AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of August 19, 2016
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Elysse Voyer, Heather Flewelling, Cristina Thomas, and Maria Patterson
This week's issues:
1. Meet Your CSWA: Jessica Mink
2. Katherine Johnson to Receive the ASP's New Arthur B.C. Walker II Award
3. A Step Toward Equal Pay for Men and Women
4. Women's and Men's Career Choices in Astronomy and Astrophysics
5. The Movie About NASA's Black Female Scientists That's Been A Long Time Coming
6. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter
8. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter
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1. Meet Your CSWA: Jessica Mink
From: Christina Richey via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
In our newest series on the Women in Astronomy blog, we'd like to introduce our readers to the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy.
Jessica Mink has been a positional astronomer and developer of astronomical tools, data pipelines, and archives at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for over 30 years, working with data from ground-based (and one space-based) telescopes. Between her MIT BS and MS degrees and this job, she was involved in solar system optical spectroscopy, high-speed occultation photometry, and the geometrical astronomy and catalog development needed to predict the occulations she observed with her colleagues. Her life story is complicated by the fact that she has undergone some major changes that headed her toward the AAS CSWA and CSGMA.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2016/08/meet-your-cswa-jessica-mink.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Katherine Johnson to Receive the ASP's New Arthur B.C. Walker II Award
From: Rick Fienberg [rick.fienberg_at_aas.org]
"Katherine Johnson, renowned NASA mathematician who calculated and verified the trajectories that took the first Americans into space and to the Moon, will be the inaugural recipient of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s Arthur B.C. Walker II Award."
Read more at
https://www.astrosociety.org/society-news/katherine-johnson-to-receive-the-asps-new-arthur-b-c-walker-ii-award/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. A Step Toward Equal Pay for Men and Women
From: Meg Urry [meg.urry_at_yale.edu]
"Imagine a job application that asks an applicant to disclose how much she currently makes. If the salary turns out to be significantly less than what the company was prepared to offer, an employer might try to get away with paying a lower wage. That could put the applicant at a disadvantage and lead to a lower salary offer."
Read more at
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/gender-wage-gap-massachusetts/494045/
http://www.mass.gov/governor/press-office/press-releases/fy2017/governor-baker-signs-bipartisan-pay-equity-legislation.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/business/dealbook/wage-gap-massachusetts-law-salary-history.html?_r=0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Women's and men's career choices in astronomy and astrophysics
From: Thomas Basbøll [tb.lib_at_cbs.dk]
"Abstract: The Longitudinal Study of Astronomy Graduate Students (LSAGS) arose from the 2003 Women in Astronomy Conference, where it was noted that a majority of young members of the American Astronomical Society were women. The astronomy community wishes to make every effort to retain young women in astronomy, so they commissioned a longitudinal study to be conducted that would pinpoint the factors that contribute to retention in general, with a focus on differences between women and men. The LSAGS follows a cohort of people who were graduate students in astronomy or astrophysics during 2006–07. The first survey was conducted during 2007–08 and the second during 2012–13. The analysis presented in this paper used a subset of the respondents, all of whom had Ph.D.s in astronomy, astrophysics, or a related field at the time of the second survey. We tested the effects of four major concepts on two measures of attrition from physics and astronomy. These concepts included the imposter syndrome, mentoring and advising during graduate school, the “two-body problem” that occurs when a couple needs to find two jobs in the same geographic area, and the sex of the respondent. While the imposter syndrome and mentoring affected the likelihood of respondents’ thinking about leaving the field, they did not directly contribute to actually working in a field that was not physics or astronomy. Relationship with graduate advisors and the two-body problem both had significant effects on working in physics or astronomy, as did completing a postdoc. The sex of the respondent had no direct effect on our measures of attrition, but indirectly affected attrition because women were less likely to report positive relationships with graduate advisors and more likely to report two-body problems. This research identifies specific areas of concern that can be addressed by the scientific community to increase the retention of all people, but especially women, in astronomy and astrophysics."
Read more at
http://journals.aps.org/prper/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.12.020109
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. The Movie About NASA's Black Female Scientists That's Been A Long Time Coming
From: Cristina Thomas [cthomas_at_psi.edu]
"The highlights of the space race still loom large in the American imagination. John Glenn, the first man to orbit the earth, and Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, are both household names. But behind those celebrated men were legions of scientists and engineers, among them scores of brilliant women of all backgrounds, whose brainpower made it all possible. Those women, for the most part, have been forgotten — until now.
The trailer for Hidden Figures, an upcoming movie focusing on three black female mathematicians working at the NASA during the days of Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, attacks this erasure head on."
Read more at
https://thinkprogress.org/hidden-figures-long-time-coming-db9ed029d5bb#.urr7k9xqx
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
Join AAS Women List by email:
Send email to aaswlist+subscribe_at_aas.org from the address you want to have subscribed. You can leave the subject and message blank if you like.
Be sure to follow the instructions in the confirmation email. (Just reply back to the email list)
To unsubscribe by email:
Send email to aawlist+unsubscribe_at_aas.org from the address you want to have UNsubscribed. You can leave the subject and message blank if you like.
To join or leave AASWomen via web, or change your membership settings:
https://groups.google.com/a/aas.org/group/aaswlist
You will have to create a Google Account if you do not already have one, using https://accounts.google.com/newaccount?hl=en
Google Groups Subscribe Help:
http://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46606
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Access to Past Issues
http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
Issue of August 19, 2016
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Elysse Voyer, Heather Flewelling, Cristina Thomas, and Maria Patterson
This week's issues:
1. Meet Your CSWA: Jessica Mink
2. Katherine Johnson to Receive the ASP's New Arthur B.C. Walker II Award
3. A Step Toward Equal Pay for Men and Women
4. Women's and Men's Career Choices in Astronomy and Astrophysics
5. The Movie About NASA's Black Female Scientists That's Been A Long Time Coming
6. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter
8. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Meet Your CSWA: Jessica Mink
From: Christina Richey via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
In our newest series on the Women in Astronomy blog, we'd like to introduce our readers to the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy.
Jessica Mink has been a positional astronomer and developer of astronomical tools, data pipelines, and archives at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory for over 30 years, working with data from ground-based (and one space-based) telescopes. Between her MIT BS and MS degrees and this job, she was involved in solar system optical spectroscopy, high-speed occultation photometry, and the geometrical astronomy and catalog development needed to predict the occulations she observed with her colleagues. Her life story is complicated by the fact that she has undergone some major changes that headed her toward the AAS CSWA and CSGMA.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2016/08/meet-your-cswa-jessica-mink.html
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
2. Katherine Johnson to Receive the ASP's New Arthur B.C. Walker II Award
From: Rick Fienberg [rick.fienberg_at_aas.org]
"Katherine Johnson, renowned NASA mathematician who calculated and verified the trajectories that took the first Americans into space and to the Moon, will be the inaugural recipient of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s Arthur B.C. Walker II Award."
Read more at
https://www.astrosociety.org/society-news/katherine-johnson-to-receive-the-asps-new-arthur-b-c-walker-ii-award/
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
3. A Step Toward Equal Pay for Men and Women
From: Meg Urry [meg.urry_at_yale.edu]
"Imagine a job application that asks an applicant to disclose how much she currently makes. If the salary turns out to be significantly less than what the company was prepared to offer, an employer might try to get away with paying a lower wage. That could put the applicant at a disadvantage and lead to a lower salary offer."
Read more at
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/gender-wage-gap-massachusetts/494045/
http://www.mass.gov/governor/press-office/press-releases/fy2017/governor-baker-signs-bipartisan-pay-equity-legislation.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/03/business/dealbook/wage-gap-massachusetts-law-salary-history.html?_r=0
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
4. Women's and men's career choices in astronomy and astrophysics
From: Thomas Basbøll [tb.lib_at_cbs.dk]
"Abstract: The Longitudinal Study of Astronomy Graduate Students (LSAGS) arose from the 2003 Women in Astronomy Conference, where it was noted that a majority of young members of the American Astronomical Society were women. The astronomy community wishes to make every effort to retain young women in astronomy, so they commissioned a longitudinal study to be conducted that would pinpoint the factors that contribute to retention in general, with a focus on differences between women and men. The LSAGS follows a cohort of people who were graduate students in astronomy or astrophysics during 2006–07. The first survey was conducted during 2007–08 and the second during 2012–13. The analysis presented in this paper used a subset of the respondents, all of whom had Ph.D.s in astronomy, astrophysics, or a related field at the time of the second survey. We tested the effects of four major concepts on two measures of attrition from physics and astronomy. These concepts included the imposter syndrome, mentoring and advising during graduate school, the “two-body problem” that occurs when a couple needs to find two jobs in the same geographic area, and the sex of the respondent. While the imposter syndrome and mentoring affected the likelihood of respondents’ thinking about leaving the field, they did not directly contribute to actually working in a field that was not physics or astronomy. Relationship with graduate advisors and the two-body problem both had significant effects on working in physics or astronomy, as did completing a postdoc. The sex of the respondent had no direct effect on our measures of attrition, but indirectly affected attrition because women were less likely to report positive relationships with graduate advisors and more likely to report two-body problems. This research identifies specific areas of concern that can be addressed by the scientific community to increase the retention of all people, but especially women, in astronomy and astrophysics."
Read more at
http://journals.aps.org/prper/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevPhysEducRes.12.020109
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
5. The Movie About NASA's Black Female Scientists That's Been A Long Time Coming
From: Cristina Thomas [cthomas_at_psi.edu]
"The highlights of the space race still loom large in the American imagination. John Glenn, the first man to orbit the earth, and Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, are both household names. But behind those celebrated men were legions of scientists and engineers, among them scores of brilliant women of all backgrounds, whose brainpower made it all possible. Those women, for the most part, have been forgotten — until now.
The trailer for Hidden Figures, an upcoming movie focusing on three black female mathematicians working at the NASA during the days of Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, attacks this erasure head on."
Read more at
https://thinkprogress.org/hidden-figures-long-time-coming-db9ed029d5bb#.urr7k9xqx
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
Join AAS Women List by email:
Send email to aaswlist+subscribe_at_aas.org from the address you want to have subscribed. You can leave the subject and message blank if you like.
Be sure to follow the instructions in the confirmation email. (Just reply back to the email list)
To unsubscribe by email:
Send email to aawlist+unsubscribe_at_aas.org from the address you want to have UNsubscribed. You can leave the subject and message blank if you like.
To join or leave AASWomen via web, or change your membership settings:
https://groups.google.com/a/aas.org/group/aaswlist
You will have to create a Google Account if you do not already have one, using https://accounts.google.com/newaccount?hl=en
Google Groups Subscribe Help:
http://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46606
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8. Access to Past Issues
http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
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