Welcome to WEBS

Before we can have more women academic leaders, we need more women scientists achieving tenure. WEBS is an annual three-day symposium aimed at addressing the retention of female scientists and issues related to the transition of women from early career stages to tenure track positions and leadership roles in academic and research settings.  WEBS targets early career women in the biological sciences with an emphasis on ecology and evolutionary biology.  In particular, WEBS focuses on women who have earned their doctoral degrees within the past two to eight years and who do not have tenure in order to address the critical transition period from graduate studies and post-doctoral positions to permanent research and teaching positions. WEBS participants are current post-docs, research scientists and assistant professors. To date, 80 participants (and 6 helpers) from 67 institutions have taken part in a WEBS symposium.

WEBS equips participants with the information and resources needed to successfully navigate the tenure track and have thriving careers and personal lives.Through a series of panel discussions and workshops, WEBS provides

• Concrete skills and take-home tips for addressing a range of issues from navigating the tenure track, designing a research program and managing time to establishing and maintaining successful mentoring relationships and balancing career progression and life responsibility.
• Opportunities to build a peer network and potential mentoring relationships with senior scientists.
• Exposure to the range of potential paths and success stories of women in the biological sciences.

WEBS is a collaborative project between the University of Washington and the University California, Santa Cruz. The Principal Investigator is Dr. Claire Horner-Devine of the University of Washington. Co-PIs are Dr. Samantha Forde of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and Dr. Joyce Yen of the University of Washington. This program was created by a grant from the National Science Foundation's ADVANCE Program, which is focused on increasing the participation and advancement of women faculty in science and engineering. Additional suport has been provided from NSF's Division of Environmental Biology, the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent), and from NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences Centers.

The inaugural symposium was held October 14-17, 2007 outside of Seattle, Washington, at the Pack Forest Conference Center near Mount Rainier. Participants were responsible for travel expenses; however, the conference costs (lodging and meals) and registration fee were covered by the NSF grant and other funding sources. To find out more about the past symposia, including comments from past participants, visit our past symposia page.

To learn more about the upcoming WEBS symposium (WEBS 2013: October 16-19, 2013 at NESCent), visit our upcoming events page. Information about the application process for the 2013 symposium will be posted to the application page.

For more information visit the Announcements and Resources page for answer to FAQs or visit the Upcoming Events page for a sample symposium schedule and other details about the next WEBS symposium. Read our feedback summary and our 6 & 18 month follow up evaluation summary to find out what past participants are saying about WEBS.

Want to support WEBS? Donations are most welcomed and will be used to support WEBS beyond our initial funding stage.  In particular, your support will enable us to supplement the cost of participation for our attendees, assess the effectiveness of our program and work to build sustainable WEBS programming.  (click on the button to make an online donation)