Jeffrey Mervis reports in Science (vol. 310, Oct. 28, 2005), Asian Americans have a major presence in U.S. biomedical research laboratories, but few hold leadership positions. Virologist Kuan-Teh Jeang and others at the National Institute of Health surveyed the status of Asians that are dominated by scientists of Chinese, Korean, Indian, Pakistani, and Japanese at NIH. They found Asians comprise 21.5% of NIH's 280 tenure-truck investigators (the equivalent of assistant professors), 9.2% of the 950 senior investigators (tenured researchers), and only 4.7% of the roughly 200 lab or branch chiefs.
This summer, neuroscientists Yi Rao of Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois studied the leadership ranks of the two major professional societies, the Society for Neuroscience (SIN) and the American Society for Biology and Molecular Biology (ASBMB). Rao's findings indicate that none of the 26 ASBMB council members and of the 193 members of the 11 standing committees was Asian. Asians hold only two of nearly 300 sets on 18 committees and none of the 15 elected officer and councilor posts in SIN.