WiSH has two missions:

1. To highlight the accomplishments of female scientists and clinicians.
2. To interrogate the causes of and solutions for persistent hurdles to women’s advancement in STEM.

The ÎÞÂëȺ½» of Medicine and Science (RFUMS) Women in Science and Healthcare (WiSH) Annual Symposium was launched in 2016 to honor our namesake, an international icon for women in science. Rosalind Franklin’s unparalleled X-ray crystallography captured proof of the double-helical structure of DNA, launching an ongoing revolution in medical genetics. RFUMS is the only U.S. health sciences university named for a woman, honoring Dr. Franklin’s brilliance and perseverance in the face of gender discrimination that continues today in science, technology, engineering, math (STEM), and healthcare professions.

Across healthcare and biomedical research, women comprise a sizable majority of the workforce but a small minority of leaders and are consistently paid less than male counterparts. The WiSH Symposium and Speaker Series confronts these disparities, examines their causes, and explores ways to overcome them through lectures, workshops, panel discussions, and student engagement.

Upcoming Event

Women's Leadership Under the Microscope
How Meritocracy Fails Female Professionals

Mabel Abraham, PhD
Associate Professor of Business, Columbia University, New York, NY

May 14, 2026
Noon–1 p.m.

Why do professional women continue to face barriers to advancement even in organizations that aspire to reward merit? This talk tackles this puzzle by focusing on a powerful but often overlooked engine of inequality: evaluation. Across hiring, promotion, pay and leadership selection, systems that appear fair and objective can still hold women and men to different standards. Drawing on her research, Dr. Abraham shows how these gaps emerge from the interaction of three forces: prevailing beliefs about who seems most leader-like, the design of evaluation processes, and the characteristics of evaluators themselves. These dynamics help explain the enduring glass ceiling and pay disparities, and offer a framework for designing more equitable evaluations.

Recent Past Event

Ngozi Ezike, MD
Women’s Leadership Under the Microscope
President and CEO, Sinai Chicago Health System - "Why Me: A Black Woman’s Journey in Healthcare Leadership, from COVID and Beyond"

Annual Symposium

Each year we explore a different aspect of the problem, symbolized by the iconic photo of Dr. Franklin and “Under the Microscope” title.

• 2025: Women's Leadership Under the Microscope (Keynote Ngozi Ezike, President and CEO, Sinai Chicago Health System)
• 2024: Gender Roles Under the Microscope (Keynote Corinne Moss-Racusin, Professor, Psychology Department, Skidmore College)
• 2023: Re-thinking Women's Health in a Changing Climate (Keynote Cecilia Sorensen, Director, Global Consortium on Climate and Health Education, Columbia University)
• 2022: Women's Bodies Under the Microscope: Sex Does Matter (Keynote Paula A. Johnson, President, Wellesley College)
• 2021: Intersectionality Under the Microscope: Applying Intersectionality to Center Black Women in Health Equity (Keynote Jioni Lewis, Univ. Maryland)
• 2020: HERSTORY Under the Microscope: Celebrating Rosalind Franklin’s 100 Year Legacy (Keynote Robin Jensen, Univ. Utah)
• 2019: Sexual Harassment Under the Microscope (Keynote Veronica Arreola, Univ. Illinois)
• 2018: Gendered Innovations in Science and Healthcare (Keynote Londa Schiebinger, Stanford Univ.)
• 2017: Gender Segregation in Healthcare Professions (Keynote Ann Bell, Univ. Delaware)
• 2016: Gender Bias Under the Microscope (Keynotes by Mahzarin Banaji and Sarah Richardson, both of Harvard University)