“I’m always a female scientist, I’m never just a scientist,” said Caroline Simpson, an astronomer and professor in the Department of Physics at Florida International University. Simpson can count the number of women in her department of 27 faculty members on one hand.  

Simpson regularly encounters gender stereotypes that affect her confidence, even as a successful female researcher. “The first time someone says something [sexist], you shrug it off,” she said. “The second time someone says something, you shrug it off. The 90th time, you stop shrugging it off.”