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Andrea Miyahira: Hi, I am Andrea Miyahira here, and I'm the Senior Director of Global Research and Scientific Communications at the Prostate Cancer Foundation. Today I have with me three members of the PCF Women in Science Forum Organizing Committee, Dr. Veda Giri, Dr. Ayesha Shafi, and Dr. Claire Fletcher. And we'll be talking a little bit about the forum.

Thank you for coming. Could each of you introduce yourselves, and just tell me a little bit about your titles at your institutions and your role there?

Veda Giri: Absolutely. It's a pleasure to be here. I'm Veda Giri. I am at Yale University, and Yale Cancer Center. I'm the Director of Cancer Genetics and Prevention, and also the director of the Early Onset Cancer Program.

Ayesha Shafi: I'm Ayesha Shafi. I'm an Assistant Professor at the Center for Prostate Disease Research, CPDR at Uniformed Services University in Walter Reed.

Claire Fletcher: Hi, I'm Claire Fletcher, Imperial College London. I'm an advanced research fellow, and my research investigates the interactions between adipose and prostate cancer.

Andrea Miyahira: Thank you all. So what is the goal of the Women in Science Forum?

Claire Fletcher: The goal of the forum is to create a really strong network of women in prostate cancer research. And we know that there are inequities and inequalities that women still face in science today, not just in the prostate cancer field, but the goal of this forum is to try and address some of those issues. And we know that from recent research, women in science particularly are more likely to have caring responsibilities, more likely to be asked to undertake those non-promotable tasks that we hear about quite a lot. And also to have increased teaching and pastoral commitments.

Obviously, those issues aren't unique to women and can affect anyone, but they do disproportionately affect women. And by having a forum like this where we can discuss, where we can hear from eminent leaders in our field, where we can network with our peers, and where we can learn from their strategies to overcome some of the issues that they've encountered, we can create this really strong network going forward.

Andrea Miyahira: Thank you. So this year we've had several themes that we focused on, and one of those was negotiation strategies for women in academic research and medicine. Tell me a little bit more about what we wanted to cover on that topic.

Ayesha Shafi: This was an important theme we wanted to highlight, especially since women are less likely to negotiate, or negotiate as successfully as their male counterparts. And in previous Women in Science Forums, this has been a key topic in our follow-up surveys that the audience has wanted us to touch on.

Specifically for this particular topic, we brought in a speaker, Stacy Lee, who's a professor at law at Johns Hopkins, and she did a great job touching on different tips for the power of negotiation, since she has vast expertise and experience in this. So briefly, she mentioned key tips throughout her career that she's used, and then taught others to highlight in bringing, so that they feel empowered when they negotiate. And this is highlighted in her upcoming book, as well, that people can read from there.


Andrea Miyahira: Another topic that we covered is amplifying the voices of women in science. Tell me about that.

Veda Giri: Yes, this is such an important issue because we know that the voices of women need to be heard, whether it's in the research arena, the clinical arena, in the community, globally as well. And so this particular conversation that we had, had two experts, Dr. Todd Morgan and Dr. Natasha Kyprianou, who are leaders in the field of prostate cancer, coming to the conversation about strategies, challenges that women may face about amplifying voices. And we approached this particular conversation thinking about skills that women themselves can learn to self-amplify their voices, and then also what can be done with support by colleagues and institutional culture change to collectively amplify women's voices. And it was a really fascinating conversation. And really we hope that what'll happen is that now we can have ongoing culture change at our own institutions, and nationally, and globally.

Andrea Miyahira: Thank you. And the third major topic that we discussed was how to take leadership while maintaining excellence in science. So tell us about that.

Claire Fletcher: Yeah, so I think this is an issue that a lot of women will encounter in their careers. And obviously there are different types of leadership, but there are key things that emerge that we can learn from. And so as part of the Women in Science Forum, we had a panel discussion and we had women who have taken on all different kinds of leadership from deanships, clinical chairs, directorships. And they discussed their experiences and interacted and took questions from the people on the floor.

It was a really interesting discussion. I think there were a lot of themes that emerged, a lot of tips that I took away from this that will really, I think, be helpful going forward. But themes around building resilience, establishing boundaries, and the fact that you have to wear multiple different hats to achieve leadership whilst also maintaining excellence in science. And that actually learning those skills, developing those skills, is something that's really important at every stage in your career, and not just once you attain a senior position of leadership.

Andrea Miyahira: Thank you. So this is our eighth annual PCF Women in Science Forum in 2023. How has this forum changed the PCF community, particularly the pipeline of younger, early career researchers?

Veda Giri: Yeah, I think this has been actually pivotal in career development for women over the course of their career spectrum, especially early in careers. I think women come here to really learn about what they're facing, as well as what women who have gone before them have faced. Really develop the skills and think about what community they can build to help support their careers. I know that this has been important from the student level, all the way through trainees, graduate students, and really in faculty who are developing their own careers at the junior faculty level.

I will say that it's also spearheaded advanced career development for mid-level career faculty, and senior faculty. I think at any stage of career development, this particular forum has been really impactful in empowering women in facilitating their careers and in building a really supportive network.


Andrea Miyahira: Thank you. It's become a tradition to include high school students, who are typically from underrepresented backgrounds and interested in a STEM career, and invite them to come to the Women in Science Forum in person. So how has that impacted the students and the women who attend our forum?

Ayesha Shafi: Yeah, this is one of the topics that's really near and dear to my heart. It's one of my favorite sessions that we do every year in the forum. Being a minority student who is interested in STEM education, I've benefited from these types of programs. I love that we incorporate this specifically here.

I think the impact is twofold. One, the students are able to meet in one setting, women from across a breadth of different careers. You have scientists, clinicians, policymakers, advocates, and they range from early in their career to more established in their career. The students have the ability to interact in more intimate settings, ask questions, get advice, build a network, and get support as they're figuring out their path as well.

And on the other side, we benefit from engagement with the students, because we're able to understand from their perspective what are their needs and what's working in their STEM programs, and where there are the gaps that we can help fill. So we learn those and then bring those components back into our own DEI initiatives and STEM programs, back in our home institutions. I love that this program is something that we always feature and it builds into continuing teaching the next generation of STEM leaders.

Andrea Miyahira: Well, thank you so much, Dr. Giri, Dr. Shafi, and Dr. Fletcher for joining me in discussing the forum today. I just want to say that our forum is recorded and we will be posting the videos online, so you can visit pcf.org. Thanks.