By Caralee Adams |
March 4, 2021
Bethesda’s
Rita Colwell, a microbiologist and distinguished professor at the University of Maryland and at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, was the first woman to lead the National Science Foundation (she was the director from 1998 to 2004). In her book A Lab of One’s Own: One Woman’s Personal Journey Through Sexism in Science (Simon & Schuster, August 2020), written with Sharon Bertsch McGrayne of Seattle, Colwell chronicles the obstacles women have faced, how they’ve pushed back, and ways to reform the sector to be more inclusive. “I thought it was important for women interested in science, technology, engineering, math and medicine to understand they had a great future and not to be dissuaded,” Colwell says.