“At 9:25 p.m. on Wednesday 15 October 2008, Jill Rafael-Fortney sat down at her home-office computer and wrote an e-mail to Michael Ostrowski, the chair of her department at Ohio State University in Columbus.
“Mike, I didn’t get either of my grants. I just found out about the second one a few minutes ago. My career in research seems to be over. It is all I ever planned to do from the age of six, so I don’t really have another well thought-out plan. Can we talk tomorrow?”
Rafael-Fortney had tried, and failed, to renew the R01 grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) that supported her work on mouse models of muscular dystrophy. She had tried, and failed, to get a new R01 grant to study a genetic abnormality that might be widespread in human heart failure. At nearly 39, she had run out of track."
From the august journal which runs this network. It is a good, if dispiriting read that presages the culling of US scientists between the ages of 35 and 50.
Their new President is being buffetted by economic storms but promised to restore science to its rightful position. I suspect the excellent Darcy Kelley and Jill Rafael-Fortney (a consolatory glass of sherry in their direction), and the many unnamed scientists whose plight they echo could find excellent use for some of Mr Obama’s economic stimulus package.
Probably far better use than the bankers (who, I understand have trousered some $20 billion of bonuses for their outstanding recent performance) and the automobile manufacturers who continued making large fuel-hungry vehicles in the face of overwhelming evidence that the world cried out for thrift.
I have wiped more and better brains off my rock hammer than those erstwhile masters of the universe have been found to possess.
Mr. Darwin, thank you for raising your bottomless glass of sherry yet again in the direction of young scientists. As an American, I do hope to do my small part to keep Mr. Obama to his promise to double science research funding in the coming years, not just the National Institutes of Health but also the National Science Foundation, which funds such work as you yourself might have done had the Beagle voyage taken place this century.
Dear Mr Darwin,
At the UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology we too are dispirited by ageism. As evidence that we at UKRC hold it no bar it gives me great pleasure to let you know that we are publishing a short-term blog by your wife, Emma, which she is writing in honour of your birthday. True, she is struggling slightly with the complexities of new technology which you are now accustomed to, but I think you will be impressed and moved by what she has to say: http://www.ukrc4setwomen.org/html/women-and-girls/getsetwomen-blog/
And we wish you the very happiest of two hundredth birthdays.
The link to Emma’s blog again (live through to 23 February): http://www.ukrc4setwomen.org/html/women-and-girls/getsetwomen-blog/