Mom the Chemistry Professor | Personal Accounts and Advice from Chemistry Professors who are Mothers

When is the "right" time? How can I meet the demands of a professorship whilst caring for a young family? Choosing to become a mother has a profound effect on the career path of women holding academic positions, especially in the physical sciences. Yet many women successfully manage to do both. In this second edition, which is a project of the Women Chemists Committee (WCC) of the American Chemical Society (ACS), 40 inspirational personal accounts describe the challenges and rewards of combining motherhood with an academic career in chemistry. The authors are all women at different stages of their career and from a range of institution types, in both tenure and non-tenure track positions. The authors include women from different racial and ethnic backgrounds, who became mothers at different stages of their career, and who have a variety of family structures.  Aimed at undergraduate and graduate students of chemistry, as well as postdoctoral fellows and early career faculty, these contributions serve as examples for women considering a career in academia but worry about how this can be balanced with other important aspects of life. The authors describe how they overcame particular challenges, but also highlight aspects of the system, which could be improved to accommodate women academics, and particularly encourage more women to take on academic positions in the sciences.

Dr. Kimberly Woznack is a Professor at California University of Pennsylvania, where she served as the Chair of the Department of Chemistry & Physics from 2011-2014. Dr. Woznack earned a B.S. in chemistry from Hartwick College, and a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the University of Wisconsin Madison before completing a post-doctoral fellowship in chemistry education at the University of New Hampshire.  Dr. Woznack has been a proud member of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) Women's Consortium since 2005, having served as the Secretary, Treasurer, and President.  Dr. Woznack has served on the American Chemical Society (ACS) Women Chemist Committee (WCC) since 2011, becoming the Chair in 2018.  Dr. Woznack, her husband and two sons, live in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Dr. Amber Flynn Charlebois is currently a Lecturer and the Pre-health Advisor at SUNY Geneseo but accepted a position at Nazareth College to begin as an Assistant Professor in the Fall of 2018. She received her B.S. Degree from Syracuse University, her PhD from the University of Buffalo, and continued as a postdoctoral associate at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She has been teaching organic and biochemistry at the undergraduate level for the past 17 years where she has developed her research program to investigate the interaction of the small dye molecule, cresyl violet, with nucleic acids and the synthesis of stercobilin, a potential biomarker for childhood autism. During this time Dr. Charlebois has mentored more than 60 students in research projects, which has led to numerous student presentations at local, regional and national chemistry meetings. She has been maneuvering the two-body-problem / tenure track / non-tenure track landscape during this professional journey. She is married to fellow chemist, Jay, and has four children: three of her own, Steven, Matthew and Victoria, and her niece, Kyra. She is very active in the American Chemical Society at both the local and national levels.

Dr. Renée Cole is an Associate Professor of Chemistry at the University of Iowa. Dr. Cole earned a B.A. in chemistry from Hendrix College, and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in physical chemistry from the University of Oklahoma before completing a post-doctoral fellowship in chemistry education at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Her research focuses on issues related to how students learn chemistry and how that guides the design of instructional materials and teaching strategies as well as efforts related to faculty development and the connection between chemistry education research and the practice of teaching. She has been a PI for several projects, including the Increase the Impact Project, which developed resources for PIs to improve the propagation of their innovations, as well as a PI for the ELIPSS Project, which is developing resources for STEM instructors to assess transferable skills in the classroom. Dr. Cole is also an associate editor for the Journal of Chemical Education and a member of the American Chemical Society’s Women Chemists Committee.

Dr. Cecilia Marzabadi is a Professor and is the Chairperson in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Seton Hall University (2016 to present). She earned her A.B. and M. S. in chemistry from St. Louis University and her Ph.D. at the University of Missiouri- St. Louis. At Seton Hall she also served as Associate Chair and Director of Graduate Studies for the department from 2009-2013. She was the Acting Director for the Elizabeth Ann Seton Center for Women's Studies from 2005-2006 and was endowed a Clare Boothe Luce Professorship between1999 and 2004. She is an Alternate Councilor for the North Jersey Section of the ACS and was the Chair of the section's Organic Topical Group in 2003-2004. Dr. Marzabadi is a Member of the American Chemical Society's Women Chemist Committee. She has served as a Member at Large for the Division of Carbohydrate Chemistry. She and her husband reside in Northeastern New Jersey. Her research interests are in synthetic organic and carbohydrate chemistry with an emphasis on medicinal applications and in the promotion and retention of women in the STEM fields.

Dr. Gail Webster is a Professor and Chair of the Chemistry Department at Guilford College in Greensboro, NC. Dr. Webster earned her B. S. in chemistry education from Virginia Commonwealth University and her M.S. and Ph.D. in analytical chemistry from North Carolina State University.  She is a member of the American Association of University Women, the American Chemical Society (ACS) and is a member of the Women Chemists Committee (WCC). She has served on the WCC since 2007. Dr. Webster is involved in developing student-centered pedagogy for the POGIL (Process Oriented Guided Inquiry Learning) Project. She's facilitated numerous workshops for the organization and is a member of the POGIL Project Steering Committee. Dr. Webster, her husband and two daughters reside in the central piedmont region of North Carolina.