Issue of October 26, 2018
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, JoEllen McBride, and Ale Aloisi (guest ed.)
This week's issues:
1. How Professional Societies are Dealing with Harassment
2. Letter of Solidarity from Physicists and Astronomy in Solidarity with LGBTIQA+ Folks
3. Why Physics Wasn’t Built by Men
4. Lawrence Krauss and the Legacy of Harassment in Science
7. Girls Who Game Three Times More Likely to Study STEM, UK Research Finds
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. How Professional Societies are Dealing with Harassment
From: Nicolle Zellner via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
In a September Science editorial, Margaret Hamburg, Susan Hockfield and Steven Chu, who all hold leadership roles in the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), wrote that it's time for change: "The scientific community must act with urgency to create an inclusive organizational culture and professional standards of behavior that will allow all of its members to reach their full potential."
Indeed, professional societies and organizations around the United States are taking a stand to address harassment in effective ways. Here are just a few examples of what organizations are doing:
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2018/10/how-professional-societies-are-dealing.html
Back to top.2. Letter of Solidarity from Physicists and Astronomy in Solidarity with LGBTIQA+ Folks
From: Jorge Moreno [jorge.moreno_at_pomona.edu]
We write to issue a call to action, urging you to support our transgender, non-binary, genderqueer, and intersex students and colleagues in the aftermath of the Department of Health and Human Services’ efforts to revise the treatment of, and effectively erase, trans people under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Please join us in fighting for legal and social protections for our colleagues by signing this letter (using this link) and by committing to action (examples are listed below).
Read the letter at
Co-sign the letter at
Back to top.3. Why Physics Wasn’t Built by Men
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]
By Labmate
“Professor Alessandro Strumia from Pisa University has sparked fury among the physics community and beyond with his recent presentation at CERN. During a seminar on gender issues in physics, Strumia claimed that physics was ‘invented and built by men’. In this 6-part series, we will take a closer look at Strumia’s comments and explore just a few of the women that prove his statement is completely wrong. Stay tuned as we look at some of science’s most influential women.”
Read more and follow the series at
Back to top.4. Lawrence Krauss and the Legacy of Harassment in Science
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]
By Marina Koren
“In April, a theoretical physicist showed up at conference in California about the search for extraterrestrial life in the universe.
In one way, his presence was likely. Lawrence Krauss is a prominent scientist, author of several best-selling books, and a prolific lecturer known for his lively and engaging style. He’s not a household name like Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye, but he starred in a documentary alongside fellow atheist-scientist Richard Dawkins, and his lectures on cosmology regularly rack up thousands of views on YouTube—no easy feat for a physicist trying to popularize science.
In another way, it was surprising. Two months before the conference, several women had accused Krauss of sexual misconduct, describing behavior that went unchecked for over a decade. By the time Krauss stepped foot on Stanford’s campus for the gathering, he had been banned from three universities, removed from multiple speaking events, and was under a formal investigation by Arizona State University, his primary affiliation.”
Read more at
Back to top.5. When You’re the Only Woman: The challenges for female Ph.D. students in male-dominated cohorts
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]
By Katie Langin
“When Carolyn Virca embarked on her chemistry Ph.D., she noticed a clear gender rift right from the start. The men would grab beers before seminars or arrange other social activities that didn’t include her—the lone woman in the cohort. “They bonded in ways that I was not privy to,” she says.
Virca, who is now a postdoc at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, got through her initial feelings of social isolation by bonding with women who had started the program a year or two ahead of her. But the experience made her appreciate how students could get lost if they feel like outsiders during graduate school. So she wasn’t shocked by the results of a new study, which found an association between female Ph.D. students’ graduation rates and their cohorts’ gender ratios.”
Read more at
Back to top.6. Satisfaction in Science
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]
By Chris Woolston
“Many science students and junior researchers continue to aspire to a career in academia, a dream that has persisted for generations. But Nature’s biennial survey of salary and job satisfaction in the global science community underscores an important reality: there is a vast number of career opportunities for scientists beyond academic research, and some of those options might be more rewarding, whether emotionally, financially or both.
Nature’s survey — for which fieldwork was conducted between June and July 2018 by Shift Learning, a London-based research consultancy — drew responses from 6,413 self-selected readers from around the world. (Responses from people who hadn’t gone beyond an undergraduate degree were filtered out, leaving a sample of 4,334.) Nearly 40% of respondents live in North America, 35% are in Europe and 16% are in Asia. Nature also heard from researchers in Australasia, Africa and South America.”
Read more at
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07111-8
Back to top.7. Girls Who Game Three Times More Likely to Study STEM, UK Research Finds
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]
By Shelby Rogers
“Want more young women in science and technology? Hand them a video game controller. Young girls who play video games are more likely to find themselves studying STEM subjects down the road, according to a new study from the University of Surrey.”
Read more at
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:
https://cswa.aas.org/diversity.html#howtoincrease
-Postdoctoral Researcher in Physics/Astronomy/STEM Education Research at Texas State University
https://perjobs.blogspot.com/2018/10/peraerstem-education-research-postdoc.html
-Assistant Professor, Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, University of Colorado, Boulder
https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail/Assistant-Professor/13872
-Postdoctoral Positions in Theoretical Astrophysics
https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/94f3c6dc
-Assistant Professor Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of Alabama
https://facultyjobs.ua.edu/postings/44053
-Pan-STARRS Astronomical Survey Postdoctoral Fellow, Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii
https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/9c43d2a7
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:
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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
https://cswa.aas.org/AASWOMEN.html
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered
Back to top.