Gratitude and Giving for the Holidays

A message to our readers from members of the CSWA and editors of AASWomen: As we enter the holiday season in the United States and other parts of the world, we wish everyone health and happiness.

In a tradition going back almost 10 years (and maybe longer), Women in Astronomy is providing a gift-giving guide to help you with your holiday shopping. Links and ideas are listed below and feel free to tell us about your favorite gifts in the Comments section.

STARtorialist continues to provide a universe of Astro-fashion! STARtorialist is a women-owned small business founded by professional astronomers to curate space- and science-themed products, support independent designers, and contribute to STEM education and outreach. New (to me) this year? JWST-themed drinking glasses (and more!), JWST-themed clothing, and Artemis items.

Image Credit: Dreamtime

Space.com recently posted its 2023 list of best telescopes. Check out the guide from Sky & Telescope first, though, so the telescope doesn't end up as a doorstop. 

Sky & Telescope magazine offers annual print and digital subscriptions and a variety of  maps and globes in its shop. Speaking of maps and globes, check out Mova's light-powered rotating globes! The lucky recipient will think them out of this world!

For the youngsters (and those young at heart), A Mightly Girl, which boasts "the world's largest collection of books, toys and movies for smart, confident, and courageous girls", continues to have a wide selection of science toys and kits, free (yes, FREE!) posters celebrating women role models and mighty women in STEM, and children's book about girls and women in science. Crazed about Barbie? Mattel's Career Dolls series includes scientists, pilots, and doctors.

Penguin Random House publishers has a list of "Stellar Books That Take Place in Space"; space.com published its best books for 2023; and Goodreads has a list of popular space books. Are your favorite books on any of these lists? If not, add the title and author in the Comments section.

Perhaps you know someone who just needs to get away. Maybe that someone is you. Check out some locations that support astrotourism. Going Cosmic, "a one-stop global forum for all aspects of astrotourism... that provide[s] a range of unique features to help celebrate our world and others", has a list of unusual holiday ideas to add stargazing to your travel plans.

Image Credit: mamacheaps.com

Or maybe staying in is the holiday gift. Marie Claire published a list of the 44 best space movies of all time. Buy some space candy, make some galaxy popcorn, and settle in!

BTW, the Van Cleef and Arpels astronomical watch (with accurate orbits of the planets around the Sun), which we mentioned in our 2016 Holiday Gift Guide, is still available. Just sayin'.

Need more ideas? Check out GeekWrapped's best space & astronomy gifts, and NASA's on-line Space Shop lets you shop, well, for space things. Finally, an extensive list with other ideas was posted in our 2014 Holiday Gift-giving Guide, so check that out, too!

AASWomen Newsletter for November 17, 2023

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of November 17, 2023
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Sethanne Howard, and Hannah Jang-Condell

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. --eds.]

This week's issues:

1. FAMOUS Travel Grant applications due November 20
2. A Family Affair
3. 1400 degrees
4. Profiles of Australian women and non-binary people in STEM
5. We achieved gender parity in astronomy in just five years
6. Smith College Earns Award from Physics & Astronomy SEA Change Program
7. Virginia Louise Trimble Awarded 2024 Abraham Pais Prize for History of Physics
8. Job Opportunities
9. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
11. Access to Past Issues

An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.

A Family Affair

By Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, and Sethanne Howard

It’s not atypical for children to follow in the footsteps of their parents or for siblings to have similar career paths. During our research for various other blog posts, the editors of AASWomen were surprised to see so many family connections in the field of Astronomy and extending to planetary science and physics. We shouldn’t have been – the mother-daughter planet hunters Natalie and Natasha Batalha have already caught the attention of various news outlets. We tweeted a request for more family connections in these fields and were inundated with examples, which we list here in roughly chronological history. Do you know of more? If so, add them to the Comments section.

The earliest example of a female science lineage may be the mother-daughter-granddaughter line of women who lived c. 2334 BCE. According to some reports, Enheduanna (mother) was a princess, priestess, astronomer, and the world’s first known author. She lived in Ur in ancient Sumer. Two thousand years later in Alexandria, Egypt, the philosopher/astronomer Hypatia (~370-416CE) worked with her father, Theon. She taught philosophy at the Great Library in Alexandria, produced commentary on the works of her father, and also wrote her own book on astronomy. Hypatia invented the device for measuring the specific gravity of a liquid.

The Herschel Siblings, 1896
(Credit: Album/Wellcome Images)

Fast-forwarding several hundred years, we have the Herschels, perhaps the most well-documented family to share a passion for astronomy. Caroline (1750-1848) steadfastly assisted her brother William (1738-1822) while he painstakingly mapped the night sky. William discovered the planet Uranus. Caroline wrote down coordinates and other observations for William bringing necessary structure to his observations. Caroline became recognized for discovering several comets, and eventually she was awarded a gold medal for her lifetime of work. She was hired by the British government to finish William’s work and thus became the first ‘civil servant’ who was a woman. William’s son, John Herschel, was also an astronomer. He continued the star cataloging done by the Herschels and introduced the concept of studying individual stars for their properties.

In the pre-telescope era, Tycho and Sophie Brahe (brother and sister) made their own contributions to the advancement of science. Many of us are familiar with the observations of Tycho (1548-1601), which allowed Johannes Kepler (astronomer) to develop the laws of orbital motion. Sophie, a physician, helped Tycho with his observations.

Maria Magaretha Kirch (1670-1720) was the spouse of Gottfried Kirch (1639-1710).  He founded the Berlin Observatory in 1700 and was the first member in the Prussian academy (Leibniz was the second). Margaretha was an accomplished astronomer and a recipient of the gold medal of the Prussian Royal Academy for discovering a comet. Of her 14 children her daughters, Christine (1696-1782) and Magharetha (1703-1744), and her son, Christfried (1694-1740), were all astronomers and continued the work of their parents. After Christfried’s death, Christine even came on the payroll of the academy (a novum at that time) with a considerable salary. 

In more contemporary times, we have a slew of relatives who work or worked together in the same field or parents who (intentionally or not) influenced their children to pursue careers in science:

Mother/daughter or son

• Paris Pişmiş (1911-1999) and daughter Elsa Recillas are both astronomers. Her son, Sevín Recillas Pishmish, became a mathematician. Recillas married astronomer Carlos Cruz-González, and their daughter Irene Cruz-González also became an astronomer.
• Carol J.A. Rieke (1908-1999) and son George Rieke.
• mother Vera Rubin (1928-2016) and daughter Judy Young (1952-2014) were both astronomers. Son Karl Rubin (1956- ) is a mathematician.   
• mother Yolanda Gómez (1962-2012) and son Vicente Rodriguez-Gomez are both astronomers.
• Ulyana Safronova is a physicist who does work in laboratory astrophysics; she has at least two daughters also doing physics: Alla and Marianna
• Silvia Torres Peimbert served as President of the International Astronomical Union. Her husband, Manuel Peimbert, and son Antonio Peimbert, are both astronomers.
  
  

L to R: Pişmiş (Credit: BAAS), Recillas Pishmish (Credit: CONAHCYT), Cruz-González (Credit: UNAM)

Father/daughter or son

• Georg Christoph Eimmart was an avid amateur astronomer (1638-1705), and his daughter Maria Calara Eimmart (1676–1707) produced some of the most striking astronomical art since the invention of the telescope
• Norman Pogson (1821-1891) discovered several minor planets and made observations on comets and daughter Isis Pogson (1852-1945), who was one of the first women to be elected as a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Vernon Barger (Physics) and Amy Barger (astronomy)
• Jeff Hester and Janice Hester 
• Jerry Ostriker and Eve Ostriker
• Dan Gesari and Suvi Gezari
• Ralph Wijers and daughter Nastasha Wijers 
• Sean Matt and Cayenne Matt
  
  

Siblings

• sister Joan Feynman (1927-2020) and brother Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
• Emily Hardegree-Ullman and Kevin and Michael all work in the field of astronomy
• Leslie Young and Eliot Young
• sisters Else Starkenburg and Tjitske Starkenburg
• twin sisters Angela & Maren Hempel

Else Starkenburg (Credit: University of Gronigen) and Tjitske Starkenburg (Credit: Northwestern)

Other relationships

• Jan Smit, a geologist/paleontologist who studies the impact that killed the dinosaurs, and Wildrik Botjes (1810-1874), from an earlier generation in the family, who invented the planetarium
• E.E. Bernard (1857-1923) and his niece Mary Ross Calvert (1884– 1974)
• daughter Hamsa Padmanabhan, mother Vasanthi Padmanabhan, and father Thanu Padmanabhan are/were astrophysicists
• the Allers, with three generations of astronomers, including grandfather Lawrence H. Aller and granddaughter Monique Aller
• The Carters (father, daughter, grandson), three generations who worked in the fields of geodesy and astronomy.
• Elizabeth Lada and Charles Lada 

We thank the following for their contributions: Randall Smith, Maria Calara Eimmart, Tod Lauer, Renske Smit, Keren Sharon, Matthias Steinmetz, and Benjamin Lefebvre. If any corrections need to be made, please let us know.

[Ed. note: Completely serendipitously, Nature published an article titled "A family affair: how scientist parents’ career paths can influence children’s choices".]

AASWomen Newsletter for November 10, 2023

Eunice Newton Foote, item 7.
Credit: Paula Mangin.

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of November 10, 2023
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Sethanne Howard, and Hannah Jang-Condell

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. --eds.]

This week's issues:

1. Physics and Astronomy SEA Change Updates
2. AAS Education Committee Announces Eight Winners of 2024 EPD Mini-Grants
3. Become an ambassador for Women and Girls in Science and Technology!
4. ‘We need more women,’ says only female winner of Millennium Technology prize
5. Lisa M. P. Munoz on the Gender Gap in Science
6. Black women teaching science find formula for incorporating anti-racist practices, study finds
7. The Woman Who Demonstrated the Greenhouse Effect
8. Rewarding women more like men could reduce wage gap
9. The European Space Agency may have a bullying problem
10. NASA FINESST Graduate Student Research Proposals
11. Job Opportunities
12. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
13. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
14. Access to Past Issues

An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.

Physics and Astronomy SEA Change Updates

By Alexis Knaub

Physics and Astronomy (P/A) SEA Change has been up to quite a bit since our initial AAS CSWA blog article and the cross-post from the SPS Radiations magazine. If you don’t remember, SEA = STEMM (two Ms- one is for “medicine”) Equity Achievement (SEA). 

The broader SEA Change goal is to support continual, data-informed systemic change regarding equity, diversity, and inclusion (EDI) in postsecondary STEMM education acad The SEA Change process entails undergoing a comprehensive self-assessment for populations (i.e., students, faculty, staff) and disaggregating the data (when possible) especially for race, gender, and intersections of these identities, among other demographics. Topics include policies, procedures, recruiting strategies, culture, climate, and outcomes. Both qualitative and quantitative data are used to understand the context. After looking at the data and considering what is possible in one’s given context, a 5-year action plan is created. The action plan needs metrics to ensure specified actions are indeed improving some aspect of equity, diversity, and inclusion. The action plan, along with a narrative that describes what was learned, is reviewed. If awarded with a Bronze Award, the action plan is implemented. At the end of 5 years, the department can reapply for the award.

You may be familiar with the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Institutional SEA Change. P/A SEA Change works in partnership with AAAS (and in collaboration with AAS) and has launched the first disciplinary award pilot.

Shirley Malcom (AAAS) and
Alexis Knaub (P/A SEA Change)
at the AAAS SEA Change
meeting in October

Milestones and developments

The SEA Change process, for institutions and disciplines, is not prescriptive. There are not any specific actions to take, metrics to meet, etc. Context matters, and what is possible for one place may not be for another due to resources available. The intent is to examine where one is and make it better for those who are marginalized.

With this goal in mind, we have been working with two different cohorts to ensure this process is indeed viable and useful. Our first pilot cohort, consisting of 5 departments, began on 3 May 2021. Our second pilot cohort, consisting of 6 departments, began in winter/spring 2022. These departments vary in size, institution type, location, etc. There is one astronomy-only department participating in the pilot. The departments are working through the self-assessment and working on action plans. Despite the multiple challenges departments are facing within their institutions (e.g., leadership changes, enrollment declines) and in the broader context (e.g., Covid-19 pandemic, legal challenges to doing EDI work), the departments are persisting.

The P/A SEA Change Committee, with a lot of support from Shirley Malcom (Director of AAAS SEA Change) and Beth Ruedi (Associate Program Director of AAAS SEA Change), has been working to design the processes for application review and supporting departments in implementing their action plans once they receive a Bronze Award. We have learned a lot from AAAS SEA Change, but there are differences between institutional and departmental/disciplinary level endeavors. We want to ensure that the program is fair and does indeed support departments in making meaningful changes to be equitable and inclusive.

Community resources

P/A SEA Change offers webinars featuring promising practices one might implement in their department or classroom. These are free to anyone who registers; they are also on the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) YouTube channel playlist. For upcoming webinars and other info, we have a monthly mailing list that is free to sign-up for. There is also the AAAS SEA Change Port of Call, a message board for discussion and information sharing, which is free to use for most parts; we have our own section in the Port of Call.

Our first Bronze application!

We received our first Bronze application towards the end of May 2023. We anticipate more applications soon, given that the departments in the pilot cohorts are still working on this endeavor.

P/A SEA Change’s Future

We are exiting the pilot phase as I write. In September, AAAS SEA Change received an NSF Creativity Extension, and P/A SEA Change was included as a subawardee. As a a result, I was named the Director of P/A SEA Change and more importantly…

Seeking departments for cohort 3!

… We are recruiting for cohort 3. Interested postsecondary physics or astronomy departments should fill out this form by 22 November 2023. 

If you have questions, please email me at aknaub_at_aapt.org (replacing _at_ with @).

P/A SEA Change has been generously funded by the AIP Venture Partnership Fund. 

AASWomen Newsletter for November 3, 2023

African Astronomical Society

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of November 3, 2023
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Sethanne Howard, and Hannah Jang-Condell

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. --eds.]

This week's issues:

1. Crosspost: How 3 women scientists have overcome gender bias and stereotypes in astronomy, genetics, and mathematics
2. Dr. Jennifer Lotz Appointed Space Telescope Science Institute Director
3. NASA astrophysics research and analysis
4. AAS 243 Child/Dependent Care Grants
5. Exoplanet Exploration Program Analysis Group
6. BRITE Girls Online STEM Practices
7. Two astronauts conduct fourth ever all female space walk
8. The African Network of Women in Astronomy
9. Asteroid Institute Annual Report 2023
10. NASA’s Sandra Irish Wins 2023 Society of Women Engineers Award
11. Proposal Deadline for IAU scientific meetings in 2025
12. Job Opportunities
13. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
14. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
15. Access to Past Issues

An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.

Crosspost: How 3 women scientists have overcome gender bias and stereotypes in astronomy, genetics and mathematics

By Fairoza Mansor, for the South China Morning Post

Planetary astronomer Jane Luu, geneticist Huda Zoghbi and 

mathematician Hélène Esnault show they can excel in fields dominated by men

Image Credit: Shutterstock

The presence of women in science should be normalised today, but research shows there is still some catching up to do. According to the Unesco Institute of Statistics’ data, focused on women working in science, fewer than 30 per cent of the world’s research scientists are women.

The trio reveal how they have established successful careers in their chosen areas of expertise, despite challenges that come from being women working in fields dominated by men.

Read more at

https://www.scmp.com/native/lifestyle/topics/people-who-change-world/article/3238503/women-scientists-overcome-gender-bias