About

Mary Frank Fox is the Dean's Distinguished Professor at the School of Public Policy at Georgia Tech. She also serves as the Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Women, Science & Technology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Her professional role involves leadership within the School of Public Policy and active engagement in research related to women, science, and technology, contributing to academic and policy discussions in these fields.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Political Science
• Psychology
• Social Science
• Computer Science
• Social psychology
• Economics
• Demographic economics
• Medicine
• Engineering
• Gender studies
• Biology
• Law
• Library science
• Mathematics
• Public relations

Selected publications

• Research Knowledge and its Transmission: Key Case of Women in Science and Engineering

  Innovative Higher Education · 2025-11-29

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract Research, knowledge, and publication are fundamental to science and scholarship. In this context, two important issues merit attention: 1) metrics that document the extent and growth of published knowledge in important research specialties; and 2) the transmission of knowledge to broader stakeholders. We address these, focusing on a key case: the research specialty of women in science and engineering. This specialty is theoretically important because it connects the hierarchical domain of science to those of gender and society. It also links to pressing issues of equity and access that bear on higher education. Ours is a multi-method approach. We analyze quantitative bibliometric data that profile the extent, growth, and impact of the specialty over time (publications from 1965 to 2010; citations through 2021). We connect this to an analysis of facilitators and barriers for broader transmission reported in interviews with representatives of eleven (11) leading agencies, foundations, national organizations and committees, and science media that had stakes in the research specialty during a critical period. The findings point to a strong and accelerating growth in publications and citations and show the intellectual span and concentration of the journals in which articles appear. Evidence is compelling that a large body of published knowledge has been available to those with stakes in the specialty. However, broader transmission faces challenges, including those of audiences, narrow focus, and limitations of an academic model of passive communication. Together, these findings are consequential in documenting strong metrics of published knowledge in the specialty, and combining and connecting these with interviews on features that contribute to, or hinder, transmission of this knowledge.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Analyzing the impact of gender on entrepreneurship and innovation: evidence from university graduates

  The Journal of Technology Transfer · 2024-08-05 · 8 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Publications about Women, Science, and Engineering: Use of Sex and Gender in Titles over a Forty-six-year Period

  Science Technology & Human Values · 2021-07-16 · 8 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  This article focuses on key features of the use of sex and gender in titles of articles about women, science, and engineering over an important forty-six-year period (1965–2010). The focus is theoretically and empirically consequential. Theoretically, the paper addresses science as a critical case that connects femininity/masculinity to social stratification; and the use of sex and gender as an enduring, analytical issue that reveals perspectives on hierarchies of femininity/masculinity. Empirically, this article identifies the emergence, development, and stabilization of published articles about women, science, and engineering that use sex and gender in their titles. The distinctive method involves search, retrieval, and review of 23,430 articles, using intercoder reliabilities for inclusion/exclusion. This results in a uniquely specified and comprehensive set of articles on our subject and the identification of titles with sex and gender. Findings point to (1) the growth of gender titles, (2) their increase in every field, (3) differing concentrations of sex and gender titles in journals, (4) a span of telling topic areas, and (5) higher citation rates of gender, compared to sex, titles. Broader implications appear in reasons for the growth of gender titles, meanings of topic areas that occur, insights into social inequalities and science policies, and emerging complexities of nonbinary categories of sex/gender.

  PublisherDOI

• Gender, Family and Caregiving Leave, and Advancement in Academic Science: Effects across the Life Course

  Sustainability · 2021 · 37 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Political Science
  • Sociology
  • Demographic economics

  Family and caregiving leave are increasingly important dimensions for careers in academic science, and for vital, sustainable institutional structures. These forms of leave are intended to support equity, and particularly gender equity. A key question is how the actual use of leave affects critical milestones of advancement for women—compared to men—in (1) time to tenure and (2) the odds of promotion to full professor. We address this question with descriptive statistics and event history analyses, based on responses to a survey of 3688 US faculty members in 4 scientific fields within a range of Carnegie institutional types. We find that leave that stops the tenure clock extends time to tenure for both men and women—the effect is gender neutral. Promotion to full professor is another matter. Being a woman has a strong negative effect on the likelihood of promotion to full professor, and women are especially disadvantaged in promotion when they used tenure leave years earlier. These findings have implications for a life-course perspective on gender and advancement in academic science, the roles of caretaking and leave, and the intended and unintended consequences of leave policies for equitable and sustainable university systems.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Being highly prolific in academic science: characteristics of individuals and their departments

  Higher Education · 2020 · 63 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Social Science
  • Political Science

  Abstract The prolific (exceptionally high producers of scholarly publications) are strategic to the study of academic science. The highly prolific have been drivers of research activity and impact and are a window into the stratification that exists. For these reasons, we address key characteristics associated with being highly prolific. Doing this, we take a social-organizational approach and use distinctive survey data on both social characteristics of scientists and features of their departments, reported by US faculty in computer science, engineering, and sciences within eight US research universities. The findings point to a telling constellation of hierarchical advantages: rank, collaborative span, and favorable work climate. Notably, once we take rank into account, gender is not associated with being prolific. These findings have implications for understandings of being prolific, systems of stratification, and practices and policies in higher education.

  PublisherDOI

• Gender, science, and academic rank: Key issues and approaches

  Quantitative Science Studies · 2020 · 46 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Sociology
  • Sociology
  • Psychology

  In the social study of science, gender is a critical research site because relations of gender are hierarchical and inequality is a central feature of science. The focus here is on a key dimension of gender and scientific careers: academic rank, particularly that of full professor. This article concentrates on quantitative and qualitative approaches that have occurred in two focal problem areas related to gender, science, and rank: collaboration patterns and evaluative practices. The approaches encompass analyses of large and small groups and comparative cases, with surveys, bibliometrics, experiments, and interviews. This breadth of approaches reflects a search for explanations of the pervasive and persistent relationships between gender and academic rank. The analyses presented here point to the complexities of gender disparities in collaboration. These appear in team compositions, divisions of labor and power dynamics, integration into departmental units, and international coauthorship. The analyses also reveal ways that limited clarity in evaluation bears on gender disparities. Continuing understandings of gender, science, and rank will result in multi level analyses: those at organizational levels along with those of individual scientists.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Transition from Dissertation Student to Publishing Scholar and Professional

  2019-06-21 · 4 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter focuses on the nature of, and the problems inherent in, that transition and offers, in conclusion, certain strategies for successful transition from doctoral to postdoctoral work and writing. The attrition in research productivity following completion of the doctoral dissertation is a potential loss for institutions, for departments, and for the scholars and professionals themselves. Clear writing demands patient intellectual search, relentless trial and error, and a high tolerance for frustration; so does clear thinking, and so does good scholarship. Even for the most productive researchers, scholarship is never a breezy endeavor; rather, it is an integral expression of life, reflecting as much joy or pain, defeat or victory, as does life itself. Writing and publishing allow scholars and scientists to transcend the confining and nonsupportive environments and institutions in which they are increasingly situated, and help reach beyond isolated circumstances to scholarly achievement and commendation.

  PublisherDOI

• The Process of Collaboration in Scholarly Research

  2019-06-21 · 11 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This chapter provides certain principles and strategies for the successful management of collaboration in scholarly research. It analyzes the intellectual, emotional, and structural factors involved in choice of a collaborative partner, and the ways in which the collaborative task and relationship can be handled and managed towards a successful outcome. The choice of a collaborative partner also involves the assessment of, and fit between, personal characteristics of both self and potential collaborator. Along with assessment of the priority placed upon work in general, partners must consider the extent of their commitments to projects other than the collaborative venture. Certain aspects of work pace and cycle are pertinent primarily for collaborative partners physically working together, while other aspects are pertinent for long-distance collaboration as well. In cross-sex collaborative relationships, the partners may tend to relate, and to assign tasks, not according to egalitarian collegial roles, but according to traditional expectations of the sex roles.

  PublisherDOI

• Scholarly Writing & Publishing

  2019-06-21 · 1 citations

  book1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Introduction

  2019-06-21

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding

  This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book addresses the issues, the problems, and the solutions involved in writing and publishing, and offers behavioral, attitudinal, and organizational strategies to promote and facilitate productivity in publication. It focuses on the nature of and problems inherent in that transition and offers strategies for successful passage from doctoral to postdoctoral work. The book argues that the pains of doctoral education, in addition to the disparities in the institutional settings, support systems, nature of the work, and type of writing required in the doctoral versus postdoctoral stages, deter the productivity of many Ph.D. holders. It discusses the importance of understanding both the overall book-publishing industry as well as the individual contractual clauses in the author-publisher agreement. The book offers sagacious reflections on writing style, structure, and subject and their relationship to the social organization of science and scholarship.

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• EAGER: The Transmission Zone Between the Producers and Consumers of Knowledge About Women in Science and Engineering

  NSF · $300k · 2010–2013

Frequent coauthors

• Catherine A. Faver

  The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

  15 shared

• Gerhard Sonnert

  Harvard University Press

  6 shared

• Carolina Cañibano

  5 shared

• Carol Colatrella

  4 shared

• Coleen Shannon

  3 shared

• Mary Lynn Realff

  Georgia Institute of Technology

  3 shared

• John M. Braxton

  Vanderbilt University

  3 shared

• F. Javier Otamendi

  Universidad Rey Juan Carlos

  3 shared

Labs

• Mary Frank Fox LabPI

Awards & honors

• Section Star from the Science, Knowledge, and Technology Sec…
• Gender Equity Award at Georgia Tech (2016)
• Ivan Allen College Distinguished Research Award (2017)
• Faculty of the Year Award of the Student Government Associat…
• Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sc…