Friday, June 16, 2017

AASWomen Newsletter for June 16, 2017

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of June 16, 2017
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Cristina Thomas, and Maria Patterson

This week's issues:

1. Meet The CSWA: Cristina Thomas
2. Women in Astronomy IV: The Many Faces of Women Astronomers
3. Meet the Mighty Women of NASA's New Astronaut Class
4. In Science Fiction, the Future is Feminist
5. Can fake names tease out NIH reviewer bias?
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 The CSWA: Cristina Thomas
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.  Cristina Thomas is a research scientist with the Planetary Science Institute. She received her undergraduate degree from Caltech and her Ph.D. from MIT. After graduating she had postdocs at Northern Arizona University and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. She currently resides in Arlington, Virginia.

Read more at

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2017/06/meet-cswa-cristina-thomas.html

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2. Women in Astronomy IV: The Many Faces of Women Astronomers
From: Cristina Thomas [cthomas_at_psi.edu] & Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]

Women in Astronomy IV: The Many Faces of Women Astronomers, a conference sponsored by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and the American Astronomical Society (AAS), with support from the National Science Foundation (NSF), occurred June 9 - 11, 2017.

All three days have been summed up in storify posts. The links can be found at

http://www.cvent.com/events/women-in-astronomy-iv-the-many-faces-of-women-astronmers/event-summary-589214b84ab94f26ac269ad9823ef977.aspx

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3. Meet the Mighty Women of NASA's New Astronaut Class
From: Cristina Thomas [cthomas_at_psi.edu]

by Katherine Handcock

“NASA's newest class of astronaut candidates has just been announced, and it includes five inspiring women! NASA received a record-breaking number of applicants for this astronaut class — over 18,000 in all — and the class itself has twelve members, their largest since the year 2000. "These women and men deserve our enthusiastic congratulations," said retired astronaut and Johnson Space Center Director Ellen Ochoa. "Children all across the United States right now dream of being in their shoes someday. We here at NASA are excited to welcome them to the team and look forward to working with them to inspire the next generation of explorers."

The astronaut candidates have two years of training in front of them before they're ready to break Earth's atmosphere, but in the meantime, space-loving Mighty Girls have five new role models to look up to! In this blog post, we introduce you to these five remarkably talented women. And, to inspire children who dream of their own careers in space, at the end of the post, we've showcased a variety of girl-empowering books and toys about shooting for the stars!”

Read more at

http://www.amightygirl.com/blog?p=15516

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4. In Science Fiction, the Future is Feminist
From: Cristina Thomas [cthomas_at_psi.edu]

by Laurie Penny

“Naomi Alderman’s brilliant science fiction novel The Power justly won the Bailey’s prize for women’s fiction last week. It deserved to win – but I never thought it would.

The unstoppable rise of female-authored and feminist science fiction tends to upset two distinct sets of stuffy traditionalists: sexists and literary snobs. But by insisting that only a certain sort of art is truly great, they’re missing out on some gorgeous books.”

Read more at

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/14/feminist-science-fiction-naomi-alderman-the-power-handmaids-tale-mainstream

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5. Can fake names tease out NIH reviewer bias?
From: Cristina Thomas [cthomas_at_psi.edu]

by Jeffrey Mervis

“When the label “white male” is attached to a research grant application, do peer reviewers give it a better score?

That’s the question psychologist Patricia Devine of the University of Wisconsin in Madison has spent the past 4 years—and more than $1 million from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland—trying to answer with an unusual experiment. Devine and her team has substituted fictitious names—those stereotypically borne by whites or blacks, and by men or women—on past NIH grant applications to test whether reviewers are biased by race and gender. The study is one of two NIH-funded projects—the other strips previous applications of all identifying characteristics before subjecting them to a new round of reviews—now underway that were spawned by a 2011 finding that black scientists have a much lower chance of receiving an NIH grant than their white counterparts.”

Read more at

http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/can-fake-names-tease-out-nih-reviewer-bias

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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.

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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 aaswlist+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:

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8. Access to Past Issues

https://cswa.aas.org/AASWOMEN.html

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

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