Harvard computer scientist Barbara Grosz was told as a child that girls couldn’t do math. She has proven that wrong and worked to remove barriers for women faculty.
J.M. Berger
As a computer scientist, Barbara Grosz has witnessed progress beyond her wildest dreams: computers have gone from simple counting devices to sophisticated machines that run massive global networks.
As a woman in academia, she has also seen progress—though it has been slower and harder fought.
Last month, Grosz became interim dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, a Harvard institute that runs one of the nation’s elite fellowship programs. Grosz, a leading figure in artificial-intelligence studies, has been instrumental in bringing more scientists as fellows to Radcliffe since launching its science program in 2001.
She is also a leader promoting women in science. She chaired two influential reviews of the status of women at Harvard, the first in 1991 and the second in 2005—after then-Harvard president Lawrence Summers questioned women’s aptitude for science and engineering.
Harvard’s Barbara Grosz has been at the forefront of women-in-science issues. (Credit: Tony Rinaldo)
“Barbara has been at this longer than any of us,” says Nancy Hopkins, a professor of biology at MIT who has led similar women-in-science studies at MIT. When the Summers scandal broke, Grosz was able to deliver a strategy for change in just a few months, “because she had been working on the problem all along,” says Hopkins.
Can do math
At a young age, Grosz was discouraged from doing math. She remembers her third-grade teacher telling her, “Girls can’t do math.” Her seventh-grade teacher told her otherwise. The second message stuck.
Grosz earned her undergraduate degree in math from Cornell and her doctorate in computer science from the University of California, Berkeley. She has been influential in the development of systems that can “understand” and process human language—technology that can make communication between computers and humans more natural. She and her colleagues are developing computers that can work in a more collaborative fashion with each other and with humans, based on how people naturally communicate when working in teams.
Grosz joined Harvard’s faculty in 1986 and became dean of Radcliffe’s science division in 2001. The position she now fills as dean of Radcliffe was vacated by Drew Gilpin Faust, who replaced Summers as Harvard president last month.
Radcliffe used to be a women’s college and the institute today continues work in gender studies. At Radcliffe, Grosz has hosted scientific seminars and symposia in areas ranging from cryptography to cosmology and tissue engineering, many of which spotlight the work of women in fields that are still dominated by men.
In 1991, Grosz chaired a task force on the status of women at Harvard that called for creating a “critical mass” of women among the faculty. Although there have been improvements in some areas, more than 15 years later, that goal has yet to be realized. The problem is especially acute in the natural science departments, where less than 10 percent of tenured faculty members are women, according to Harvard.
Keeping watch
Improvements will require concrete programs and not just good intentions, Grosz says. As a start, the university recently created the Office for Faculty Development and Diversity, following recommendations made by the 2005 task force. In addition to administering $7.5 million for work-life programs last year, the office publishes an annual report on faculty diversity at Harvard and works to increase the number of women and minority faculty hired.
“Constant vigilance is my constant theme,” says Grosz. “Once you have programs that are funded, that makes a difference. But informal efforts will go away once you stop paying attention.”
Until university-wide critical mass is achieved, Grosz advises young women entering science to create their own—by connecting with peers through study groups and any other kind of network they can find.
Continuing her research as a professor in Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences is a high priority, but Grosz says she feels an obligation to invest part of her time in helping those who face some of the same obstacles she did.
“People ask me why I do this,” she says. “My view has been that if there was a roadblock for me, I should remove it for others and not just say, because I jumped the hurdle, they should have to jump it, too."