Issue of October 07, 2016
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Elysse Voyer, Heather Flewelling, Cristina Thomas, and Maria Patterson
This week's issues:
1. Guest Post: Understanding Gender Fluidity
2. Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: The Arecibo Observatory Space Academy
3. Faculty Highlight: Aomawa Shields
4. Gender Bias in Reference Letters
5. Are the Nobel Prizes Missing Female Scientists?
6. Sexual harassment in STEM: 'It's tragic for society'
7. Massachusetts AWIS Membership Scholarship
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
1. Guest Post: Understanding Gender Fluidity
From Jessica Kirkpatrick via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
Today's guest post is by Dr JJ Eldridge. Dr. Eldridge is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Auckland, New Zealand and prefers them/they pronouns. They study exploding binary stars and have also been trying to explode the myth of a gender binary. They also read and watch (almost) too much sci-fi.
I’m a person who when asked to specify my gender (when filling out a survey, for example) am frustrated that there are usually only male or female options. Trying to explain my gender is difficult as my own understanding has evolved with time. It is also something I’m still struggling with so there isn’t an easy answer. It hasn’t been until recently, when a friend pointed out to me that I’m not a woman but I’m not really a man either, I’ve begun to understand that I’m somewhere between the two and want to switch between how I want to present over time. I don’t want to be just one or the other all the time.
Read more at:
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2016/10/genderfluidity.html
Back to top.2. Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: The Arecibo Observatory Space Academy
From Joan Schmelz via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
Today’s guest bloggers are Edgard Rivera-Valentin and Luisa Zambrano-Marin. Ed is the Project Manager for the Space Academy and a staff scientist in the Planetary Radar group at the Arecibo Observatory. Luisa is the Program Coordinator for the Space Academy and a data analyst for the Planetary Radar Group at Arecibo Observatory.
We are Latinos, we are Scientists, and we are Educators. We often struggle to succeed in a field in which we are underrepresented and devalued both consciously and unconsciously by peers. Our upbringing, culture, and expectations are diverse and diverge from the “norm”. We understand what it’s like to feel unprepared for college, graduate school, and the professional workforce. And all too often, we know the struggle of breaking through established barriers in the scientific community. We are the 3%.
Read more at:
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2016/10/celebrating-national-hispanic-heritage.html
Back to top.3. Faculty Highlight: Aomawa Shields
From: Heather Flewelling [heather_at_ifa.hawaii.edu]
by Jillian Bellovary
Dr. Aomawa Shields is an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellow and a UC President’s Postdoctoral Fellow at UC Irvine, UCLA, and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. She studies the possible climates and potential habitability of extrasolar planets orbiting low-mass stars. She did her undergraduate work in Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT, has an MFA in Acting from UCLA, and completed her PhD in Astronomy and Astrobiology at the University of Washington in 2014. Aomawa is a 2015 TED Fellow, and her TED talk “How We’ll Find Life on Other Planets” has over 1.4 million views. As of June 30, Aomawa is now a tenure-track faculty member in the department of physics and astronomy at UC Irvine (on leave until July 1, 2017). Aomawa is Founder and Director of Rising Stargirls, an organization that engages middle-school girls from backgrounds traditionally underrepresented in the sciences in astronomy and astrobiology learning using theater, writing, and visual art.
Read more at:
http://astronomyincolor.blogspot.com/2016/09/faculty-highlight-aomawa-shields.html
Back to top.4. Gender Bias in Reference Letters
From: Maria Patterson [mtpatter_at_uw.edu], Alexander Rudolph [alrudolph_at_cpp.edu], Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
Female postdoc applicants in the geosciences are less likely to receive excellent letters of reference than their male counterparts.
article in Nature News: http://www.nature.com/news/women-postdocs-less-likely-than-men-to-get-a-glowing-reference-1.20715
article in Nature Geoscience Letters: http://www.nature.com/ngeo/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/ngeo2819.html
Back to top.5. Are the Nobel Prizes Missing Female Scientists?
From: Heather Flewelling [heather_at_ifa.hawaii.edu]
By Jesse Emspak
The Nobel Prize has a woman problem.
A total of 203 people have won the Nobel Prize in physics, but only two were women (Marie Curie in 1903 and Maria Goeppert-Mayer in 1963). Many scientists say those numbers point to a fundamental problem with the prizes and how they are awarded.
Science writer and physicist Matthew Francis wrote on his blog, Galileo's Pendulum, that the prize favors men of European descent, and European and American researchers in general. That bias, he said, is part of a larger problem of excluding women and minorities for consideration.
Read more at:
http://www.livescience.com/56390-nobel-prizes-missing-female-scientists.html
Back to top.6. Sexual harassment in STEM: 'It's tragic for society'
From: Heather Flewelling [heather_at_ifa.hawaii.edu]
By Sara Ganim
"Conversations became increasingly sexual and they eventually progressed to physical touching, like skin on skin on my neck."
"He would actually come up to where I was staying at the observatory at 11 p.m. at night, and knock on the door and wait on my porch as I would hide under my bed with all of the lights off."
"It became clear that he actually wanted a sexual relationship. ... He got very drunk and physically separated me from the group."
These are the experiences of three women who spoke to CNN about a culture of pervasive sexual harassment in academia, especially in the sciences. They were harassed by different men, throughout different parts of their education and careers.
Read more at:
http://www.cnn.com/2016/09/30/us/astronomy-sexual-harassment
Back to top.7. Massachusetts AWIS Membership Scholarship
From: Daryl Haggard [daryl.haggard_at_mcgill.ca]
MASS AWIS has created a scholarship fund to help offset the cost of membership for individuals suffering from hardship. MASS AWIS Member Scholarships provide financial assistance for qualified unemployed or underemployed individuals seeking Professional, Junior, or Student memberships. *Graduate Students, Postdoctoral Fellows, and those in transition are encouraged to apply.* For more information on membership levels, please see the National AWIS website ( http://www.awis.org/ ) and the Student membership website ( http://massawis.org/student-membership ).
Read about the Success of AWIS Member Scholars here: http://mass-awis.org/webapp/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Mass-awis-scholarship.pdf
Download the Application here: http://mass-awis.org/webapp/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/MASS-AWIS-Scholarship-Form-2016.Fall_with-Bucks-4.pdf
Application Deadline: Oct 15
Please submit all materials in a single correspondence to: scholarship@massawis.org
Back to top.8. 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
-Media Relations Specialist, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD https://rn11.ultipro.com/SPA1004/JobBoard/JobDetails.aspx?__ID=*15C8C6FDEE5EB763
-Data Imaging Developer, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD https://rn11.ultipro.com/SPA1004/JobBoard/JobDetails.aspx?__ID=*927F92429CAABF31
-Giaconni Lasker Fellowships, Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore, MD https://stsci.slideroom.com/#/login/program/32844
-Several Postdoctoral fellow positions in astronomy, planetary science, atmospheric science or astrobiology at McGill University http://msi.mcgill.ca/Jobs.html
-Assistant Professor of Physics, Tenure-Track, Middlebury College, Department of Physics, Middlebury, VT https://apply.interfolio.com/36415
Back to top.9. 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.10. 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:
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Back to top.11. Access to Past Issues
http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
Back to top.
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