Becoming a parent can be an exhilarating experience for many researchers. However, it can also bring challenges, both on the professional and personal front, especially if one is in the early-career stage. In this article, Swarna and Madhumala discuss the "baby-penalty" and some strategies that early-career researchers can use to better prepare for this stage in their lives.

Interview of Shubha Tole from TIFR, Mumbai, on the social and subconscious biases in society against female scientists and some approaches to tackling these challenges.

The ability to pay for and retain good childcare was, in my opinion, the single most important factor in my being able to pursue my science without compromise.

At one point I thought of myself as a scientist who also happened to be a woman. At the end of four long-gestation projects that ran crazily overlapping with each other, two resulting in boys now aged 4 and 7, and the other two resulting in publications in Science and Nature Neuroscience, its very clear that I've traveled a road only “women scientists” get to navigate.