Stress in Women Scientists

Stress and Workplace Experiences in Women Scientists

We are recruiting research participants who are women of scientists at the University of Illinois. Previously, we conducted focus groups with faculty, and recruited women of color for the first phase of our main study. Now we our expanding our study to include white female scientists.

Eligible participants are 1) UIUC graduate students, postdocs, and faculty (either tenure-track or non-TT) 2) are within the social, natural, or physical sciences, including engineering.  If you meet these criteria, we hope you'll be interested in joining our study.

The study has two components:

 1) A demographic form and packet of psychometric surveys. This should take approximately one hour (or less), and you can take it and complete it at home.

2)  Collection of daily morning urine samples for one menstrual cycle (or 40 days) and filling out daily calendar pages. This should take approximately 5-10 minutes in the morning, and an additional 5-10 minutes at night.

We will give you all necessary material to collect and store the urine samples, and you will need to store them in your home freezer until you return them. The daily calendars and surveys are all paper-and-pencil forms.

Subject remuneration is a $10 Amazon gift card for participation in the surveys, and a $40 gift card for collection of urine samples, as well as satisfaction of helping contribute to research quantifying the impact of workplace stress and social support on female scientists! Our findings will be used to provide quantitative data on the stressors female faculty experience and its biological impact, and highlight ways that we can better support inclusion and retention of women, particularly women of color, graduate students and faculty within science.

This research is approved by the University of Illinois Institutional Review Board (#17206). If you have any questions or would like to read over our consent form, please contact us!

If you fulfill our participant criteria and are interested in participating, please email Dr. Michelle Rodrigues at mrodrigs@illinois.edu.

Thank you very much for your time! We hope this project provides valuable information to improve recruitment and retention of women of color at Illinois.