Decoding diversity

CSNOW: The Department of Computer Science is notorious for being one of the departments with the least students who are women. On the surface, this does not change. Professor Paterson, as Head of the Department, could you share your thoughts on what you've accomplished in the past few years?
Kenny Paterson: Indeed, the relative number of women studying computer science at ETH has only grown slightly over the past years. But during the same period, the number of students in computer science has grown, in line with the total number of people starting their studies. So, it hasn't increased much as a percentage – it’s at about 16% now. However, in absolute terms, it has increased substantially. We know that many people drop out of the programme at the end of the first year. Roughly speaking, though, we don't lose women at a higher rate than men. Hence, the number of women in the programme stays about the same percentage. So it's not that once the women are here, they do worse in their exams. But the fundamental issue is that we find it very difficult to move the percentage in the Bachelor's, as we have little control over the admissions there. Ultimately, the goal is to get the starting percentage to 20%, 25% – eventually even 50%. We are closely involved with Swiss schools to try to move the numbers, thanks to efforts like the Schnupperstudium and the introduction of computer science to the school curriculum. But it is an effort that will take years, and we can't do it alone.

You mentioned that the department is restricted in controlling the Bachelor's admissions. How does that change at the Master’s and doctorate level?
There, we can shape things a bit more. We don't set out to increase the number of women. Still, we try to make sure that the number of women to whom we make offers is roughly in proportion to the number who apply. So, we're trying to ensure that women are not underrepresented in who we select. In fact, I have the latest data for 2024. The ratio of women we admit for a master's at ETH was a bit above 20%. Clearly, our admission process is not biased against or towards women. However, we could do things to encourage more women to apply in the first place. There's quite a bit of evidence from the job market showing that women can be put off from applying for a job by particular types of language and processes. For example, if they don't see themselves meeting every single criterion listed in a job advert, they are less likely to apply than equally well-qualified men. Maybe the same is true when applying to be a student at ETH.

For doctoral and postdoc students, the percentage of women is 20% and 23%, respectively. Can you share some success stories on that level?
Yes, I can share a couple of things. Notably, we are very proud that with every successive level in academia, we have increased the rate of women a bit. I have also gotten to appreciate that in my research group, where we now have more women than men.

We recently went on a group retreat to Ticino. We were sitting at dinner one evening and I looked around the table. It was the first time I realised: seven women and six men were at the event, including me as the professor. And it was like, oh wow, how did that happen? So then I asked a few women in my group: Why do you think we have more women than men? One of the things they said is that when you're selecting a research group to do your doctorate or to be a postdoc, you want to know that it will be a good place to work. You want to know that you're not going to be dealing with harassment or sexism all the time and that it will be an overall good experience. So, if there are women already there, new women who are considering joining will ask existing women what it is like to work here. Hopefully, they get the message that it's ok and a good place to be. Then, it can become self-reinforcing. That's working on a small scale in some of the research groups we have in the department. So it is possible to get these pockets where there are more women than men. That's like a mini version of "You can't be it unless you can see it". I can be a doctoral student in that group because there are others. Other women are already there, demonstrating they can succeed in that environment.

We also see this in the subject my group works on. We do research in cryptography, and if I go to a cryptography conference and look around the room, a good proportion of the audience, much higher than the 15% we have here at the Bachelor's level, are women. It's interesting. One of my guesses for that is that cryptography also has real-world practical and social impacts. We use cryptography to build messaging systems to keep in touch with our families and loved ones. There's an alignment between cryptography as a research topic and social values. That potentially makes it more attractive to women. I don't say it’s a fact because I don't have scientific evidence. But anecdotally, it seems to be the case. So that's one thing.

There's no department-level initiative to increase the number of female doctoral students and postdocs. We have issues tweaking admissions, which is similar to what I’ve mentioned before. Anything that's happening is happening organically – that also demonstrates a considerable improvement in the department climate.

Finally, in the academic hierarchy, there are the professors. I believe you have made remarkable progress in increasing gender equality, right?
Yes, as you have alluded to, we have more women assistant professors than men at the moment – 9 versus 6. We're very proud of that as a department. It's also an ETH-wide policy that the target for the number of new professors is 50% women. One criticism I would make is that that's still a very narrow understanding of diversity: male versus female. There are many different forms of diversity. I think ETH as an institution is at the beginning of this journey toward understanding what diversity means, how to value it, and what it brings to the institution. Still, it's a starting place, and I'm happy about that.

There's also this concept that if there are women in senior positions, younger people can look up to that and say, ah, I could get to that too. "You cannot be what you cannot see" is one of the phrases I’ve mentioned. The idea is that these women we appoint as assistant professors who will eventually become full professors will act as role models for the generations of women who follow them. I still want to understand better whether having more women in senior positions helps with that. And it takes years, if not decades, for the effect to become apparent because the department still has more professors who are men than women. Because we're hiring young women as assistant professors and many men have to retire before we reach parity, it will take some time to notice this effect. I'm part of that problem. Also, it has been very hard to find senior women to hire. Of course, those women are in massive demand because everybody is in the same business of trying to increase the number of female professors.

ETH can offer desirable working conditions for professors of all genders in terms of funding, and the students here are outstanding. ETH also has a special place in Swiss society. We're a very highly regarded place both nationally and internationally, which makes some things much easier to get done. For example, getting new research initiatives off the ground.

Did you notice any limits or issues concerning diversity initiatives?
With our external presentation and communication, we try to welcome all genders. We try to ensure that women are represented in pictures and events and that students who come see ETH see that there are women here already talking positively about the department. However, this creates a very negative side-effect and worsens the higher up you go. As a woman, you get asked to do everything. You get asked to do more service, be on more committees, and just do more in general. Unfortunately, that's a distraction from the core business of doing research and teaching. It's an effect that is replicated at all levels in academia. In our department, once more if our women who are currently assistant professors have become full professors, the load will be spread more evenly, and it should get better. But at the moment, we only have two full professors who are women – Angelika Steger and Olga Sorkine Hornung. They're amazing people, but they get asked to do everything. As the head of the department, I'm very careful when I ask them for something because I know that my request is probably one of ten that they have from all parts of ETH and outside ETH.

Do you have dedicated processes to address diversity?
There isn't too much process behind the scenes. We are very aware of the issue and track the numbers. When hiring professors, we do take care to think about diversity and encourage a wide range of candidates to apply. It's interesting to talk about it, but it's not just a numbers problem. It's also a problem of culture and how people feel about their ETH experience. This year, the department committed to working on a diversity strategy in collaboration with the ETH Diversity Office. The Department of Computer Science already stands out because we are the only department with an integrated group for gender equality and diversity: CSNOW. Therefore, uniquely, every year, the department decides to support, promote, and finance activities to engage women students, and we will continue to do so in the future.

Would you like to add some final words?
Overall, we are moving in the right direction, even if it might not be at the speed we'd hoped for. However, we are proud of our current initiatives and are always open to hearing thoughts from students and staff. My hope for the future is that ETH starts thinking about diversity in a broader way, not just in terms of gender but also ethnicity, social background, and so on. In the long term, we hope to change the reputation of computer science as a "man's" field one step at a time.