Implicit and explicit biases impede the participation of women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematic (STEM) fields. Across career stages, attending conferences and presenting research are ways to spread scientific results, find job opportunities, and gain awards. Here, we present an analysis by gender of the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting speaking opportunities from 2014 to 2016. We find that women were invited and assigned oral presentations less often than men. However, when we control for career stage, we see similar rates between women and men and women sometimes outperform men. At the same time, women elect for poster presentations more than men. Male primary conveners allocate invited abstracts and oral presentations to women less often and below the proportion of women authors. These results highlight the need to provide equal opportunity to women in speaking roles at scientific conferences as part of the overall effort to advance women in STEM.

Researchers from racial and ethnic groups that are under-represented in US geoscience are the least likely to be offered opportunities to speak at the field's biggest meeting.

Presenting at scientific conferences is key to academic career progression. Scientists don’t just communicate results; they also develop relationships with collaborators and mentors, and identify job and funding opportunities. Giving a talk confers recognition and prestige, particularly for students and early-career researchers. Despite historical inequities, women are now presenting more at conferences and colloquia. These gains are especially visible at conferences that are organized by women or that specifically support early-career participants. We found that US scientists from minority racial and ethnic populations already under-represented in science had relatively fewer speaking opportunities at a key scientific conference over a four-year period than their proportion in the sample would predict; the imbalance was most severe for women. This disadvantage for under-represented minority groups held across career stage.

Implicit and explicit biases impede the participation of women in geoscience. Documented biases include the quality of postdoctoral recommendation letters and opportunities to review research articles. Across career stages, attending conferences and presenting research are ways to spread scientific results, find job opportunities and funding, and gain awards and recognition. However, biases in geoscience conference presentations are currently unknown. Here we present an analysis of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) Fall Meeting abstract dataset from 2014 to 2016 of invited authors and oral and poster presentations. Our results indicate that overall, women were invited and assigned oral presentations less often than men for the AGU Fall Meetings. However, when we control for career stage, we see similar rates between women and men and women sometimes outperform men. Women also elect for poster only presentations more than men. Male primary conveners (from students to more senior career stages) allocate invited abstracts and oral presentations to women less often and below the proportion of women authors. Our results show the need to provide equal opportunity to women in speaking roles at scientific conferences as part of the overall effort to advance and retain women in STEM fields.

AGU membership reached 50,000 in September 2007. Membership has doubled since the early 1990s. Membership grew moderately through the late 1990s, reached 40,000 members in 2001, and grew at a rate of 5% or more for each of the past 3 years. The size of AGU membership is not the only factor reinforcing the role of AGU as a leader in the increasingly interdisciplinary global endeavor that encompasses the Earth and space sciences. Diversity is another key factor. AGU members hail from 137 different countries. Members residing outside North America now represent more than 35% of the membership compared with 29% in 1995. There has also been a large increase in the number of women: 24% in 2007 compared with 13% in 1995. In addition, students now account for 20% of the membership.