Citation: Kreeger PK, Brock A, Gibbs HC, Grande-Allen KJ, Huang AH, Masters KS, et al. (2020) Ten simple rules for women principal investigators during a pandemic. PLoS Comput Biol 16(10): e1008370. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008370

"While we recognize that the impacts of COVID-19 are particularly acute for women with significant childcare/eldercare duties, we note that women PIs in academia carry disproportionately higher teaching and service loads [9–11]. These roles have been repeatedly emphasized by university leadership as essential in supporting students through the pandemic. For example, the shift to online teaching requires faculty to develop new teaching methods and provide additional support to students facing challenges with remote learning. Increases in service work have been noted by authors who serve in general advisory roles to undergraduate/graduate students (e.g., program directors). Additional work has been required from various research committees (e.g., biosafety and human subjects research) to support a safe return to research. While undoubtedly true that this work is essential, there has not been recognition that this requires more time from PIs and further disadvantages women from maintaining their research activity on par with male colleagues. Through a series of online discussions over the past few months, the authors have tried to identify “10 Simple Rules” to help women PIs navigate the pandemic. We recognize that these rules will not adequately address the additional challenges affecting women who also may suffer impacts due to other aspects of their identity (e.g., Black, Latina, and Indigenous women or LGBTQIA individuals)."