DR. GINTHER: This field of study I came about because I was
a junior professor wanting to understand how people got
promoted to tenure. So I started working with the NSF
Survey doctorate recipients, and I was looking at the
determinants of pay and promotion in academia because I
had a vested interested in understanding how it worked, and
I did a lot of work on women in science. And then, I got
contacted five years ago to start doing work with NIH
looking at race ethnicity and outcomes for
biomedical researchers.
DR. GINTHER: Study what you're interested in. I – you know,
you may be interested in it. Other people may not be
interested in it. But as long as you care about it, someone
will care, too. I mean, I started doing this research,
nobody was really looking at women in science. And then, the
National Academy started looking at women in science. And that
sort of opportunity led to this opportunity to work with the NIH
because I was off doing something that interested me.
DR. GINTHER: Well, so I'm a social scientist, so there's not
a lot of experiments being done. I've had lots of bad
experiments in the kitchen.
DR. GINTHER: You get to study what you care about. You get to
ask questions and go about answering them. And you know,
that's a wonderful opportunity to just, you know, inquire, ask
the right questions and work hard to get the answers. And,
you know, when you start along a research track what happens is,
is that research begets research so that it just grows and you go
along with it.
DR. GINTHER: Persistence. You know, science is very
competitive, and you have to be sort of convinced that you're
right in order to convince other people you're right. And so you
have to keep at it. There's a lot of, you know, negative
feedback, your papers get rejected, your grants get
rejected. But you have to sort of like get mad, get over it and
get back at it. Right? And so you, you know, you sort of deal
with the criticism because it's not personalized, in most cases.
And you deal with the criticism, address it, and that
makes your science better. So you have to be persistent. You
have to have a thick skin and just, you know, be convinced.
You have to be your toughest critic. And if you can convince
yourself then you can convince other people as well.
DR. GINTHER: Well, my research, that I'm known for, is looking
at race ethnicity and federal research funding. And the
societal benefits is trying to sort of, oh, you know, level the
playing field so that everyone has the opportunity to be
successful and to be a scientist. You know, the
demographics of the US are changing. And the scientific
community is largely white and male. And who are going to be
the scientists of the future? That was the question that
prompted this research. And then when we got into it, we saw
sort of the barriers to diversity in the scientific
workforce happening very early at high school and again at the
transition to graduate school. And then we looked at, "Well,
what happens when they get the PhD? Are they equally likely to
get funding in biomedicine." And the answer was, unfortunately,
"No." And so, as a result, the National Institutes of Health,
in December, announced a $500 million tenure program
to increase the diversity of the scientific workforce.
DR. GINTHER: The biggest influence on my thinking were
sort of personal, sort of like: Trust yourself. You know, do
what you care about. And so I got that advice from colleagues
of mine. So there was a colleague, Mary Olson, when we
were both at Washington University, saying, "You know,
you have to like your own research in order to be
successful." And that piece of advice was wonderful. You know,
my husband who said, "You know, you, as a researcher, get to
convince people when you know more about it than anybody else.
So trust yourself, trust your instincts." And so those
personal influences, I think, really have influenced my
research more than anything else. And I would add, another
influence on my research has been my children because my
children, you know – when you're – when you don't have kids you
have more time, and so you're able to sort of, you know,
second-guess yourself all the time. When you have kids, then
your time is much more concentrated. And so I became a
much more focused, effective and efficient researcher because I
had children. And I had something besides my research to
think about. So it sort of gave me a balance in my life that
made me a better researcher.
DR. GINTHER: Oh, the – what surprises people about
economists, is that they don't study the economy. A lot of
economists do not study the economy. I happened – I got
into economics because I'm interested in the economy, and I
follow it. And I was at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta,
and I started at the Federal Reserve Board as an undergrad
coming out. So I am very interested in the economy,
but, you know, economists study so many different aspects
of human behavior. Economics is a social science. And it looks
at how people make decisions, it looks at incentives, it looks
at markets, how people interact with markets. And so people ask
me, "Well, what's going to happen to taxes?" And I'm like,
"Well, that's a good question. I don't study, you know, public
finance. But you know, if Congress – Congress will,
eventually, figure out how to tax us, right?" You know, so I
think that the fact that economists aren't sort of
dealing with the nuts and bolts of the economy in their
research, it would surprise people a lot.
DR. GINTHER: My laptop.
DR. GINTHER: I play NPR. I used to listen to music when I
was working. And you know, there's all this research about
multi-tasking. And you know, I find music really distracting.
I listen to music when I walk the dogs. But when I'm doing my
research it's quiet.