Graduate Women in Science (GWIS), also known as Sigma Delta Epsilon, is an organization for female graduate students in science, first established in 1921.
Membership is open to anyone, regardless of sex, who has at least a bachelor's degree in a scientific discipline. The organization is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization that works to assist women in science. It does so through offering grants, awards, and fellowships; holding annual conferences and sponsoring additional meetings and symposia; publishing the quarterly GWIS Bulletin; and promoting the participation and representation of women in science fairs.
GWIS was established in 1921 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. In keeping with the Greek system of naming chapters, the Cornell chapter became the "Alpha chapter" when the second ("Beta") chapter was added in 1922. The organization currently has 20 chapters throughout the United States and is headquartered in Avon, Massachusetts.
The GWIS National Meeting is held annually in June and is hosted by a local chapter.
Famous quotes containing the words graduate, women and/or science:
“Miss Caswell is an actress, a graduate of the Copacabana school of dramatic arts.”
—Joseph L. Mankiewicz (1909–1993)
“Feminism, like Boston, is a state of mind. It is the state of mind of women who realize that their whole position in the social order is antiquated, as a woman cooking over an open fire with heavy iron pots would know that her entire housekeeping was out of date.”
—Rheta Childe Dorr (1866–1948)
“After sitting in my chamber many days, reading the poets, I have been out early on a foggy morning and heard the cry of an owl in a neighboring wood as from a nature behind the common, unexplored by science or by literature.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)