Ten simple rules for women principal investigators during a pandemic

About the Authors: Pamela K. Kreeger * E-mail: kreeger@wisc.edu Affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8193-1007 Amy Brock Affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas, United States of America ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8255-9024 Holly C. Gibbs Affiliation: Microscopy and Imaging Center, Texas A&M University, College Station, Texas, United States of America K. Jane Grande-Allen Affiliation: Department of Bioengineering, Rice University, Houston, Texas, United States of America Alice H. Huang Affiliation: Department of Orthopaedics, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, United States of America ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5037-6829 Kristyn S. Masters Affiliation: Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, United States of America ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6911-3116 Padmini Rangamani Affiliation: Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of California San Diego, San Diego, California, United States of America ORCID logo https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5953-4347 Michaela R. Reagan Affiliation: Center for Molecular Medicine, Maine Medical Center Research Institute, Scarborough, Maine, United States of America Shannon L. Servoss Affiliation: Ralph E. Martin Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas, United States of America Introduction In the spring of 2020, nearly all academic institutions went to some level of shutdown/quarantine in order to slow the spread of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the virus that causes Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Consistent with this, some of the authors experienced or observed messaging from department chairs, center leaders, or mentors telling principal investigators (PIs) that the pandemic situation has likely created “extra time” for them to focus on writing grants and developing new ideas. Discussions of these data have focused primarily on the fact that women do a disproportionate amount of house and childcare [5–7], and options used to provide support for this unpaid work have essentially evaporated (e.g., limiting outside workers into the home for cleaning, day cares not accessible to children of nonessential workers, and school and summer camp