"Everything is on fire": The Uneven Impact of COVID-19 on Women Faculty

This work discusses the disparities for women and parents of young children in academia and describes an effective intervention to help mitigate systemic biases. The intervention was our ADVANCE program of Distributed Peer Mentoring Networks (called eAlliances), where groups of 4-5 women academics in physics and astronomy met virtually and regularly to provide advice and support. This work contributes three new aspects: (1) highlights the effect of COVID-19 on the workloads for men and women physics faculty by comparing data collected before and during the pandemic; (2) uses qualitative data analysis to provide insights on the detrimental and disproportionate impact of COVID-19; and (3) shows how eAlliances became a crucial support network for their members during the COVID-19 lockdowns. Our eAlliance program demonstrates a low-cost and high-reward intervention that is easily implementable to assist women and parent academics in STEM. Keywords: STEM women faculty; peer mentoring; COVID-19 impact