The best way to present yourself and your work is to write a 750-1500 word post (or more if you like) about what it’s like to be a woman in science – either in consistent text or interview form (example questions below). We are aiming for content that is understandable and interesting for scientists as well as non-scientist – we want to engage young girls and the media with science. So, we encourage lots of pictures as well. It would be best to write in a way that you would like to read a popular science article: engaging, with (personal) anecdotes, and an honest look at good and bad (and maybe even funny) parts of being a female scientist. Of course, if you prefer to have a more scientific portrait, we would welcome that as well.

We think the following questions would be especially interesting – choose which ones you would like to answer, or if we have missed anything that you deem important, add an extra question!

Career

• Did you have a role model that influenced your decision to work in science?
• What is your scientific background?
• Why did you choose to become a scientist?
• How did you choose your field of study?
• Which topic are you working on at the moment? Why did you choose this topic and how do you think you’ll make a difference?
• What are your biggest achievements, and what your biggest failures?
• What is a typical day like for you?
• What are the hardest parts related to this work?
• Did you ever doubt your abilities as a scientist? Why? How did you handle these situations/feelings?
• What (or who) motivated you in difficult times?
• In ten years, what do you hope to have accomplished in terms of your work?
• Is there any scientific topic (outside of your field of research) that you think should have more scientific attention? Which one?
• During your career, have you been specifically mentored or supported by someone?
• If you were completely free to choose a scientific topic to work on, which would it be?
• What is the funniest or most memorable thing that has happened to you while working in science?

Personal life

• Do you come from an academic family?
• How does your family regard your career choice?
• Besides your scientific interests, what are your personal interests?
• Is it hard to manage both career and private life? How do you manage both?
• If you had the option to give advice to a younger version of yourself, what would that be?

Women in science

• What were the biggest obstacles you had to overcome? Did you ever have the impression that it would be easier/harder if you were male?
• What kind of prejudices, if any, did you have to face? How did that make you feel? Were you able to overcome these?
• In your opinion, which changes, if any, are needed in the scientific system to be more attractive to women in science and possible future scientists?

• Do you have anything else that you’d like to tell us about?

In addition to the answers to the questions it would be great to get:

• A picture of yourself (as cover picture: dimensions should be around 920 pixels width x 620 height, and please make sure that the resolution is high enough )
• A short bio about yourself (a few sentences about your professional background, where you got your education, where you currently work, and what makes you passionate about your field of research)
• Contact information (if you want people to be able to email you, etc.)
• Pictures of you working in the field/lab/wherever you collect data
• Your preferred title for the portrait (Meet – your name -, passionate/interested in xy)

If you have got further questions, comments, thoughts asf. let us know! You are also very welcome to suggest other women in science you know that you would like to read more about, and we´d invite them to contribute.

Thank you so much for contributing to The female Scientist! Together, we can make a change!