Engineering’s Yildiz Bayazitoglu on balancing career in science, parenthood

Mothers know best
Engineering’s Yildiz Bayazitoglu on balancing career in science, parenthood

BY MIKE WILLIAMS
Rice News staff

Some of the greatest ideas in science may come from a woman’s perspective, and research institutions everywhere would be wise to keep the best and brightest on board.

	YILDIZ BAYAZITOGLU

Rice researcher Yildiz Bayazitoglu made that clear in the August Elsevier Editors’ Update. The article is published online by Elsevier, which also publishes the International Journal of Thermal Sciences, for which Bayazitoglu serves as editor-in-chief for the Americas. ”Children bring richness to their parents, which is then transferred through their work to the general benefit of science,” said the mother of three in the article by Michelle Pirotta titled ”Behind the Scenes … Women on the Board,” which focuses on Bayazitoglu’s appointment of four women to her journal’s editorial board.

Pirotta emphasized that, despite efforts to encourage women in science, some of the most prestigious jobs still seem to be a male preserve. ”For a start,” Bayazitoglu told her, ”education policies directed at attracting girls to science are relatively recent, and the first recipients of such encouragement are only now coming of age. As the time passes, this imbalance will diminish.”

Bayazitoglu, the Harry S. Cameron Chair in Mechanical Engineering, broke through the glass ceiling early in her career as the first woman to earn a doctorate in mechanical engineering from the University of Michigan. Her reputation as a scientist and professor is solid as well, with major contributions in the area of thermal sciences that led to her receiving the Heat Transfer Memorial Award — the first woman in the 45-year history of the division within the American Society of Mechanical Engineers to do so. She has also received numerous teaching awards at Rice. Currently, she is investigating the containerless processing of carbon nanotube-embedded materials, electromagnetic radiation heating of nanoparticles in biological systems and macro-scale thermal transport of nanoscale-altered surfaces, materials and fluids.

The Bayazitoglu family, from left: son Kent, Yildiz, Pollie, son Ozgur, Martin (on Ozgur’s lap), Esther, son Matt, husband Yildirim and Kaya (on Yildirim’s lap).

She feels strongly about the role women play in science and keeping them engaged in their careers even while taking time out to raise children.

”Here at Rice, we’re doing far more than any other institution I know of to help female faculty and researchers,” she said, noting the university’s generous policy on family leave and the Rice Children’s Campus nearing completion on Chaucer Drive. ”I feel good for incoming female faculty members for the help I know they’re going to get here.”

In 31 years, she has seen dramatic changes in Rice’s family-friendly policies. ”I am happy to be part of this wonderful institution and its transformation over the years,” she said. ”Things were different when I started. I managed to keep working, but I sharply cut my extracurricular activities.” Bayazitoglu’s three boys are all Rice graduates, as is her most recent daughter-in-law.

It still holds true, she said, that for a woman to curtail her research while on family leave puts her at a severe career disadvantage. ”Back then, if I had taken any time off, I wouldn’t have been able to return to academia and advance to where I am now,” she said, emphasizing the importance of having family leave, whether free or otherwise, available through the workplace.

She explained it best in the Elsevier piece. ”Women need to establish themselves on their own terms, playing to their own special strengths. Only in this way can we earn the respect and acceptance of our colleagues.”