Women In Astronomy: AASWomen Newsletter for April 02, 2021

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

Vera Rubin, item 14. Credit: Carnegie Institute

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of April 02, 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. Why We Leave

2. E.Z. Science: Women in Astronomy

3. Jami Valentin Miller: Barrier-breaking physicist reflects on her journey

4. Seeing the invisible: How Nobel laureate Andrea Ghez found the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way's center

5. Great Women Scientists

6. Sharon Glotzer's Deep Curiosity About Order From Chaos

7. Sally Ride: Entrepreneur for Space, Science, and Inclusion

8. Pandemic measures disproportionately harm women’s careers

9. The Secret Success Of Women In STEM Jobs In 2020

10. Why Are There So Few Women Full Professors?

11. Virtual Career Development Webinar A Whole New World: Preparing for Life After Academia

12. SGMA Committee Openings

13. Women Scientists Are the Rule Rather Than the Exception

14. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory and Women of Chilean Astronomy

15. NASA Fellowship Activity 2021

16. Job Opportunities

17. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

18. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

19. Access to Past Issues

An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.

1. Why We Leave
From JoEllen McBride via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

"The CSWA has existed for almost 42 years. In that time we have seen a growth in women in the field (although the number of men has also increased alongside this). The linked AIP report found that there was no significant attrition of women between career stages in astronomy. However, attrition does occur for people of all identities, especially those who are underrepresented. We all know someone who left the field at some point.

In order to celebrate and share the diverse career opportunities available to astronomers, the Women in Astronomy Blog began a Career Profile series around 2013. For respondents who left the field, we asked them: What were the most important factors that led you to leave astronomy and/or academia? At the end of this post, are selections I pulled from interviews with the tags ‘career profiles’, ‘career profile’, and ‘Career Profile Interview Project’ over the past eight years."

2. E.Z. Science: Women in Astronomy
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

Smithsonian Under Secretary for Science and Research Ellen Stofan and NASA associate administrator for science Thomas Zurbuchen discuss several important women in astronomy, including Mary Jackson and Nancy Grace Roman.

3. Jami Valentin Miller: Barrier-breaking physicist reflects on her journey
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

In 2006, Jami Valentin Miller became the first Black woman to receive her PhD in physics at Johns Hopkins University. During that time, she built a resource of Black women in physics and astronomy that has grown into the 200 strong African American Women in Physics, Inc. (AAWIP). Now a patent officer and CEO of AAWIP, Dr. Miller reflects on her journey in this interview with Medha Kallem.

4. Seeing the invisible: How Nobel laureate Andrea Ghez found the supermassive black hole in the Milky Way's center
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Meghan Bartels

"Astrophysicist Andrea Ghez has spent her scientific career peering at the center of the Milky Way, trying to see the invisible.

In 2020, she won a Nobel Prize for that work, which dramatically strengthened the evidence that a supermassive black hole, invisible to our instruments, is lurking at the heart of the galaxy. She also became just the fourth woman to win the Nobel Prize in Physics in the award's more than a century of history, a statistic she told Space.com she views as a responsibility.

Meanwhile, the same observing campaign that informed the prize-winning research continues today, as she and her colleagues tackle ever-deeper questions about the universe. "The goal is never to get a prize, but rather to do science," Ghez, who researches and teaches at the University of California, Los Angeles, told Space.com."

5. Great Women Scientists
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

Guest Rachel Ignotofsky, author of "Women in Science: 50 Fearless Pioneers Who Changed the World", joins the Science Edition of Press Conference USA to discuss her book and many of the women profiled in it, including astronomer Wang Zhenyi, NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson, and physicist Lise Meitner.

Listen at

https://www.voanews.com/episode/great-women-scientists-4621216

6. Sharon Glotzer's Deep Curiosity About Order From Chaos
From: John Mather [johncm12_at_gmail.com]

By Steven Strogatz

"Sharon Glotzer, a computational physicist and professor of chemical engineering at the University of Michigan, uses statistical mechanics to probe how the properties of materials emerge from the dynamics of their countless constituent particles. This week, she speaks with host Steven Strogatz about how a broken oil pump changed her life, how entropy is all about choices, and how she is driven to find the simple rules that explain the universe’s complexity."

Listen at

https://www.quantamagazine.org/sharon-glotzers-deep-curiosity-about-order-from-chaos-20210322

7. Sally Ride: Entrepreneur for Space, Science, and Inclusion
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

"What image first comes to mind when anyone thinks of astronaut Sally Ride? Some conjure the picture of Ride floating in zero gravity in the space shuttle, with a smile on her face holding a headset on her left ear. Or, maybe it is Ride standing alongside the five other women astronauts of the NASA 1978 astronaut class. For many, their knowledge of Sally Ride begins and ends at her NASA career and the title of the first American woman in space. After she retired from NASA, Sally Ride utilized her groundbreaking status to launch a variety of business ventures that would inspire the next generation of astronauts and scientists. Two of these businesses were the website Space.com and the education organization Sally Ride Science. Archival material from the Sally K. Ride Papers, held in the National Air and Space Museum Archives, helps us tell the story of these two business ventures."

8. Pandemic measures disproportionately harm women’s careers
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]

By Sara Reardon

Shutdowns and social-distancing measures aimed at combating the COVID-19 pandemic have disproportionately harmed the careers and well-being of US female academic researchers, finds a report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM).

Find the report at

https://www.nap.edu/catalog/26061/impact-of-covid-19-on-the-careers-of-women-in-academic-sciences-engineering-and-medicine

9. The Secret Success Of Women In STEM Jobs In 2020
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]

Ariane Hegewisch, Program Director for Employment and Earnings at the Institute for Women’s Economic Research, reports that "On the whole, women in STEM jobs are more likely to be in the second, more protected jobs,” adding that while “there’s very little from last year that was not impacted by covid,… it does not look as if women in STEM jobs were particularly hard hit by the covid recession in terms of unemployment the employer imposed on them.”

10. Why Are There So Few Women Full Professors?
From: Jessica Mink [jmink_at_cfa.harvard.edu]

By Kimberly Hamlin

"On February 26, I was promoted to full professor. This was, of course, welcome news, especially after a year of many personal disappointments and global tragedies. But how to mark a promotion that says more about the gender and racial disparities of the academy than it does about any one person’s accomplishments? As a historian of women and gender, I felt compelled to try to understand my own experiences in a broader context."

[requires free-to-create login -- eds.]

11. Virtual Career Development Webinar A Whole New World: Preparing for Life After Academia
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]

By Lisa Balbes

"For a graduate student or post-doc, the question of “What do I do next?” can be quite daunting. Your entire career has been moving to the next logical level of “school,” but suddenly there is no more school to go to. You are told that you can do anything you want, but how do you know what that is? This session will help you evaluate your personal values, skills, abilities, and knowledge to understand what sort of career will fulfill you professionally. It also will discuss what actions you can take now to put yourself in the best possible position for wherever you choose to go."

https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_y9djqxdfS2aq1WvrhKK7sA?dm_i=21FU,7B8VU,LWF61P,TNSUB,1

12. SGMA Committee Openings
From: Rolf Danner [rolf.m.danner_at_jpl.nasa.gov]

The Committee for Sexual-Orientation and Gender Minorities in Astronomy (SGMA) of the American Astronomical Society has several openings for full 3-year terms (starting June 2021). Please contact the SGMA Chair (rolf.m.danner at jpl.nasa.gov) if you are willing to add your voice to promote equality for sexual-orientation and gender minorities within our profession, including those identifying as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, asexual, questioning, or queer. Individuals at any career stage are invited to apply and non-members may apply as long as they become AAS members if selected. Committee members are expected to support and promote the goals of the committee and to participate in monthly zoom meetings.

SGMA seeks diverse representation to represent the full demography of the AAS, and so astronomers of all genders, sexes, career stages, races, ethnicities, neurodiverse or disability status, and sexual orientations are encouraged to apply. The committee especially encourages people of color to apply.

For more information about the committee see

https://aas.org/comms/sgma

If you are interested, please respond by April 28, 2021.

13. Women Scientists Are the Rule Rather Than the Exception
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Katherine Wright

"The science sections of bookstores are awash with biographies that recount the lives of past women scientists. These books typically highlight women from the same short list, which includes the physicists Marie Curie, Rosalind Franklin, and Jocelyn Bell Burnell.

While no one would dispute that these women made important contributions to science, focusing on the same few names over and over again reinforces the impression that science is—and always has been—an occupation for men with only the occasional women interlopers, says the writer and historian Leila McNeill. McNeill hopes her new book, which she coauthored with the writer and historian Anna Reser, will change that narrative by showing that women have always practiced science and in much larger numbers than most textbooks portray."

Read more at

https://physics.aps.org/articles/v14/49

14. The Vera C. Rubin Observatory and Women of Chilean Astronomy
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

"Initially called the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory was renamed to honor a pioneer in astronomy, particularly in the field of dark matter, one of the many mysteries the new observatory is expected to help probe. Beginning in the 1960s, Dr. Vera Rubin used a new instrument designed by Kent Ford to study the motion of galaxies. Rubin discovered that the stars in the galaxies she observed orbited faster than expected. One explanation for this discrepancy was that there was more mass in the galaxy than could be seen in the stars alone. Rubin’s observations helped provide the best observational evidence that the universe is not only composed of ordinary matter, but is actually dominated by dark matter.

Most Chilean observatories constructed in the last 60 years are operated by North American and European nations. For their access to Chile’s pristine skies, these international collaborators agreed to reserve 10% of observing time for Chilean astronomers, a percentage that many argue is not adequate... While the number of women astronomers in Chile remains low, women have succeeded in contributing to the extension of our knowledge of the universe. Dr. María Teresa Ruiz broke through her own barriers as she worked to become a trailblazer for women in Chilean astronomy. Born in Santiago, Ruiz was the first woman to earn a degree in the newly formed astronomy program at the University of Chile."

15. NASA Fellowship Activity 2021
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]

NASA has a fellowship opportunity for students enrolled in a master’s or doctoral degree program at a minority-serving institution (MSI) no later than Sept. 1, 2021. Students must intend to undertake a research-based Masters or Ph.D. program in a NASA-relevant field. An informational webinar will be held on April 7, and proposals are due May 24, 2021. Good luck!

Learn more at

https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/solicitations/summary!init.do?solId=%7b24E3CA0D-F71B-03FF-AD0E-AB283B3B1050%7d&path=open

16. 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

- Research Astronomer/Scientist, Space Telescope Science Institute
https://recruiting2.ultipro.com/SPA1004AURA/JobBoard/93330e50-7b3a-4ba8-94f2-6f32360aa4e1/OpportunityDetail?opportunityId=8120da03-ff8c-440b-bb92-5e4c224a6bf3

- Science Program Manager and Researcher, International Space Science Institute
https://www.issibern.ch/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/ScienceProgramManager.pdf

- Optical Systems Scientist (Research Scientist II), CHARA Array, Georgia State University
https://employment.gsu.edu -> "External Applicants" -> job number 21000398

17. 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.

18. 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.

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To unsubscribe from AAS Women by email:

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19. Access to Past Issues

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

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

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Women In Astronomy

Friday, April 2, 2021

AASWomen Newsletter for April 02, 2021

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