AASWOMEN Newsletter for January 08, 2016

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of January 08, 2016
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, Elysse Voyer, & Heather Flewelling

This week's issues:

1. Genetics, Race, and White Privilege

2. The Discovery Program Series: DAVINCI (PI: Lori Glaze, Managed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

3. Blue Waters Fellowship

4. Kavli Summer Program in Astrophysics

5. Astronomers Are Finally Doing Something About Sexual Harassment

6. There's a way to get girls to stick with science-and no, it's not more female role models

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

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1. Genetics, Race, and White Privilege

From: Jessica Kirkpatrick via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

[Stephanie Gogarten has a PhD in Astronomy but currently works as a staff scientist in the Department of Biostatistics at the University of Washington. She lives on an island near Seattle with her wife and three young children.]

I recently read the book Seeing White, recommended by John Johnson. As an astronomer turned statistical geneticist, I spend a fair amount of time at work thinking about genetic ancestry and how that relates to the social construct of race. As a person with some African-American heritage who looks white, I have also struggled with how to define my own race: other people see me as white, but how do I see myself?

Read more at

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2016/01/genetics-race-and-white-privilege.html

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2. The Discovery Program Series: DAVINCI (PI: Lori Glaze, Managed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

From: Christina Richey via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

[This post is part of a series discussing the recent NASA Discovery Program mission selections for further refinement. From the 27 proposals submitted in November of 2014, NASA has selected 5 missions for further refinement in the next year. This post, part V, will focus on the DAVINCI Mission (PI: Lori Glaze, Managed by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center).]

Mission Overview: DAVINCI

The Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging (DAVINCI) mission would send a probe on a journey down through Venus' atmosphere, winding up in the planet's roughest and most geologically complex terrain. The probe would explore the planet's atmosphere essentially from top to bottom, even the deep layers largely hidden from Earth-based instruments and orbiting spacecraft. DAVINCI would be the first U.S. probe to target Venus' atmosphere in nearly four decades.

Read more at

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2016/01/the-discovery-program-series-davinci-pi.html

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3. Blue Waters Fellowship

From: Steven Gordon [sgordon_at_osc.edu]

We are pleased to announce the opening of the application period for the Blue Waters Graduate Fellowship. The fellowship is designed to support PhD students who are engaged in a program of study and research that is directly relevant to the use of the Blue Waters supercomputer. Fellowship recipients will receive a stipend of $38,000 for the year-long fellowship and up to a $12,000 tuition allowance.

Fellowship applicants should be in the second or third year of their PhD program and engaged in research that can take advantage of the Blue Waters supercomputer. Applicants must be U.S. Citizens or landed immigrants. The application deadline is February 3, 2016.

More information about the fellowship can be found at:

https://bluewaters.ncsa.illinois.edu/fellowships

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4. Kavli Summer Program in Astrophysics

From: Pascale Garaud [pgaraud_at_soe.ucsc.edu]

THE KAVLI SUMMER PROGRAM IN ASTROPHYSICS

The Kavli Summer Program in Astrophysics runs for 6 weeks (nearly) every summer in alternance between various institutions world-wide and UC Santa Cruz. It hosts up to 15 established faculty, 15 post-doctoral researchers and 15 graduate students in addition to the local scientists.

The Kavli Summer Program in Astrophysics combines the concept of a long-term workshop with graduate student training through research projects. The six-week long program begins with a one-week workshop on the topic of the year, with morning introductory lectures by invited faculty and afternoon short contributed presentations. Informal discussions during lunch and designated sessions help design innovative research projects for the students.

In the five following weeks, the students are teamed with the senior participants and are expected to make significant progress on their selected project. During that time, the program hosts one seminar per day in the mornings, while the rest of the day is dedicated to research. The students are required to present their research project to all participants during the last two days of the program and are expected to publish the results, with their collaborators, either in the form of a refereed paper or a conference proceeding in the subsequent year.

EXOPLANETARY ATMOSPHERES, SANTA CRUZ, June 20th-July 29th 2016.

The 2016 program will be dedicated to the study of exoplanetary atmospheres, including observations and theory, and will be directed by Jonathan Fortney. The first week lectures will be given by Jacob Bean, David Catling and Kristen Menou.

We are currently taking applications from students, postdocs and faculty to attend the program. Student applications are due January 22nd, and faculty and postdoc applications are reviewed on a rolling basis. Students are provided with free accommodation and receive a small stipend for their participation.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, AND ONLINE APPLICATION FORMS, PLEASE SEE

http://kspa.ucsc.edu

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5. Astronomers Are Finally Doing Something About Sexual Harassment

From: Elysse Voyer [elysse.voyer_at_gmail.com]

by Sarah Scoles

"If it's unwanted, it's harassment," proclaim signs around the American Astronomical Society's (AAS) 227th conference, held this week in Kissimmee, Florida. The signs and a Tuesday town-hall meeting entitled "Harassment in the Astronomical Sciences" represent a response to a scandal that rocked the field this past fall.

In October, Buzzfeed revealed that famed planet-hunter Geoff Marcy had violated Title IX sexual-harassment policies at the University of California, Berkeley, with the accusations against him spanning nine years. Soon after the initial report, three women who had worked with him during his previous post at San Francisco State University came forward, suggesting that his serial harassment of junior female colleagues had gone on for decades. This all went down in public view, with much media attention, pushing the astronomy community to reckon publicly with the dangerous and depressing power plays that go on within its ranks.

This week's all-AAS town hall was the first since Marcygate. Hundreds of members attended the meeting, which was intended to address sexual harassment, with a view toward fixing the culture in astronomy, but also science more broadly, and society at large. It was an ambitious goal for a town hall, but astronomers like to dream big.

Read more at

http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/01/gender-discrimination-astronomy/422817

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6. There's a way to get girls to stick with science-and no, it's not more female role models

From: Elysse Voyer [elysse.voyer_at_gmail.com]

by Shannon Palus

I've been into science for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I star-gazed with my dad and hung out in the math class my mom taught at a local college. I told everyone that I was going to be a paleontologist, or an astronaut, or a physicist.

So I'm confused by campaigns that assume girls and women have to be lured into science with gender-specific appeals. The most recent to get under my skin was IBM's sexist "Hack a Hairdryer" campaign, with the implication that women will be drawn to solving problems if they involve beauty appliances. There's also GoldieBlox, a line of dolls and construction kits aimed at making engineering more appealing to young women, which recently ran an ad featuring girls dressed up as icons like Beyonce, Hillary Clinton and Misty Copeland (which, for the record, I've very much enjoyed watching). And then there's the European Commission's "Science: It's a Girl Thing!" initiative, which kicked off with a pink, cosmetic-filled ad, and currently offers a perky list of reasons "Why you'll LOVE science," complete with a heart emoticon.

Read more at

http://qz.com/585255/girls-dont-have-to-be-lured-into-science-science-has-to-stop-pushing-them-out

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7. 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

- Deputy Director for STScI, Baltimore, MD
https://rn11.ultipro.com/SPA1004/JobBoard/JobDetails.aspx?__ID=*E03798BACF741A26

- Postdoctoral Research Position in the Ice Spectroscopy Laboratory, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
http://www.lpi.usra.edu/planetary_news/2015/12/13/job-opportunity-experimental-planetary-sciences-eps

- Associate Professor in Physics Education Research, Drexel University
https://www.drexeljobs.com/applicants/jsp/shared/frameset/Frameset.jsp?time=1452222042031

- Faculty Fellow in Astrophysics, Colby College
http://www.colby.edu/administration_cs/humanresources/employment/ffastrophysics.cfm

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8. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

To submit an item to the AASWOMEN newsletter, including replies to topics, send email to aaswomen_at_aas.org

All material will be posted unless you tell us otherwise, including your email address.

When submitting a job posting for inclusion in the newsletter, please include a one-line description and a link to the full job posting.

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9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

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10. Access to Past Issues

http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

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