Issue of January 29, 2016
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, Elysse Voyer, & Heather Flewelling
This week's issues:
1. Guest Post from Hannah Wakeford: Writing My PhD Thesis
3. These STEM initiatives are inspiring women and girls around the globe
4. Meet the Scientist Who Just Broke a Major Barrier for Black Women
5. Lady Science
6. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
1. Guest Post from Hannah Wakeford: Writing My PhD Thesis
From: Christina Richey via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
[This guest post from Dr. Hannah Wakeford is a re-posting of her original blog piece, found at the Stellar Planet blog site...]
Over the years I have found that saying you are doing a PhD can be taken one of two ways by people; 'that sounds fancy you must be a genius or something' or simply 'why?'. The former are never trying to put you on a pedestal, and the later are not trying to get you on the defensive, but the dichotomy is sometimes difficult to deal with.
During the course of a PhD you are continuously finding out things that you, or anyone else, never knew before. That is the point, to present unique and new research at the end of it all. But this simultaneously puts you in the state of not knowing anything with impostor syndrome playing a big role in academia. No where does this become more evident to you than when you have to write it all up in your PhD thesis.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2016/01/guest-post-from-hannah-wakeford-writing.html
Back to top.2. Support Letter
From: Anna Watts [A.L.Watts_at_uva.nl]
More than 500 astronomers and physicists have signed an open letter expressing our support for Sarah Gossan and Io Kleiser, and our thanks to them for their bravery in reporting the harassment they experienced as grad students at Caltech. The full list of signatories can be found in the read-only Google doc linked below. If anyone else would like to co-sign, details of how to do this can be found at the end of the file.
"A career in astronomy is a joy and a privilege, and one that we firmly believe should be open to all. Harassment and bullying force talent out of our field, and as such have no place in it.
Too often, the onus of reporting harassment falls on junior scientists, and we rely on their courage and fortitude to bring it to light. When this happens the rest of the scientific community has a responsibility to stand up and support them, quickly, visibly and vocally. And, as a general principle, if harassment has to cause someone to leave a collaboration or institution, the person who leaves should be the perpetrator and not the victim.
We want to offer our unqualified support and thanks to Sarah Gossan and Io Kleiser for their bravery and determination in reporting the harassment they have experienced as graduate students at Caltech. Our field is a better place for having women of this calibre in its midst. They belong. Harassment does not."
https://docs.google.com/document/d/14c77S8HVshiEUXvuZD93vzw1Xg9TIMtxc5oZpaGB-wI/edit?usp=sharing
Back to top.3. These STEM initiatives are inspiring women and girls around the globe
From: Elysse Voyer [elysse.voyer_at_gmail.com]
by Stephanie Walden
Our society is inching toward a future when the phrase "you code like a girl" will be a compliment of the highest order.
But there are significant hurdles before we get there. The statistics behind women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) are still far from indicating an even playing field.
...
While this isn't nearly a comprehensive list, we've examined some impactful initiatives that are inspiring women to advance within STEM careers across the globe.
Read more at
http://mashable.com/2016/01/22/women-in-stem-global/#ARoWLdQx0ZqK
Back to top.4. Meet the Scientist Who Just Broke a Major Barrier for Black Women
From: Elysse Voyer [elysse.voyer_at_gmail.com]
by Esha Chhabra
There are 80 black female physicists in the U.S.-here's how one is succeeding.
Chemotherapy is notoriously hard on patients. It works by pumping powerful drugs into the body in hopes of killing the disease. To reduce the nasty side effects of cancer treatment, Hadiyah-Nicole Green, a 35-year-old physicist, wants to research using laser technology to kill cancer-and she just won $1.1 million to do it.
Green, an assistant professor at Tuskegee University, is the first woman to win the five-year grant geared toward nurturing black scientists from the Veterans Administration Research Scientist Training Program. She hopes to help change the perception of what black girls can aspire to.
Read more at
http://www.takepart.com/article/2016/01/22/inspiring-stem-scientist
Back to top.5. Lady Science
From: Elysse Voyer [elysse.voyer_at_gmail.com]
by Phil Plait
This may come as a shock to you, but science has something of an issue with sexism.
I've written about this many times, and you can probably find a few hundred thousand more words about it elsewhere. The problems run a broad spectrum of issues, including pay, hiring practices, treatment of women in the lab/field/academic setting, publishing, the "leaky pipeline," and more.
Worse, these issues have a long, entrenched, historical precedent. Even when we talk about them we run into problems, like highlighting exceptional women who break barriers, instead of all the women who came before them and paved the way.
That's why I'm happy that Lady Science exists. As they say on their page, they are:
'a multifaceted collaborative writing project focused on women in science, technology, and medicine. Our purpose is to highlight women's lives and contributions to scientific fields, to critique representations of women in history and popular culture, and to provide an accessible and inclusive platform for writing about women on the web.'
Read more at
Back to top.6. 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.
Please remember to replace "_at_" in the e-mail address above.
Back to top.7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
Join AAS Women List by email:
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Back to top.8. Access to Past Issues
http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to aaswlist+unsubscribe@aas.org.
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