Kate Storey

kate storey nominated by marysia placzek

When Kate was 13 years old, her science teacher showed her the lifecycle of a frog. She was amazed by the incredible changes that develop from a single cell. It seemed an extraordinary process, so reproducible, with each egg making a complete frog in the end. Biology and science made sense to her at an age when the world does not always make sense. Since then, according to Marysia Placzek, who’s passing on the heirloom, “Kate has made a series of seminal contributions to our understanding of developmental mechanisms. For twenty years her work has been a major influence to the field and a source of inspiration to many developmental and stem cell biologists.” Kate now heads the Division of Cell and Developmental Biology at the University of Dundee. Her work focuses on understanding how the spinal cord develops. Recently she has pioneered real-time imaging techniques that allow her to identify new cell biological and molecular mechanisms regulating the generation of neurons. “These beautiful studies attest further to her creativity and insightfulness,” adds Marysia.

I ask Kate about the proportion of women and men where she works. “In the Division of Cell and Developmental Biology there are five female and five male principal investigators. This is unusual for basic science departments around the world and also in the University of Dundee College of Life Sciences, where women make up only 11 per cent of group leaders.”

Does she think the participation of women in science is improving? “Yes, but there are some mechanisms that could help to advance the situation. For example, knowing how the promotion process works is important for career progression. Although guidelines are in place in universities, the impression can be that those who shout the loudest tend to do better in being promoted, increasing their salary or acquiring more space. Those who are less confident, or whose style is not to make demands, tend to get overlooked.”

But surely this is a problem for both men and women? “I think rewards like this play to the differences between the sexes to some extent. Women are often more modest about what they do and how they perceive themselves; men are more willing to put themselves forward.”

Women Request Less Funding

Some evidence supporting this came up when Kate attended the MRC’s Neuroscience and Mental Health Board, where current statistics comparing men and women’s funding across the MRC were presented. Although success rates for programme grants for men and

I don’t think there’s any strong opposition to change. It’s a matter of being more mindful of the decisions we make.

Kate Storey

women were much the same, male applicants bid for £86,000 or 14 per cent more funding than females; and males secured £154,000 or 21 per cent more than females. “That was striking. For some reason women tend to ask for less.” Gender balance on decision-making bodies in the MRC is uneven, women usually make up 25 to 35 per cent of such groups and an extreme example is the MRC boards and panels where out of ten chairs, only one is female, suggesting that women, for whatever reason, are not engaging at the highest levels.

Being More Mindful

Regarding this stark gender imbalance, how can we go about changing that? “I don’t think there’s any strong opposition to change. A lot of what we do and the way we are culturally is almost unconscious. It’s a matter of being more mindful of the decisions we make, why we make them, why we appoint or promote people, who we encourage, and so on”.

I ask if women approach their science differently to men in other ways. “I’m not sure they do. Science is science. But in my experience, women tend to bring some additional qualities to the lab; they work particularly well in teams and are good at listening and at taking the long view.”

Partnership Grants

I ask Kate about her career path. Unusually, she worked part-time throughout her five post-doc years when her children were small. “My husband supported us as essentially my salary went entirely on childcare. But this arrangement kept me connected to research”. She could also do this because she had a supportive supervisor, Claudio Stern, with whom she wrote a grant that included a 50 per cent post-doc and a 50 per cent technician salary. “I designed and performed experiments and the technician processed the samples. This kind of partnership grant, which pairs a postdoc and a technician on a research project can help to maintain career progression during those crucial years when children are young.”

“Eggs inspire me. They are such a fragile package for life. I have spent many hours trying to understand how one cell can make a whole body.”

Kate Storey