Issue of April 22, 2022
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Alessandra Aloisi, Jeremy Bailin and Sethanne Howard
[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. Be well! --eds.]
This week's issues:
2. Infusing IDEA Culture throughout Astronomy
3. The challenge of gender bias: experiences of women pursuing careers in STEM
4. Interview with Bimla Buti on plasma physics and shrinking the gender gap
5. Women in Astronomy: Dr. Ann-Marie Madigan
6. Today in STEM History: Women's World Fair
7. Advancing IDEA in Planetary Science
8. To advance equality for women, use the evidence
9. Pinning Down the Jellyfish: The Workplace Experiences of Women of Color in Tech
10. The Early Women Programmers Who Brought ENIAC to Life
12. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
13. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to 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. Crosspost: Risa Wechsler named 2022 Physical and Biological Sciences Distinguished Graduate Student Alumna
From Bryne Hadnott via http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/
By: Haneen Zain for UC Santa Cruz
Risa Wechsler (Ph.D. Physics’ 01) has always been interested in the biggest questions of the universe:
How did the universe form? What is it made of? How did it evolve over the last 13.8 billion years? How did structure form in the universe?
Those questions stayed with Wechsler throughout her academic career as she pursued an S.B. in physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Ph.D. in physics at UC Santa Cruz. She has since played an instrumental role in groundbreaking research in the cosmology field, with pioneering galaxy structure and cosmic structure surveys and more than 300 widely cited publications. Wechsler has also taken strides in ensuring the growth of diversity and inclusion within the physics and astronomy community.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2022/04/crosspost-risa-wechsler-named-2022.html
Back to top.2. Infusing IDEA Culture throughout Astronomy
From Bryne Hadnott via http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/
By: Joan Schmelz
Ideally, Inclusion, Diversity, Equity & Accessibility (IDEA) should be part of the way we do business. Everyone should be aware of the issues that hinder the progress of underrepresented groups, and we should all be working to mitigate them. In practice, however, IDEA problems and strategies are often relegated to a committee that is expected to do the hard work and make positive change.
Although we have made progress with this model, imagine the differences that might be achievable if we could infuse IDEA culture throughout our organizations/businesses/universities/communities.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2022/04/infusing-idea-culture-throughout.html
Back to top.3. The challenge of gender bias: experiences of women pursuing careers in STEM
From: Heather Flewelling [flewelling.heather_at_gmail.com]
By Nayeli Stopani Barrios, Jessica Becker, Elise Murphy and Larissa Sanches
Women pursuing STEM careers have faced many challenges in the past, and they continue to do so today. In the past, many of these challenges were built into the framework of our public and private institutions and our legal system. Women, for example, were not allowed to attend college and earn a college education until 1840, when Catherine Brewer was the first woman to earn a bachelor’s degree. Gaining a graduate degree wasn’t possible until 1849, when Elizabeth Blackwell earned her medical degree (U.S. News, 2009). Without access to higher education, women had no chance of gaining enough experience and expertise to secure a job of any significance, let alone a career in STEM.
Read more at
https://www.unr.edu/nevada-today/blogs/2022/the-challenge-of-gender-bias-in-pursuing-stem-careers
Back to top.4. Interview with Bimla Buti on plasma physics and shrinking the gender gap
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
By Toni Feder
"Bimla Buti’s mentors were her father, Bodh Raj, and Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar. In India when she was growing up, her father encouraged her to pursue her interest in math and science, and in the US, Chandrasekhar, her PhD adviser—who later was awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in Physics—became a lifelong guide.
After she earned her PhD in 1962 at the University of Chicago, Buti’s academic career took her back and forth between India and the US. She also had a long association with the Abdus Salam International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy, including nearly two decades as director of plasma physics there.
After Buti retired from research, in 2003, she started the Buti Foundation. “I wanted to give something back to society,” she says. The foundation promotes education, advancement of knowledge, and computer literacy and strives to help the public connect with science. “I am putting more and more effort into reducing the gender gap in STEM,” she says. “That is my big priority now.”"
Read the interview at
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.4.20220415a/full
Back to top.5. Women in Astronomy: Dr. Ann-Marie Madigan
From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]
By Sabina Sagynbayeva
"From large to small, from galaxies to planetesimals – Professor Ann-Marie Madigan is interested in it all. Dr. Ann-Marie Madigan is an Assistant Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Colorado, Boulder. Her group is primarily interested in dynamics of all kinds of objects. “There are three areas right now that my group is focused on. At the largest scale, we’re trying to understand the motions of dark matter in disk galaxies. […] The second scale, going a little bit smaller, is looking at stars that orbit supermassive black holes. […] And then at the smallest scale is […] what happens to the small bodies in planetary systems: the planetesimals, asteroids, comets, everything that’s too small to be a planet.”"
Read more at
https://astrobites.org/2022/04/18/women-in-astronomy-dr-ann-marie-madigan
Back to top.6. Today in STEM History: Women's World Fair
From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]
By Maryland Science Center
"Today in STEM History: In 1925, the first Women’s World’s Fair opened in Chicago. The idea of the completely women-run fair was to display the progress of ideas, work, and products of 20th century women."
See more at
https://www.facebook.com/MarylandScienceCenter/photos/a.121953196626/10157969223271627
Back to top.7. Advancing IDEA in Planetary Science
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
"Advancing IDEA in Planetary Science" will take place from April 25-29. This virtual conference has the goal of ensuring “that the planetary science community can take giant leaps in advancing IDEA principles in the workforce over the next decade.” The conference is free and registration is open. Whether a planetary scientist or not, the talks and workshops are sure to be engaging, informative, and inspiring.
To register, go to
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/advancingidea2022/registration
See the program at
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/advancingidea2022/pdf/advancingidea2022_program.htm
Back to top.8. To advance equality for women, use the evidence
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellenr_at_albion.edu]
Michelle Ryan, the inaugural director of the Global Institute of Women’s Leadership at the Australian National University in Canberra, thinks a lot about what it takes to achieve gender equity in the workplace. She's found that many institutions don't base their policy on established research and instead make three common missteps that continue to disadvantage women as they progress through their careers.
Read about those missteps and how to correct them at
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-01045-y
Back to top.9. Pinning Down the Jellyfish: The Workplace Experiences of Women of Color in Tech
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
By WorkLife Law
"Our report challenges the narrative that the underrepresentation of women of color in tech is only due to the leaky STEM pipeline. Our new quantitative study shows that bias within the workplace plays a significant role.
Women of color were dramatically more likely than white women to report bias in hiring, assignments, promotions and compensation, performance evaluations, and access to sponsorship networks. Women of color’s experiences of bias were associated with being 37.6 percentage points less likely than white women to report that they could see a long-term future for themselves at the organization and 16.4 percentage points more likely to report that they have left or considered leaving a company because of its culture.
While the experiences of women of color in tech tended to cluster close together, and apart from white women, our report highlights how womens’ workplace experiences vary based on race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation & first-generation status."
Read more at
Read the full report at
Back to top.10. The Early Women Programmers Who Brought ENIAC to Life
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
By Stephen Cass
"The Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer—better known as ENIAC—became the world’s first programmable general-purpose electronic computer when it was completed in 1945. ENIAC’s hardware was designed by John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert, but the programs it ran were largely the creation of a team of six women. For decades, these women were largely unknown, except only as unidentified figures in photographs of ENIAC. But as an undergraduate, Kathy Kleiman—who would later help found ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers)—started looking into who they were. This weekend at the Vintage Computer Festival East in Wall, N.J., Kleiman will be screening her short documentary The Computers, about the programmers. In advance of her talk, IEEE Spectrum spoke to Kleiman about the ENIAC women and her fascination with them."
Read the interview at
https://spectrum.ieee.org/eniac-woman-programmers
Back to top.11. 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#howtoincrease
- Senior Software Engineer, STScI, Baltimore, MD https://recruiting2.ultipro.com/SPA1004AURA/JobBoard/93330e50-7b3a-4ba8-94f2-6f32360aa4e1/OpportunityDetail
Back to top.12. 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.13. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
Join AAS Women List through the online portal:
To Subscribe, go to https://aas.simplelists.com and in the "Subscribe" area, add in your name, email address, select "The AASWomen Weekly Newsletter", and click subscribe. You will be sent an email with a link to click to confirm subscription.
To unsubscribe from AAS Women by email:
Go to https://aas.simplelists.com in the "My account and unsubscriptions", type your email address. You will receive an email with a link to access your account, from there you can click the unsubscribe link for this mailing list.
Back to top.14. Access to Past Issues
https://aas.org/comms/cswa/AASWOMEN
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