Join the Party!

 

Today’s guest blogger is Brittany Kamai. Brittany is currently a Ph.D. student in physics at Vanderbilt University. Her research is on the Fermilab Holometer, an experiment designed to test whether a fundamental description of space-time has large scale measurable effects. She is a National Academy of Sciences Ford Fellow, a NSF Graduate Research Fellow, Fermi National Laboratory URA Scholar and Kavli Institute of Cosmological Physics, University of Chicago Visiting Graduate Student. Brittany got her B.Sc. degree at the University of Hawaii and her M.A. at Fisk University.

 

Let's re-think this -- the academic world is a giant party! At first glance, you may not see what I mean, but here is a way I have reframed the situation to make it less intimidating. What I reference here as "the party" is the scientific world itself. It's a strange new environment that doesn’t make sense. Party goers may appear unapproachable and may even be speaking a different language. The party itself may seem daunting and overwhelming. Forget all that!

 

Invite yourself to the party!
You need to invite yourself to the party. Yes, this is a nerve racking experience because you may feel out of place and awkward. The reality is that the party is where you need to be! You are an intelligent, interesting scientist who the host maybe hasn't met yet. You may have slipped under the radar, and the organizers aren't fully aware of what you can bring to the table. In most cases, it wasn't a personal slight towards you. They just weren't paying attention and missed giving you an invitation.

Women of Color in Academia: A Conference

The following post is from the January 2015 Issue of Status: A Report on Women in Astronomy. The author is Nancy D. Morrison, The University of Toledo, Department of Physics & Astronomy.

In the spring of 2012, the AAS was invited to contribute a supporting document, or “testimony,” in preparation for a conference, Seeking Solutions: Maximizing American Talent by Advancing Women of Color in Academia, which was organized by an ad hoc committee of the National Academies. We were asked: to provide statistics on the education and employment of women of color in astronomy; to describe the barriers and difficulties facing women of color in our profession; and to recommend policies for professional societies and funding agencies.

In response to the invitation, the AAS convened representatives of the CSWA and the CSMA to prepare a document. From the CSMA, the authors were Dara Norman, Jedidah Isler, and Hakeem Oluseyi, who were mainly responsible for the content. The CSWA authors — Caroline Simpson, Laura Trouille, and myself — played mainly a supporting/editorial role. Our document was posted on line before the conference, along with testimonies from 27 other scientific, engineering, and professional societies and federal agencies. It has also been reproduced in the CSMA’s Spectrum newsletter and most recently on the Women in Astronomy Blog. The conference was held on June 7–8, 2012, in Washington, DC.

Afterwards, I wondered about the outcome of the conference. The rewarding experience of working on the document whetted my appetite to learn more. Indeed a report has been published, including the 28 society testimonials and two commissioned research articles as well as a summary of the conference itself.  The report and the rich array of reference materials on the conference web site are a great starting point for learning about women of color in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). In this article, I’ll summarize the research reports that were commissioned in preparation for the conference and then the conference report itself.

Read the full article in Status: http://www.aas.org/cswa/status/Status2015_Jan_s.pdf

AASWOMEN Newsletter for March 27, 2015

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of March 27, 2015
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Elysse Voyer

This week's issues:

1. Diversity in Large Scientific Collaborations

2. Math and Verbal Performance of Men and Women Under Competition and Time Pressure

3. Connecting Physics Students to Career Opportunities

4. Google Doodle honors Emmy Noether

5. NSF Gearing Up to Boost Women in Science

6. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

8. Access to Past Issues

Diversity in Large Scientific Collaborations

Large scientific collaborations or teams are becoming more common in astronomy and present particular opportunities and challenges for diversity.  They have been the norm in some areas of physics, such as particle physics, for years and can be as large as 1000's of members.  Sizes in astronomy are more typically 100's, although larger teams are on the horizon.

The special attributes of a large collaboration that can affect diversity include election or appointment of collaborations leaders, organization of sub-teams, collaboration meetings with large numbers of attendees, papers with large numbers of authors, and presentations at conferences decided by committees.  In the context of the Committee for the Status of Women in Astronomy, I will concentrate here on issues for women.  I was motivated to write this piece by an excellent discussion of such diversity issues at a recent LIGO-Virgo collaboration meeting.

Even if the fraction of women in a collaboration is not much different from the fraction in astronomy / astrophysics in general, the representation in leadership positions is often lower.  This can be due to the female fraction being younger on average than the more senior members who are largely male.  Another factor can be the way the positions are chosen, either by election or appointment, that may favor previous leaders.  When unbalance exists, it ca be hard to change.

On the other hand, there is opportunity here and large collaborations can provide a means for advancement of women and other under-represented groups.  Since there are many members, there are also a good number of leadership positions.  These include the collaboration executives and leaders of the sub-teams.  If an effort is made to be conscientious in recruiting among the qualified women for top positions, they can be highly visible and provide motivation examples for young people.  A snow-ball effect an occur that produces a growing representation.  Particularly motivating is when the accomplishments of a successful woman are recognized by a leadership position.  Below are pictures of a few notable examples.

Math and Verbal Performance of Men and Women Under Competition and Time Pressure

The following post was reproduced (with permission) from the June 2014 Issue of Status: A Report on Women in Astronomy. The author is Nancy D. Morrison, The University of Toledo, Department of Physics & Astronomy.

Recently, we've heard a lot about the gender gap in wages: the full-time median salary for women is lower than that of men in almost all occupations, [1] and a gap persists in many occupations when age and skill level are controlled for. Explanations can be grouped broadly into three categories: bias, whether conscious or unconscious; entry of women into lower-wage occupations because of skills or preferences; and less competitiveness among women than among men.

There are many ways to slice the data. It is commonplace to say that workers in female-dominated occupations generally earn less than those in male-dominated ones. Women being less willing to negotiate is another point; [2] all are aspects of self-selection by women. Discrimination is still a factor. [1] Another recent finding [3] is that the salary gap is greatest in business and law, where per-hour pay for employees working longer hours is greatest, and thus reflects the culture and the structure of the occupation.

In science, we confront all these issues. In addition, the early stages of our careers are strongly affected by math-based tests such as the GRE, both the quantitative general test and the physics subject test, on which women tend to score lower than men. For example, on the quantitative general test in 2006-2007, the median score for women was more than 50 points lower than that for men, and the 75th percentile score was about 30 points lower. [4] This difference is enough to disqualify a significant number of women and minorities from graduate admission if a hard cutoff score of 700 is used, as it often is in elite programs. If we assume that women are just as good at math as men, then why the difference?

Interesting research on the performance of women and men on math-based tests has been carried out by Olga Shurchkov, Assistant Professor of Economics at Wellesley College. [5] In lab experiments, she assessed the performance of male and female students who were paid to solve verbal and math puzzles, in competitive and noncompetitive environments and with high and low time pressure. In her analysis, she took care to tease out various effects on the students' performance. She also carried out a labor market analysis to investigate whether her findings on time pressure and competition carry over into the workplace. Her paper provides background on the research area. The rest of this article discusses her methodology and findings, which bear on several aspects of the gender gap outlined above.

AASWOMEN Newsletter for March 20, 2015

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of March 20, 2015
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Elysse Voyer

This week's issues:

1. The Gender Breakdown of the Applicant Pool for Tenure-Track Faculty Positions at a Sample of North American Research Astronomy Programs

2. Why Did You Decide on a PhD in Astronomy and not Physics?

3. 10 Most Influential Female Scientists

4. Women-In-STEM Pioneer: You Can Always Tell An Ambitious Woman By The Shape Of Her Head

5. Attention Undergrads: Female Tech Program from JPMorgan Chase

6. APS/AIP Science and Technology Postdoctoral Policy Fellowship: Apply by April 5

7. Job Opportunities

8. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

10. Access to Past Issues

Why Did You Decide on a PhD in Astronomy and not Physics?

Data from the American Institute of Physics indicate that the fraction of PhDs awarded to women is twice
as high in astronomy as in physics. Similar disparities exist at other levels. Note the difference in scales!

When thinking about the participation of women in astronomy, one of the most intriguing questions is why the percentage of women at each level is much higher in astronomy than physics*. 

Some readers of this blog may feel that there are enormous differences between the culture of astronomy and the culture of physics, and these cultural differences lead to different rates of participation by women. But, from a distant and broad perspective, it would difficult to identify two academic disciplines that share more in common while still, in many cases, having separate departments: Most astronomers (at least those educated in the U.S.) completed an undergraduate degree in physics, or at least have completed many of the same courses as physics majors. The core methodology of the two disciplines are very similar. The requirements for admission to graduate school are nearly identical; for example, nearly all U.S. PhD programs in astronomy require the Physics GRE and advanced coursework in physics and math.

The Gender Breakdown of the Applicant Pool for Tenure-Track Faculty Positions at a Sample of North American Research Astronomy Programs

Figure 1: Left: Histogram of the number of searches versus F/(F +M) in the total sample (black) and for the searches at NRC ranked Astronomy programs (red). For the former, the mean and median of the distribution are ≃ 0.18±0.04 and 0.19, whereas for the latter they are ≃ 0.19±0.03 and 0.20. Right: F/(F + M) versus the total number of applicants.

Today's guest blogger is Todd Thompson. Todd is a professor in the Department of Astronomy at the Ohio State University. His research involves core-collapse supernovae, the birth of neutron stars, the origin of the heavy elements, gamma ray bursts, stellar and relativistic winds, and magnetars; the physics, structure, and feedback processes of starburst galaxies and active galactic nuclei; and few-body dynamics of stars and their compact objects.

 

Introduction

 

The demographics of the field of Astronomy is an active area of investigation.  Among many characteristics of the population, gender --- including gender balance, gender bias, and the gender-related component of the leaky pipeline --- have been the focus of recent work. 

 

The American Astronomical Society's Committee on the Status of Women (CSWA) published the results of a survey in 2013 that provides information on the fraction of women at each level in the astronomical workforce. For graduate students (at all levels) they report F/(F+M)=404/1155 = 0.350, while for postdoctoral researchers F/(F+M)=186/645 = 0.288, and for assistant professors F/(F+M)=57/193= 0.295. 

 

AASWOMEN Newsletter for March 13, 2015

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

Issue of March 13, 2015

eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Elysse Voyer

This week's issues:

1. The Normalcy Curve

2. LPSC Women in Planetary Science Networking Event 2015

3. L’Oréal USA For Women In Science Fellowship applications due

4. 27th Annual Planetary Science Summer School

5. Indecent advances

6. Want more diversity? Hire groups, not individuals

7. Is the Teaching Profession Not Pink Enough?

8. The problem with separate toys for girls and boys 

9. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

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The Normalcy Curve

Wanda Diaz Merced next to the Solar System Radio Explorer Kiosk, which allows users to learn about solar radio waves through hearing and touch. (Credit: William S. Leibman)

Today’s guest blogger is Wanda Diaz Merced. Wanda is a space scientist who lost her sight when she was a student studying physics at the University of Puerto Rico. Rather than give up the subject she loved, Wanda began to investigate techniques for analyzing astronomical signals using sound rather than visual information.

In the year 1999, an advisor told me to ponder changing careers. At the same time, noticing that I could no longer identify the location of obvious items in my house, a friend advised me to take control of my health, visit the rethynologist, and learn orientation and mobility. I could identify certain things while the sun was transiting my sky, but during the night I was completely blind. I kept the white cane hidden inside my backpack. When walking on campus during the night, I would close it quickly on arrival at the physics department. How would I do physics if I could not see the charts?

It is my personal belief that space scientists love to explore the unknown. It is really encouraging to witness them constantly polishing their intuition to explore signals and recognize patterns. They may even reach a point where those events are easily identified and interpreted. Their tasks are complex, necessitating a readiness to respond to items that may be ambiguous and of high uncertainty in presentation, as well as involving the presence or absence of background signals and visual noise. A constant mental effort and alertness to respond to infrequent changes in data display are essential to the completion of such tasks. As good explorers, they are always vigilant when performing their duties (Matthews Davies, Westerman & Stammers 2000; Washburn, Taglialatela, Rice & Smith 2004).

International's Women Day - Taking Stock

Not us, nor our daughters, nor our granddaughters, but perhaps our great, great granddaughters, 80 years from now, will come of age in a world with global gender equality, according to projections by the World Economic Forum. There's much to debate about those projections, but in tribute to International Women’s Day, I thought our readers might appreciate a compilation of country comparisons – where does your country stand today with respect to gender equity?

AASWOMEN Newsletter for March 06, 2015

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of March 06, 2015
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, & Elysse Voyer

This week's issues:

1. Let's Talk about Street Harassment

2. Update: AAS CSWA Survey of Workplace Climate

3. LGBT Physicists: The Interviews

4. NSF Report on Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in the Sciences

5. The Gender Breakdown of the Applicant Pool for Tenure-Track Faculty Positions

6. How a Space-Obsessed Schoolgirl Battled the Odds to Become a Top Scientist

7. Feminist Academics Take Note: Women are Not All White and Straight

8. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

10. Access to Past Issues

Let's Talk about Street Harassment

Trigger warning: The below includes explicit descriptions of street harassment and sexual assault.

The issue of street harassment has gotten a bunch of attention in the media lately.  According to stopstreetharassment.org:

Gender-based street harassment is unwanted comments, gestures, and actions forced on a stranger in a public place without their consent and is directed at them because of their actual or perceived sex, gender, gender expression, or sexual orientation. 

Street harassment is a problem in general, but is especially prevalent on college campuses (where many astronomers work), is especially scary at night and in isolated places (when and where astronomical observing happens), can affect how safe someone feels traveling alone to unfamiliar places (like conferences and observatories) or how late they feel comfortable staying at work.  Street harassment is something, that while might seem like a non-astronomy issue, actually can have real impact on the professional life of an astronomer because it affects one's ability to travel freely through the world without fear of violence or abuse.

Part of the problem with gender-based street harassment is that it rarely happens to women (or more generally people who are not masculine-presenting-cis-males) when they are accompanied by men. Therefore this is a phenomenon that many men (who are not harassing people themselves) never witness.

Update: AAS CSWA Survey of Workplace Climate

Update: The AAS CSWA Survey on Workplace Climate will be closing on March 15th (at midnight, EST).  We have received over 400 responses already and would like to thank everyone who has participated thus far.  For those who have not filled out the survey, please do so as soon as possible.  Also, for those who volunteered for the follow-up interview portion, Dr. Kate Clancy will be contacting you in the next month to arrange those interviews.  Preliminary results will be presented this summer.

For more information:

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA) is conducting a survey on Workplace Climate. The CSWA wants to learn if  members of the astronomical community encounter negative language, or experience verbal or physical altercations on the basis of gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, ability status, or race and ethnicity. The survey is designed to request information during the respondent's current position and previous position (if the respondent has changed positions within the last five years). This information is requested in order to understand if astronomers and planetary scientists encounter varying workplace climates at different stages of their career.

Please help us in our pursuit to better understand how workplace climate impacts the members of the astronomical community. Go to https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/CSWA_Workplace_Climate_Survey to complete a confidential survey. We appreciate your input and welcome participation from all members of the astronomical and planetary scientist community over the age of 18.