Leadership and Participation in NASA's Explorer-Class Missions

TL;DR

This study analyzes gender diversity in NASA's Explorer-class mission proposals from 2008-2016, revealing significant underrepresentation of women in leadership and science team roles compared to the field.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed quantitative analysis of gender participation in NASA's Explorer-class mission proposals over multiple solicitations.

Findings

Women constitute only 14% of science team members.

Eighteen proposals had no female science team members.

Participation of women is significantly below their overall representation in astronomy.

Abstract

We have conducted a data study of leadership and participation in NASA's Astrophysics Explorer-class missions for the nine solicitations issued during the period 2008-2016, using gender as a marker of diversity. During this time, 102 Principal Investigators (PIs) submitted Explorer-class proposals; only four of these PIs were female. Among the 102 PIs, there were 61 unique PIs overall; of these, just three were female. The percentage of females in science teams in these proposals ranges from a low of 10% to a high of 19% across the various solicitations. Combining data from all these Explorer-class proposals, we find that the overall participation by females in science teams is 14%. Eighteen of the Explorer-class proposals had zero females in science roles, and this includes science teams with as many as 28 members. These results demonstrate that participation by women in the leadership of and, in many cases, on the science teams of proposals for Explorer-class missions is well below the representation of women in astronomy and astrophysics as a whole. In this white paper, we present our data and a discussion of our results, their context, and the ramifications for consideration by Astro2020 in its study of the state of the profession.