University of Iowa President Mary Sue Coleman will be in Cyclone Country to speak about challenges yet to be met by women in science.

Coleman will speak Tuesday evening in the Sun Room of the Memorial Union at 8 p.m. Her speech is titled “Miles to Go Before We Sleep: The Unfinished Journey of Women in Science.”

Women in Science and Engineering (WISE), Molecular Biology, Margaret Sloss Women’s Center, the Office of the President and the Committee on Lectures are sponsoring the event.

Mary Ann Evans, director of WISE, said Coleman is an outstanding speaker.

“President Coleman is a wonderful example of a women scientist who has been successful in her field and who has been able to advance in science and then into a high-level administrative position,” Evans said.

In addition to her position as president of the U of I, Coleman is a professor of biological sciences in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and is a professor of biochemistry in the College of Medicine.

Her appointment to Iowa’s presidential post in December of 1995 was preceded by years of involvement in the scientific community.

She spent 19 years at the University of Kentucky at Lexington where she was a biochemistry faculty member and a Cancer Center Research administrator. She has researched the immune system and malignancies.

WISE Program Coordinator Krishna S. Athreya said she is looking forward to hearing Coleman.

“By highlighting successes and highlighting the experience of women role models, it can inspire younger women and help destroy some myths about the appropriateness of women participation in these areas,” she said.

Coleman graduated from Grinnell College with a degree in chemistry and earned her Ph.D. in biochemistry from the University of North Carolina.

Also speaking on campus this week will be Sheila E. Widnall, secretary of the Air Force and Helen W. Lane, NASA’s chief nutritionist. Widnall will speak on Friday at 8 p.m. in Room 220 of the Scheman Building. Lane will speak Friday at 2:10 p.m. in Room 129 of MacKay Hall and again at 3:10 p.m. in Room 1010 of LeBaron Hall.

The speakers coincide with March’s Women’s History Month activities.