@johncarlosbaez She's an SVP at BioNTech and has been in private industry for the last 10 years (after starting her own company to attempt to commercialize in 2006). I don't think at that point you have time or need to be TT. Not to take away that UPenn trying to bask in the achievement seems very off putting.

I wonder why she stayed there especially after the 2005 papers were published.

@johncarlosbaez Universities have once again occurred

@johncarlosbaez Penn also fired me from my lab job for becoming disabled. Shady HR practices at that institution.

@johncarlosbaez and what will UPenn and academia at large learn from this? I’m going with…nothing.

😭

@johncarlosbaez I'm not too familiar with the way things work in academia, but how often do demotions happen generally?

@johncarlosbaez

Ah, the socio-political BS of academics. I'm very glad she's healthy, financially stable, and now recognized. The rest of them deserve all the scorn we can heap.

@johncarlosbaez She deserves back pay!

@johncarlosbaez this episode should be compulsory reading for anyone considering a career in University research

@johncarlosbaez Karikó left BioNTech about a year ago, please correct your toot

https://m.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/unternehmen/biochemikerin-kariko-verlaesst-biontech-18256358.html

@johncarlosbaez Makes me think of that Twitter thread that convincingly called into question Elon Musk's claims of having gotten a physics degree from UPenn and how it seemed like the administration there went along with it once he was successful.

@johncarlosbaez
Well, this is the sort of person we need as a world leader, seems to be able to get shit done in the face of monumental hurdles.
@Linux_Is_Best

@johncarlosbaez Meanwhile, Penn Law is STILL keeping an openly racist, paleofascist professor on faculty.

@johncarlosbaez

Hindsight is always 20/20, unfortunately decisions generally get made without the benefit of it.

So why wouldn't they be proud of her now?

@johncarlosbaez Yup thats academia in a fucking nutshell post-Reagan.

@johncarlosbaez the more I hear about this, the more interesting it sounds

@johncarlosbaez Women in science have always been treated like second class citizens. UPenn needs to apologize publicly, give her tenure and retroactively pay her lost wages.

@johncarlosbaez
@glasspusher

@johncarlosbaez

The nice thing is with that Nobel Prize in her pocket, she can go anywhere she wants and work with whoever she wants.
She can build a program around what she wants to do and universities will fall at her feet to make it happen now.

UPenn will be very fortunate indeed if she ever has anything to do with them again.

@johncarlosbaez unfortunately it seems like shame is an insufficient motivator for most university administrators

@johncarlosbaez

projecting what I know of Columbia:
I read her account to mean she was a research professor— up to 100% soft money faculty & grueling b/c you are at the mercy of funding calls to raise your salary + staff off proposals w <10% success that take months to years to learn outcome

Adjunct gives access to libraries, students, postdocs, labs— extremely valuable. still must raise grant $, but removes uni overhead (T1 60%+) for your own salary,but its less secure job than tenured prof

@johncarlosbaez thank you for sharing this

@johncarlosbaez @bestofmastodon Now, read the 2013 part! That is WITHIN A DECADE!!

Not just tenure, not just an endowed chair, they owe her her name on a bleeping building or a School.

@johncarlosbaez this is so cool, thanks for sharing.

@johncarlosbaez I'm so glad she's won the Nobel Prize. There are so many people, especially women who work their butts off on non-lucrative issues and face hard times due to their goals - which might change our future, even create a better one. Bring solutions to so many problems that put us down. But simply are not considered "lucrative" by the heads of instituts & universities or companies.

@johncarlosbaez we shouldn't expect the average "science person in power" to be more than a "person in power" in any other social hierarchy. Truth is a top-down process, especially in science. The scientific process somehow works anyhow, albeit much slower than one might have believed.

@johncarlosbaez the value of one’s life is not measured by what you are but who you are. This little bio is bigger than Nobel prize, for we millions who strive to live our best each day we learn it’s best to keep going.

@johncarlosbaez I would like to think that the award committee knew this backstory and it was part of their decision process. But this is just a reminder that it is easier to see greatness in hind sight...

@johncarlosbaez - Lets be clear on this, universities only care about the prestige that they gain and the sponsorship money they bring in… educational capitalism has become big business and corporate-like administration is what drives them.

@johncarlosbaez UPenn *again*

They have quite a few… I was going to say "skeletons in their closet" and then I realised that was more appropriate than I'd meant

@johncarlosbaez Systemic discrimination in institutions can always hide behind excuses: when someone they oppressed in early career succeeds despite them, the administration can say

>

Well, those administrators have retired/moved on now, while we have learned our lessons are making amends.

at the same time as they're perpetuating the same kind of discrimination against the next generation of researchers.

#academia #discrimination

@johncarlosbaez

Thank God for her personal #passion, her #intellectualIntegrity, and her overall #resilience. #respect

@johncarlosbaez What a deeply sick culture at UPenn

@johncarlosbaez It's a crime she's still an adjunct.

@johncarlosbaez if they gave people with “Nobel Prizes” tenure, there won’t be enough tenured positions left for very serious, academically rigorous people like Amy Wax.