A sociologist studying gender, work and organizations, STEM, and social networks, Dr. Ethel Mickey, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst with their ADVANCE Program. The NSF-funded ADVANCE project is focused on cultivating gender and racial equity among STEM faculty through the power of collaboration. Her doctoral research draws on a qualitative case study of a high-tech firm in the United States to explore gendered practices, experiences and outcomes of professional networking. This work revealed the exclusionary nature of networking and how networking can reinforce intersecting institutional inequalities in one of the country’s leading industries. Dr. Mickey holds a PhD in Sociology from Northeastern University and Bachelor’s in Sociology and English from Vanderbilt University.
Faculty networks shape academic career success by providing collaboration opportunities, access to material resources, and access to implicit informal knowledge. Despite the theorized benefits of social networks, there is ever-increasing evidence that women’s marginalization and exclusion from networks may, in part, contribute to their underrepresentation in STEM. Dr. Mickey will research the gender differences in faculty network characteristics and how gender differences in faculty networks contribute to and explain gendered variations in faculty career outcomes, including productivity, retention, and advancement.
