Flexibility is key to success

By Sandra Holley

Balancing family with a career in science requires a large degree of flexibility, claimed women scientists at the Women in Science at Cornell (WISC) annual couples’ dinner, held Nov. 27 in G10 Biotechnology Building.

Susan Suarez, professor of biomedical sciences, and Bik Tye, professor of molecular biology and genetics, agreed that part of that flexibility means having a flexible spouse. They were addressing about 70 female undergraduates, graduate students, faculty and research fellows, some with spouses.

In the 1970s, when Tye first started as an assistant professor at Cornell, she spent the first year apart from her husband, S.H. Henry Tye, who was working as a physicist at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia, Ill. To be closer to his wife, who was then pregnant, her husband took a senior research associate position in Cornell’s physics department. His flexibility was instrumental, Tye said, in helping her climb the academic ladder. Both Tyes were eventually promoted to full professor positions.

To read the full article, visit: “Women in science credit flexibility as key to career success,” Cornell Chronicle OnLine