Welcome to Women+ in (Cognitive) Control
An organization promoting women, transgender, and gender diverse researchers in cognitive control
Our Mission
Having worked in the field of cognitive control for many years as researchers, reviewers, and editors, the originators of this initiative (Julie Bugg and Tobias Egner) noticed that this is a male-dominated field. In the spring of 2021 they launched Women in Control to start redressing this gender imbalance. The COVID-19 pandemic lent additional urgency, as data suggested that the pandemic affected women academics especially hard (e.g., Andersen et al., 2020; Collins, 2020; Kreeger et al., 2020), and a broader network of supportive colleagues may be particularly helpful during these times. In early 2023, we expanded the scope of the group to also include representation of transgender and gender diverse researchers (thus, “women+”). At present we have two main goals, as described below. We are optimistic that this group will also lead to other positive outcomes such as new collaborations.
IMPROVE AWARENESS OF WOMEN+ IN CONTROL
Some gender imbalances are well-documented (Gruber et al., 2020; future women in psych science). For example, there is a gender imbalance in citing research papers. Women-led papers are under-cited relative to what is expected if gender were unrelated to citation practices, a trend that is driven by the citation practices of men-led research teams (Dworkin et al., 2020; gender biases in citing). There is also a gender imbalance in inclusion of female-authored sources on reading lists for undergraduate college courses (syllabi gender gap). In addition to these documented patterns, gender balance in reviewer invitations, invitations for talks and conference symposia, nominations for awards and leadership roles, and hiring can also be improved. Finally, transgender and gender diverse researchers tend to be greatly marginalized. To facilitate the correction of these imbalances, we aim to develop a database of female, transgender, and gender diverse scholars in the field of cognitive control (see the Members link on this webpage). This is meant to serve as a central resource for editors, talk series and conference organizers, search committees, etc., to locate female, transgender, and gender diverse scholars with expertise in the various sub-disciplines of the field of cognitive control.
DEVELOP A MENTORING NETWORK FOR WOMEN+ IN CONTROL
In addition to increasing awareness of women+ experts, we also seek to strengthen the mentorship of early career researchers in our field via a mentoring network. The network will be comprised of Women+ in Control and male Supporters of Women+ in Control who agree to informally mentor female, transgender, and gender diverse researchers outside of their lab to facilitate development of a broader network of support for mentees, and provide an outlet for the mentee to seek advice on topics such as: research ideas and designs, evaluation of to-be-submitted manuscripts (like the “Reviewer 0” concept developed by SPARK) or to-be-submitted grants, discussion of reviews of a manuscript, job searching, deciding when to take on service or leadership roles and which to pursue, the challenges of the pandemic, etc. We envision that the bulk of the mentoring will occur on different virtual channels (e.g., Zoom, Slack) and via e-mail as this is both convenient and does not disadvantage mentees who are unable to attend conferences where networking often occurs.
Executive Committee
Julie Bugg, Eva Van den Bussche, Kimberly Chiew, Tobias Egner