goals. However, participation in the scientific workforce necessitates education far beyond the primary level—an expensive enterprise, and one in which girls and women have been persistently disadvantaged.

Gendered Science in the 21st Century: Productivity Puzzle 2.0?

The notion of the ‘productivity puzzle,’ referring particularly to gender disparities in science and technology publication rates, raises a variety of critical issues for understanding related workforce development and capacity. However, such issues typically are framed relative to an increasingly outdated cultural and technological landscape in which scientific productivity is viewed principally as an outcome. We argue instead that characterizing scientific productivity as a multifaceted dynamic, highly networked, and interactive process, rather than just an outcome, might provide greater insight into the gendered nature of science and lead to a re-framing of the gender-differentiated productivity puzzle. By rethinking how we engage related questions, we might gain ground on explaining and unraveling the productivity puzzle in ways that will benefit the scientific enterprise and society in general.

Exploring Biomedical Workforce Development and Productivity: Gendered Reflections and Challenges

We conduct an exploratory analysis of gender differences in collaboration and productivity in the United States in two biomedical and behavioral science fields: biology and psychology. While the particular trajectories look somewhat different for the two fields, the trend in both has been toward a growing presence of women with advanced degrees and as faculty in related programs. We explore whether or not the productivity of women relative to men is consistent with these trends, how patterns of collaboration differ by gender, and if either is mediated by field. To examine these issues, we develop a set of gendered metrics on collaboration and productivity based on Thomson Reuters Web of Science citations for 2008. In both biology and psychology, women tended to collaborate more than men, but still were found to be disadvantaged overall in productivity outcomes. In general, the analysis provided useful insights and directions for future research. Of particular note is the need to move beyond static analyses in order to capture the dynamic complexity of gender as an interactive and dynamic factor in processes affecting biomedical workforce development and productivity.

Exploring Epistemic Communities: A Gendered Perspective on Scientific Collaboration

Epistemic communities have been identified and studied through collaboration and citation analyses. One issue that has received increasing calls for research in this area is the role of gender, especially in light of significant variation in participation and productivity along gender lines. Accordingly, we argue for the active incorporation of gender as a central consideration in analyses aimed at assessing epistemic communities and their impact at individual, national, and international levels of analysis. Drawing on various theoretical perspectives and considering a range of empirical findings, directions for research are delineated for assessing gender differentiation in collaboration productivity and network participation, particularly in terms of scientific discipline, institutional referents, and professional age and status, along with socio-cultural and political characteristics. The development of gender-specific metrics at different levels of aggregation and their broader analytical incorporation are discussed relative to assessments of gender distributional inequities and network properties. We suggest that allowing for various factors dictated by individual circumstances and field and network conditions can lead to improved contextual consideration and help to fill gaps in our knowledge to provide better and more informed understandings about the productivity and career patterns of women scientists.

A Reinvented Community: The Case of Gamcheon Culture Village

ABSTRACT This study explores Gamcheon Culture Village in Busan, South Korea, as a special case of inclusive and participatory cultural-spatial transformation by which the village was transformed from an impoverished and decaying hillside slum into a vital and picturesque location and tourist attraction. The study delineates this process in terms of a distinctive engagement of the arts and cultural dynamics relative to general social well-being. Of particular note are the roles of resident activism and civil society, social entrepreneurs, and the arts and artists as key resources, all coming together in an organic redevelopment process. Evidence indicates an increased sense of community and cooperation, overall improvement in the quality of life, and cultural enrichment for the residents. However, transformation continues, and the sustainability of Gamcheon Culture Village as a successful case of redevelopment is dependent on the ongoing cooperation and participation of the resident base and primary artistic support.

Federal Big Data Analytics in the Health Domain: An Ontological Approach to Data Interoperability

Abstract “Big data” in the health domain occupies a critical position on the federal policy and research agenda, with emphasis on leveraging large, complex data sets to manage population health, drive down disease rates, and control costs. The complexity of big data analytics requires new rules and algorithms to effect the interoperability of data derived from multiple sources. Accordingly, a lexicon and ontology-based approach to data interoperability is offered as a practical and adaptable framework to address challenges of data interoperability presented by big health data analytics and related issues. The use of ontologies as descriptive, heuristic, and normative instruments is presented as means for facilitating data interoperability by ensuring semantic congruity and syntactic conformance within and across large and complex data sets. A framework is provided for an ontological approach to health data interoperability, focusing on the importance of standards and considering implications for practice and policy in relevant federal agencies.

The Science of Broadening Participation in STEM: A Symposium Discourse Analysis

The 2016 Symposium on the Science of Broadening Participation (SoBP) was a major event held in recognition of the need for an assembled and curated body of knowledge ready for use for effective policy development and implementation in relation to broadening participation in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. Accordingly, analysis of Symposium communications—the presentations, discussions, and other interchanges among participants—was conducted to determine foundations and content for delineating the parameters and potential of an effective SoBP, especially as regards the development of a diverse, encompassing, and dynamic STEM workforce. Critical issues regarding frameworks, data and metrics, education, and workforce were identified and discussed for SoBP development and application, along with policy directives. In addition to general recommendations, areas for further study, such as community, also were indicated for SoBP consideration and expansion.