AASWomen Newsletter for December 28, 2018

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 28, 2018
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

[Happy Holidays to all! --eds.]

This week's issues:

1. Go For The Outliers - Top 10 Tips For Driving Diversity In STEM

2. What This New 500 Women In Medicine Initiative Aims To Do

3. NSF Career Compass Challenge

4. Nancy Grace Roman, involved with Hubble telescope, dies

5. TNW's top 11 women making waves in STEM from 2018

6. Hawaii students have IDEAS for a STEM Workforce

7. Job Opportunities

8. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

AASWomen Newsletter for December 21, 2018

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

December 21, 2018

eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

[Happy Holidays to all! --eds.]

This week's issues:

1. Transitioning From Astronomy to the Space Industry 

2. Conference attendance boosts authorship opportunities

3. COSPAR SYMPOSIUM CALL FOR PAPERS: “Small Satellites for Sustainable Science and Development”

4. Women Scientists Who Made Nuclear Astrophysics

5. NASA Appoints Its First Female Chief Flight Director 

6. How One Organization Is Keeping Women In STEM Careers   

7. How Implicit Bias and Lack of Diversity Undermine Science  

8. What Happens When You Double Blind Astronomers?

9. Job Opportunities   

10. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

12. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

Transitioning From Astronomy to the Space Industry

By Therese Jones

I am often sent students who want to transition into the space industry, having converted from an astronomy Ph.D. program (Berkeley), to a policy Ph.D. program with a focus on space (RAND, a non-partisan think tank), then becoming Senior Director of Policy at the Satellite Industry Association.  As a crash course in how to get started, I compiled this “Guide to the Space Life” to get students/young professionals up to speed on what it took me five years to figure out on my own!  This post summarizes a few of the highlights of the document, but please see the full guide for more information.

Making the decision to transition out of astronomy was very hard, especially because I loved the people in the field.  It turns out that people in the space industry are incredibly friendly and willing to go out of their way to support young professionals; many of the organizations and conferences listed provide great inroads into the industry.  No experience in the space world?  Not a problem—the Space Generation Advisory Council is an international organization of young professionals under 35 that hosts events in the US and abroad, sends out regular opportunities, and has working groups that you can join to work on different space issues.  The Students for the Exploration and Development Space has chapters at colleges and even high schools, and supports a number of activities including rocket teams, satellite design projects, has an annual student-run conference, and is very well-connected to companies in the industry.  No chapter at your school?  You can also become an individual member or start your own chapter; they are great at supporting new chapters that are trying to get started!

AASWomen Newsletter for December 14, 2018

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 14, 2018
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Cristina Thomas, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride, guest ed. Alessandra Aloisi

This week's issues:

1. The First Lady Astronaut Trainees: Time for a Congressional Gold Medal

2. This Brilliant Woman Could Have Won a Physics Nobel for India. Yet Few Indians Know Her Story.

3. Introducing the 2019 Franklin Institute Awards Laureates

4. Sexual Misconduct Allegations against Neil deGrasse Tyson Reveal the Complexity of Academic Inequality

5. Ethnic minority academics earn less than white colleagues

6. It's Unscientific To Credit 'Inherent Differences' For Underrepresentation In Science

7. Rise of the Science Ph.D. Dropout

8. Gender Diversity Is Urgently Needed Say Prominent Women In Technology

9. World's Top 50 Women In Tech 2018

10. Job Opportunities

11. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

12. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

13. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

The First Lady Astronaut Trainees: Time for a Congressional Gold Medal

The Congressional Gold Medal, our nation's highest civilian honor, has been given over 200 times. Fewer than 10% of the medals have been received by women and just five (5!) have been awarded for outstanding contributions in air and space exploration. The good news is that legislation to award Gold Medals to the “Hidden Figures” is moving forward and the better news is that momentum is building to also support a nomination for the First Lady Astronaut Trainees (FLATs), also known as the “Mercury 13”.

I first learned about these women when I read Martha Ackmann's book and had the privilege of meeting both Martha and Wally Funk, one of the FLATs, when they visited Albion College in 2008. As a result of this visit, I have started a campaign to nominate this group of 13 women aviators for the Congressional Gold Medal. 

The FLATs were tested for “the right stuff” by NASA doctor William Lovelace almost 60 years ago and proved themselves to be just as good as, if not better than, the Mercury 7 astronauts in withstanding extreme physical and psychological tests. Results of the tests eventually lead to the inclusion of women within NASA’s astronaut corps, with Sally Ride paving the way for American women in 1983 and Eileen Collins becoming the first female pilot to command a space shuttle in 1995.

Members of the FLATs, at the launch of shuttle pilot Eileen Collins in 1995 (NASA image).

In the current era of renewed interest in space exploration, and in the spirit of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, I believe it is imperative to recognize the 13 FLATs, six of whom are still alive, for their trailblazing accomplishments that demonstrated women are just as capable and qualified as men in the exploration of space. These women are:

Jerrie Cobb (Oklahoma)

Wally Funk (New Mexico)

Myrtle “K” Cagle (North Carolina)

Gene Nora Stumbough [Jessen] (Oklahoma)

Rhea Hurrle [Woltman] (Colorado)

Sarah Gorelick [Ratley] (Kansas)

Irene Leverton (Illinois, now deceased)

Jane B. Hart (Michigan, now deceased)

Jerri Sloan [Truhill] (Texas, now deceased)

Bernice “B” Trimble Steadman (Michigan, now deceased)

Jan Dietrich (California, now deceased)

Marion Dietrich (California, now deceased)

Jean Hixson (Illinois, now deceased)

To support the nomination of the FLATs for the Congressional Gold Medal, sign the petition and/or contact your local representative. Thank you!

Read more:

about the nomination

from the NASA History Office

about the 2018 Netflix documentary

AASWomen Newsletter for December 7, 2018

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 07, 2018
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, JoEllen McBride, and Alessandra Aloisi (guest ed.)

Today's guest editor is Alessandra Aloisi. Alessandra studies stars and gas in nearby star-forming galaxies with UV/optical/NIR imaging and UV/optical spectroscopy to infer their chemical and evolutionary state. She received her PhD from Bologna University (Italy) in 1999. She then landed in the US and launched her career as postdoc at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), and as associate research scientist at Johns Hopkins University. Alessandra joined the research staff at STScI in 2003, working first for the European Space Agency (ESA) and transferring to a position with the Association of the Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) in 2009. At STScI, Alessandra started as instrument scientist for the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph and the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope, and became the lead for the team responsible for the calibration, operations, and user support of these spectrographs just before the Hubble Servicing Mission 4. She then moved to be the Deputy Division Head of the Operations & Engineering Division, and is now the Head of the Science Mission Office where she oversees the science career and infrastructure of STScI as well as HST and JWST science policies.

This week's issues:

1. A Planetary Scientist in Industry
2. Nancy Grace Roman Advances Space Astronomy with Hubble Space Telescope
3. L’Oréal USA For Women In Science Fellowship Program
4. Nobody Believed Neil deGrasse Tyson's First Accuser. Now There Are Three More.
5. Perth NASA InSight mission researcher breaks new ground for women in science
6. Celebrate IAU100 Women and Girls in Astronomy Day in Your Country
7. Girls in STEM: Top STEM toys for the holidays
8. America's Top 50 Women In Tech 2018
9. Senate passes bill to recognize ‘Hidden Figures’ women
10. Lawsuit Alleging Misconduct At Dartmouth Raises Concerns About Treatment Of Women In STEM
11. What science has gotten wrong by ignoring women
12. Turns Out We Still Have a Huge TV Scientist Stereotype Problem
13. How Hollywood brought women of STEM & arts together so they are no longer ‘Hidden Figures’
14. Women have been written out of science history – time to put them back
15. Job Opportunities
16. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
17. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter
18. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

A Planetary Scientist in Industry

by Elizabeth Frank

Elizabeth admiring a sample of pallasite,
her favorite meteorite type.

I’ve come to dislike the cliché interview question “where do you see yourself in five years?” Five years ago, I was in my last year of grad school at the University of Colorado at Boulder studying planetary geochemistry. Had I been asked to predict my future, there’s no way I would have guessed it would include an asteroid mining company, unemployment, and a systems engineering start-up.

Since high school, I knew I would become a scientist. I had long had a desire to work on a NASA mission, and an internship at JPL during grad school confirmed that interest in spades. By the end of my Ph.D., however, I’d started to become disenchanted with academia. Early in grad school, I realized a professorship wasn’t for me, but the idea of relying on soft money (the most probable alternative) for my whole career left me preemptively stressed out.