AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of April 20, 2018
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Cristina Thomas, and Maria Patterson
This week's issues:
1. Stemming the Leak
2. Women in Research: Postdoctoral Fellowships for Female Researchers
3. Women in Science: Stories About Defying Expectations
4. The Untold Story of Women Who Made the Internet
5. Your Great Grandchildren Will Be Living On Mars Before We Reach Gender Equality In Science and Tech
6. Job Opportunities
7. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
8. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter
9. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter
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1. Stemming the Leak
From: Fran Bagenal via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
How come I hadn’t noticed these facts before? I thought I was pretty much aware of the demographics of women in physics, but the plot below distributed by the American Institute of Physics last spring had me flabbergasted. What has been going on for the past 15 years that has caused the percentage of US bachelors in physics going to women to drop from nearly 24% down below 20%?
The good news is that absolute number of women getting physics degrees (both bachelors and PhDs) are at record values. And the total number of physics degrees, after oscillating around 4000 for the past 50 years, has shot up to 8000/year. Indeed, talking to physics departments around the country I hear reports of bulging enrollments and needs for moving to larger classrooms.
So why is this expansion preferentially male rather than female? Why are men flocking to physics at a proportionally greater rate than women? I find it very hard to believe that the market for women physicists is saturated and that out of the whole US population only 1550 young women want to study physics.
Read more at:
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2018/04/stemming-leak.html
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2. Women in Research: Postdoctoral Fellowships for Female Researchers
From: Nancy Morrison [nancy.morrison_at_utoledo.edu]
'“Women in Research” (WiRe) is part of Germany’s campaign “Research in Germany” and aims at attracting highly qualified female Postdocs from all over the world to take opportunities at German Universities into account for major steps on the academic job ladder.
'The project is settled at the Westfälische Wilhelms-University (WWU) Münster/Germany, a large and comprehensive university that provides excellent research and career opportunities as well as extensive support for international scholars: Our Welcome Centre offers support and advice before, during and after your research stay about legal issues, visa question, insurance and financial necessities and family concerns. Further services at the WWU are available as well as good cooperation structures with several municipal authorities. WiRe builds upon existing structures within and outside of the University and will develop further networks to support excellent female Postdocs in pursuing their academic careers without having to choose between family and career.
'An intrinsic part of WiRe is the possibility to use different means of public relations and channels of science communication to publish and disperse the results of your research at WWU Münster and become an inspiring role model for future female scientists.'
This project is also supported by the Association for Women in Science (AWIS). Application deadline 15 May 2018. Application form here:
https://www.uni-muenster.de/forschung/en/wissenschaftler/wire-womeninresearch.html
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3. Women in Science: Stories About Defying Expectations
From: Alison Williams [aypeew_at_gmail.com]
In honor of Women's History Month this past March, the Story Collider presented two stories about women in science and the unique challenges they face. The stories feature chemist Alison Williams and climate scientist Sarah Myhre.
Read more and listen at:
https://www.storycollider.org/stories/2018/3/15/women-in-science-stories-defying-expectations
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4. The Untold Story of Women Who Made the Internet
From: Matt Greenhouse [matt.greenhouse_at_nasa.gov]
Author Claire Evans discussed her new book "Broad Band: The Untold Story of Women Who Made the Internet" with Alexander Heffner on The Open Mind. The book profiles many women who contributed to the foundation of the internet including Ada Lovelace, Grace Hopper, Elizabeth Feinler, Stacy Horn, and Jamie Levy.
Watch the video at:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PEHlRqdohY8
Read the transcript of the interview at:
https://www.thirteen.org/openmind/science/mother-internet/5920/
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5. Your Great Grandchildren Will Be Living On Mars Before We Reach Gender Equality In Science and Tech
From: Cristina Thomas [cristina.thomas_at_nau.edu]
By Andréa Morris
"It could take a couple centuries to reach gender equality in fields like surgery, computer science, physics, and math, says a new big data study. The countries that scored the worst for gender parity in the sciences included Germany and Switzerland. These are also countries that champion progressive, gender-inclusive values. The findings show the need for serious policy intervention to overcome implicit bias preventing women from advancing in science, technology, engineering, math, and medicine (STEMM).
The study published today in PLOS Biology takes a look at the ratio of male to female authors of academic papers covering almost every area of STEMM. Unlike previous studies examining the trajectory of gender parity in science and tech, University of Melbourne researchers Luke Holman, Associate Professor Devi Stuart-Fox and Senior Author Cindy Hauser analyzed a massive dataset: 36 million authors from over 10 million academic papers published in more than 6000 academic journals in 100+ countries over the past 15 years."
Read more at:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/andreamorris/2018/04/19/your-great-grandchildren-will-be-living-on-mars-before-we-reach-gender-equality-in-science-and-tech
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6. Job Opportunities
For those interested in increasing excellence and diversity in their organizations, a list of resources and advice is here: https://cswa.aas.org/diversity.html#howtoincrease
-Deputy Director for Technology, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ
https://lowell.edu/about/employment/
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7. 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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8. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
Join AAS Women List by email:
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9. Access to Past Issues
https://cswa.aas.org/AASWOMEN.html
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
