How the Hubble Telescope is helping fight gender bias

The push for gender equality in the workplace and during application processes has found an unexpected ally: The Hubble Space Telescope.

In collaboration with researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder‘s Leeds School of Business, as well as the University of Memphis, the committee in charge of portioning out time on the telescope among scientists have developed a novel new way to ensure that gender bias doesn’t influence the application process.

Just remove all personal information from the applications.

This way, it’s impossible for anyone person’s bias to influence the decision-making process. It’s an incredibly simple solution, but perhaps that’s why it works so well. Most importantly, it makes sense; why should it matter if a scientist is a man or woman when applying to use the Hubble Telescope?

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About the Author: DrStefanieKJohnson

Dr. Stefanie K. Johnson is an Associate Professor of Management at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder. She holds a Ph.D. from Rice University and is particularly interested in the effects of unconscious biases in the evaluation of women and minorities, with the goal of finding ways to mitigate those biases. Dr. Johnson brings bias to light with an engaging and humorous approach to advanced scientific research, which has earned her numerous accolades and invitations to present her work at meetings around the world, including the White House for a 2016 summit on diversity in corporate America on National Equal Pay Day, and the 2016 Harvard Negotiation and Leadership Conference. She has published over 70 journal articles and book chapters in outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Applied Psychology and The Academy of Management Journal. She has extensive consulting experience and has created and delivered leadership-development training with an emphasis on evidence-based practice. In recognition of her unique research, Dr. Johnson has been awarded nearly three million dollars in external funding to study leadership and create leadership development programs aimed at increasing safety. Media outlets featuring her work include: The Economist, Newsweek, Time, and CNN. Stefanie lives in the Boulder Bubble in Colorado with her Biology Professor husband, two young kiddos, and two old kitties.