This book is based on a conference held at Harvard University in November 1998. It is sponsored by grants from the Ford Foundation, the Sloan Foundation, and the Albert Gordon Foundation. The intent of the conference is to focus on women faculty in research universities, seeking to identify and disseminate innovative approaches to increasing faculty positions and opportunities for women there. Faculty positions in these institutions are essential to establishing productive scholarly careers, especially so in the natural sciences, but also in the social sciences and humanities. The contributors are considered quite stellar and are some of the most important leaders in their individual fields of study.