2:35 PM - 2:50 PM
[U07-04] COVID impacts on scientific research and education in the US: challenges and new opportunities for resilience and diversity
★Invited Papers
Keywords:COVID, Diversity
The COVID pandemic has caused major disruptions in research and education activities. In particular, female scientists are known to be disproportionally affected, since women tend to spend more time on family and childcare. The impact has been quantified and documented in many studies, including the number of papers and proposals submitted during the pandemic. However, the impact might have been quite different between the US and Japan, since there are more alternative childcare options available in the US and the work performance is not measured by work hours. There have also been many mitigation measures such as government agencies delaying proposal deadlines, and companies/institutions providing more sick days and resources (e.g., testing). At the same time, the pandemic has promoted remote work, which opened a door for new opportunities. The cloud computational environment (such as Zoom, Google Colaboratory, Google Docs) has removed geographical barriers to collaborate and to work together in research. Now it is quite common to advise/mentor students remotely in different institutions and/or different countries. In particular, it has facilitated mentoring students from diverse backgrounds; for examples, teaching data analytics to high school students in low-income communities. In addition, most workshops and conferences now offer remote participation options, which make it easier for women with family to participate. The pandemic can be viewed as an inflection point to accelerate collaborative research and to make research environments more resilient and diverse.