Short title:Speaker selection and gender parity. Abstract (one sentence):We present a data-driven approach that uses established metrics of scientific quality to select invited speakers; this approach enables gender parity in conference programs while ensuring high scientific standards.Gender disparity in academia has been acknowledged for some time. In science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM), women represent approximately half of PhD graduates but only approximately a quarter of professors (1). Although calls for approaches to help achieve gender parity in STEM have been numerous, progress is slow.Recently, gender disparity in invited speaker presentations at scientific conferences has attracted much attention, with evidence of such disparity in STEM conference programs including (but not limited to) fields such as sport and exercise medicine (2), evolutionary biology (3), mathematics (4), ecology (5), and microbiology (6). In the field of neuroscience, BiasWatchNeuro has published gender data of speakers to increase accountability for gender disparity in conference programs; data extracted from BiasWatchNeuro (on 12/20/18) indicated that only 27% of invited speakers across ~400 neuroscience conferences (between 2014-2018) were women (7). Although some neuroscience conferences are attaining, or exceeding, parity in invited speakers, more than 80% of conferences have fewer than 50% women in their invited speaker programs (7). Given that such opportunities are critical for career development, approaches to achieve gender parity in conference programs while maintaining the high scientific standards expected in conferences programs are needed.