  We study the influence that research environments have in shaping careers of
early-career faculty in terms of their research portfolio. We find that
departments exert an attractive force over early-career newcomer faculty, who
after their incorporation increase their within-department collaborations, and
work on topics closer to those of incumbent faculty. However, these
collaborations are not gender blind: Newcomers collaborate less than expected
with female senior incumbents. The analysis of departments grouped by fraction
of female incumbents reveals that female newcomers in departments with above
the median fractions of female incumbents tend to select research topics
farther from their department than female newcomers in the remaining
departments -- a difference we do not observe for male newcomers. Our results
suggest a relationship between the collaboration deficit with female incumbents
and the selection of research topics of female early-faculty, thus highlighting
the importance of studying research environments to fully understand gender
differences in academia.
