Read the full story in Science.
“While I recognise that she thinks she had a major contribution to the project it will be difficult to show that she did more than a technician’s job.” This was the infuriating response I received in a long email thread with former colleagues about work I had done as an undergraduate researcher. During my 7-month internship, my colleagues in the lab told me I would be an author when they wrote up the work. A few months ago, I was shocked to learn that the resulting paper had already been accepted for publication—and that my contribution had been relegated to the acknowledgments section. This was my wake-up call about the need to speak up for myself regarding authorship, and to speak out against the unfair convention of diminishing the contributions of undergrads and technicians to scientific research.
