Gender Systematics in the NRAO Proposal Review System

Abstract

Abstract Several recent investigations indicate the existence of gender-related systematic trends in the peer review of proposals for observations on astronomical facilities. This includes the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) where there is evidence of a gender imbalance in the rank of proposals with male principal investigators (PIs) favored over female PIs. Since semester 2017A (17A), the NRAO has taken the following steps: (1) inform science review panels (SRPs) and the telescope time allocation committee (TAC) about the gender imbalance; and (2) increase the female representation on SRPs and the TAC to reflect the community demographics. Here we analyze SRP normalized rank-ordered scores, or linear ranks, by PI gender for NRAO observing proposals from semesters 12A–21A. We use bootstrap resampling to generate modeled distributions and the Anderson–Darling (AD) test to evaluate the probability that the linear rank distributions for male and female PIs are drawn from the same parent sample. We find that between semesters 12A–17A that male PIs are favored over female PIs (AD p-value 0.0084), whereas between semesters 17B–21A female PIs are favored over male PIs, but at a lower significance (AD p-value 0.11). Therefore the gender imbalance is currently being ameliorated, but this imbalance may have been reversed. Regardless, we plan to adopt a dual-anonymous approach to proposal review to reduce the possibility of bias to occur.