Women In Astronomy: AASWOMEN Newsletter for November 07, 2014

AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women

Issue of November 07, 2014
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Elysse Voyer

This week's issues:

1. No Women Physics Nobel Prizes in 50 Years

From: Neil Gehrels via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

The number of women who have received Nobel prizes in all fields is shockingly low, particularly in physics where the only two prizes ever awarded were Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert Mayer in 1963. There have been no physics Nobel prizes in 50 years! I recently read an interesting article on the statistics and possible reasons written by Matt Petronzio in US & World on-line.

Before discussing reasons, let's look at the facts. The figure below shows the number of women and men receiving the Nobel prize in the various categories between 1901 and 2014. The ratio of men to women is amazingly small, ranging from 1% in physics to 17% in peace. In physics, this can be compared to about 20% women receiving undergraduate and graduate degrees.

2. Top Five Tips for Men

From: Ed Bertschinger via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

There's so much to write about this week on the topic of gender equity, I hardly know where to start. I'll back up two weeks to when a well-known male supporter of women in science wrote me and several others on behalf of a male colleague in the UK who sought advice on how to improve the representation of women and minorities in physics departments. He was frustrated that his colleagues didn't understand the problem and were resistant to change, and wondered how some US departments had made real progress. This opened a fascinating small-group email discussion about what works and what doesn't work. Despite the important efforts to make academic culture change a science, it is still primarily an art, and the conversation arising in the network of practitioners feels to me like the gathering of Impressionist painters whose creativity was rejected by the Salon de Paris. We share tips and hone arguments in a creative online atelier before presenting our works in exhibitions. We need our own Salons for mutual support and exchange of ideas - Salons that explicitly welcome men to become full partners in advancing gender equity.

3. What Keeps Women Out of Elite Colleges? Their SAT Scores

From: Johanna Teske [jteske_at_carnegiescience.edu]

by Eric Hoover

We've all heard about the gender gap in higher education: Nationally, women enroll in college and complete degrees at higher rates than men do. But new research reveals that for decades women have been underrepresented at the nation's most-selective institutions. And the apparent culprits are standardized tests.

4. I'm a female engineer, and I love science. Stop calling me a geek.

From: Stella Offner [soffner_at_astro.umass.edu]

by Tricia Berry

[Tricia Berry is director of the Women in Engineering Program at The University of Texas at Austin. She was named one of the 100 Women Leaders in STEM by STEMconnector.]

The word "geek" has become ubiquitous in the discussion about education and diversity in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). CNN recently published a story headlined "5 reasons technology world needs more geek girls." The effort to get women and children more involved in STEM careers has led to the Geekbus traveling classroom and Geek Girl Dinners. The nerd image persists even in the working world: Best Buy has the Geek Squad in which agents, including women, wear a masculine and stereotypically geeky uniform of a white shirt and tie.

There's been a concerted effort in recent years to improve diversity in the growing and lucrative STEM careers. Today, young women receive just 18 percent of bachelor's degrees in computer sciences and 43 percent of degrees in mathematics and statistics. If we really want to include and engage girls in these fields, the geek language has to go.

5. Women Count

From: Dana Hurley [Dana.Hurley_at_jhuapl.edu]

A gender imbalance exists in science and is harmful to our community as a whole. Awareness is one of the best techniques to combat bias. Therefore, if you are not actively thinking about diversity, you can be contributing unwittingly to the problem. This article calls for making a conscience effort to consider diversity when assembling personnel for non-competed positions: Women Count, appearing in Eos, by Dana Hurley (JHU/APL).

Eos Site

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EO440008/abstract?campaign=w

Article PDF

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2014EO440008/pdf

6. The End of Science Sexism?

From: Elysse Voyer [elysse.voyer_at_gmail.com]

This week, the New York Times Sunday Review featured an article that has been making waves in the scientific community. Cornell Human Development professors Wendy Williams and Stephen Ceci wrote, "Academic Science Isn't Sexist", in which they discuss their study, "Women in Academic Science: A Changing Landscape", that will soon by published in the journal of Psychological Science. They write,

"Our country desperately needs more talented people in these fields; recruiting more women could address this issue. But the unwelcoming image of the sexist academy isn't helping. Fortunately, as we have found in a thorough analysis of recent data on women in the academic workplace, it isn't accurate, either."

The NYT piece has resulted in various articles rebutting the study, including "The End of Science Sexism?" by Jef Akst in The Scientist online,

"Not surprisingly, many in the scientific community don't agree with the authors conclusions. One criticism, voiced by the University of California, Davis's Jonathan Eisen on his The Tree of Life blog, is that "career progression" topics-like salary and promotion-are lumped in with workplace topics-such as hostility and physical aggression against women-and yet, the authors only discuss data relevant to the career progression-related issues. Evidence suggesting relative equality in this area, then, seems to have led to the assumption that "other workplace issues must not be a problem," Eisen wrote. "[That's] a dangerous and unsupported connection."

Read the Psychological Science article, "Women in Academic Science: A Changing Landscape", at

http://www.psychologicalscience.org/pdf/Women-Academic-Science.pdf?utm_source=nytimes&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=pspitimes

Read the New York Times article, "Academic Science Isn't Sexist", at

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/02/opinion/sunday/academic-science-isnt-sexist.html

Read the rebutal, "The End of Science Sexism?", at

http://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/41381/title/The-End-of-Science-Sexism-/

7. UVA Astrophysicist Named a Women in Science Fellow

From: Caroline Simpson [simpsoncai_at_gmail.com]

Univeristy of Virginia Press Release:

Sabrina Stierwalt, a University of Virginia post-doctoral astrophysicist, has been named a 2014 L'Oreal USA For Women in Science Fellow - one of five female scientists selected from a national pool of more than 650 applicants who have made outstanding contributions in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.

She is the only astronomer to be selected as a fellow during the program's 11-year history in the United States.

8. PC workplace boosts creativity in male-female teams

From: James Lloyd [jl554_at_cornell.edu]

Some interesting research at Cornell on the effect of political correctness - it seems contrary to the expectation that political correctness would be stifling, it's been shown to boost creativity of teams:

http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/2014/11/pc-workplace-boosts-creativity-male-female-teams

9. 2015 PhysTEC Conference Save the date!

From: WHIPHYS Posting for Oct. 28, 2014

The 2015 PhysTEC Conference, the nation's largest conference on physics teacher preparation, will be held at the Marriott Seattle Waterfront in Seattle, WA next February 5-7. The conference's theme is Building Thriving Programs and will feature a plenary talk by Ron Henderson of Middle Tennessee State University.

To learn more go to

http://www.phystec.org/conferences/2015

10. Job Opportunities

For those interested in increasing excellence and diversity in their organizations, a list of resources and advice is here: http://www.aas.org/cswa/diversity.html#howtoincrease

-NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) Program Anouncement: http://tinyurl.com/nfn9kck Application Page: http://tinyurl.com/phnbr2h

-Postdoctoral Fellow - Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP) https://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/apply/JPF00561

-Cosmology Data-Science Fellows - Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics (BCCP) https://aprecruit.berkeley.edu/apply/JPF00562

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Women In Astronomy

Friday, November 7, 2014

AASWOMEN Newsletter for November 07, 2014

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