Issue of January 29, 2021
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Maria Patterson, Alessandra Aloisi, and Jeremy Bailin
[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. Be well! --eds.]
This week's issues:
1. Career Profile: Observatory Staff Astronomer
2. AfAS establishes African Network of Women in Astronomy to improve status of women in science
3. 2021 NASA Planetary Science Summer School Applications Due April 1st
4. Join us for our upcoming SHIELD Webinar: Fri Feb. 12th, 2021 2:00 PM EST
5. The Art of Scholarly Mentoring
6. Largest-ever survey exposes career obstacles for LGBTQ scientists
7. Pandemic Resource: Recommendations for employers to support parents and caregivers
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
An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.
1. Career Profile: Observatory Staff Astronomer
From: JoEllen McBride via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy is compiling interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.
Below is our interview with Gwen Rudie. She studies the chemical and physical properties of very distant galaxies and their surrounding gas in order to further our understanding of the processes that are central to the formation and development of galaxies. Critical to this research is our ability to trace the raw materials of galaxy formation and its biproducts. These clues can be found in the gas that surrounds early galaxies. She is primarily an observational astronomer, working on the analysis and interpretation of high-resolution spectroscopy of distant quasars as well as near-infrared and optical spectroscopy of high-redshift galaxies. In addition to her scientific efforts, she is also the director of the undergraduate research program at the Carnegie Observatories. Dr. Rudie received her AB from Dartmouth College and her PhD from Caltech. She was the Carnegie Princeton Postdoctoral Fellow before becoming a Staff Astronomer.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2021/01/career-profile-observatory-staff.html
Back to top.2. AfAS establishes African Network of Women in Astronomy to improve status of women in science
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
The African Network of Women in Astronomy (AfNWA) was established in September 2020 as one of the committees under the Aftrican Astronomical Society (AfAS). The Network "aims to guarantee future participation of girls and women at all levels in astronomy and science developments in Africa. Its main objectives include improving the status of women in science in Africa and using astronomy to inspire more girls to do STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)."
Read more at
https://africanews.space/afas-establishes-african-network-women-astronomy
Back to top.3. 2021 NASA Planetary Science Summer School Applications Due April 1st
From: Joyce Armijo [joyce.e.armijo_at_jpl.nasa.gov]
Offered by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, CA, PSSS is a 3-month long career development experience to learn the development of a hypothesis-driven robotic space mission in a concurrent engineering environment while getting an in-depth, first-hand look at mission design, life cycle, costs, schedule and the trade-offs inherent in each.
Science and engineering doctoral candidates, recent PhDs, postdocs, and junior faculty who are U.S. Citizens or legal permanent residents (and a very limited number of Foreign Nationals from non-designated countries) are eligible. Applicants from diverse backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply.
Session 1: May 24-Aug 6
Session 2: May 24-Aug 20
With workload of a rigorous 3-hour graduate-level course, participants spend the first 10 weeks in preparatory webinars acting as a science mission team, and spend the final culminating week mentored by JPL’s Advance Project Design Team to refine their planetary science mission concept design and present it to a mock expert review board. The culminating week is typically at JPL, however in 2021 it is likely to be virtual due to Covid-19 pandemic conditions.
http://go.nasa.gov/missiondesignschools
Back to top.4. Join us for our upcoming SHIELD Webinar: Fri Feb. 12th, 2021 2:00 PM EST
From: ShieldOutreach [shieldoutreach_at_bu.edu]
How discoveries are made: Finding the needle in a haystack
Speaker: Nancy Crooker Nancy U. Crooker is an American physicist and professor emerita of space physics at Boston University, Massachusetts. She has made major contributions to the understanding of geomagnetism in the Earth’s magnetosphere and the heliosphere, particularly through the study of interplanetary electrons and magnetic reconnection. Crooker has published 207 peer-reviewed articles across a range of topics within space physics. Her early career was as a postdoctoral researcher at Cornell University and then the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the 1970s. There, together with Joan Feynman in their seminal Nature paper, she was one of the first physicists to use geomagnetic data as a way to reconstruct solar activity prior to the space age. Crooker then developed the concept of antiparallel merging of magnetic field lines in Earth’s magnetosphere published in the Journal of Geophysical Research in 1979. In 1990, she returned to UCLA as an adjunct professor before making her final move to Boston University as a research professor in 1994. Around this time, Crooker switched focus from the magnetosphere to the heliosphere, in particular the interplanetary manifestations of coronal mass ejections. In 1997, she co-edited a monograph on coronal mass ejections. In 2002, she coined the term “interchange reconnection” for describing the dynamic process by which heliospheric magnetic flux introduced by coronal mass ejections is subsequently removed, a term which has been comprehensively adopted in the field. Crooker is a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union (AGU), where the fellowship program recognizes AGU members who have made exceptional contributions to Earth and space science through a breakthrough, discovery, or innovation in their field. She also received the prestigious Eugene Parker Lecture award from the AGU in 2013, only the third woman to do so. Crooker was president of the AGU Space Physics & Aeronomy Section from 2004 to 2006 and served on the AGU Board of Directors from 2010 to 2012.
Speaker: Dr. Fran Bagenal
Dr. Fran Bagenal was born and grew up in England. She studied Physics and Geophysics at the University of Lancaster. In 1976, inspired by NASA’s missions to Mars and the prospect of the Voyager mission, she moved to the US for graduate study at MIT. Her 1981 Ph.D. thesis involved analysis of data from the Voyager Plasma Science experiment in Jupiter’s giant magnetosphere. She spent 1982–1987 as a postdoctoral researcher in space physics at Imperial College, London. Voyager flybys of Uranus and Neptune brought her back to the US and she joined the faculty at the University of Colorado, Boulder in 1989. She was a professor of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences until 2015 when she chose to focus on NASA’s New Horizons and Juno missions. She remains a research Scientist at the Laboratory of Atmospheric and Space Physics. In addition to the Voyager mission, Dr. Bagenal has been on the science teams of the Galileo mission to Jupiter and the Deep Space 1 mission to Comet Borrelly. She edited Jupiter Planet, Satellites, and Magnetosphere(Cambridge University Press, 2004). She’s on the plasma teams of the first two New Frontiers missions : The New Horizons mission that–after a 9.5–year flight –flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015and Juno that went into orbit over the poles of Jupiter in 2016.
Friday, February 12 , 2021
2:00pm EST
Registration link:
https://bostonu.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJYsd-GvqT8jH9fr9zfyVTHZKBM86xnHuv2i
Back to top.5. The Art of Scholarly Mentoring
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
Nobel Laureate Robert Lefkowitz shares 10 golden rules he has gleaned from mentoring hundreds of research trainees. In particular, he writes, "Mentoring is not something you do just for a couple of years while someone is working with you; the position of mentor is a lifetime appointment..."
Learn what those rules are (and more!) at
Back to top.6. Largest-ever survey exposes career obstacles for LGBTQ scientists
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
By Holly Else
Scientists who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or queer (LGBTQ) are more likely to experience harassment and career obstacles than their non-LGBTQ colleagues, a survey of more than 25,000 researchers has found.
These incidents can negatively impact LGBTQ scientists’ health and well-being, the survey suggests. They suffer from insomnia, depressive symptoms and work-related stress more frequently than their peers.
Read more at
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-00221-w
Read the peer-reviewed study at
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/7/3/eabe0933
Back to top.7. Pandemic Resource: Recommendations for employers to support parents and caregivers
From: Heather Flewelling [flewelling.heather_at_gmail.com]
The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionally impacted on the publication rate and research activity of women scientists who are also parents or caregivers. As publication output is crucial to secure research funding and for career advancement in STEM, this crisis may have long-term impacts on women’s careers and further widen the gender gap in STEM. Leaders and decision-makers in STEM must take immediate action and implement solutions to prevent the amplification of the inequalities and obstacles that undermine women’s success in STEM disciplines. Lessons learned from this crisis should be used as a stepping stone to create systemic change and for rebuilding the work culture in STEM fields, academia in particular.
Read more at
https://www.mothersinscience.com/recommendations-covid19
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://aas.org/comms/cswa/resources/Diversity
- Computational Specialist, Northwestern University, CIERA https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/17937
- Digital Communications Coordinator, Associated Universities, Inc https://jobs.jobvite.com/careers/nrao/job/oYOvefwf?__jvst=Job%20Board&__jvsd=Indeed
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_lists.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 an email to aaswomen_at_lists.aas.org. A list moderator will add your email to the list. They will reply to your message to confirm that they have added you.
Join AAS Women List through the online portal:
Go to https://lists.aas.org/postorius/lists/aaswlist.lists.aas.org and enter the email address you wish to subscribe in the ‘Your email address’ field. You will receive an email from ‘aaswlist-confirm’ that you must reply to. There may be a delay between entering your email and receiving the confirmation message. Check your Spam or Junk mail folders for the message if you have not received it after 2 hours.
To unsubscribe from AAS Women by email:
Send an email to aaswlist-leave_at_lists.aas.org from the email address you wish to remove from the list. You will receive an email from ‘aaswlist-confirm’ that you must reply to which will complete the unsubscribe.
Leave AAS Women or change your membership settings through the online portal:
Go to https://lists.aas.org/accounts/signup to create an account with the online portal. After confirming your account you can see the lists you are subscribed to and update your settings.
Back to top.11. Access to Past Issues
https://aas.org/comms/cswa/AASWOMEN
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
Back to top.
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