AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of October 7, 2022
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Alessandra Aloisi, and Sethanne Howard
[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. --eds.]
This week's issues:
1. Remembering Sheila Tobias
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| Marquis Who's Who Ventures LLC |
2. Update from the AAS Committee for the Status of Women in Astronomy
3. 5 women who should have won a Nobel Prize
4. Newly minted Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi melds chemistry and biology to advance medicine
5. A poor introductory science degree grade has ‘devastating’ effect on students from under-represented groups
6. Improving soft skills crucial to keeping women in science, finds study
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
An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.
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1. Remembering Sheila TobiasFrom: Meg Urry via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
I was shocked to learn that Sheila Tobias died a year ago. She was a noted feminist with particular ties to, and affection for, the physical sciences. She wrote influential books on why so few women studied physics and math, including They’re Not Dumb, They’re Different and Overcoming Math Anxiety.
Most importantly for astronomers, she was a featured speaker at the 1992 Women in Astronomy meeting, at the Space Telescope Science Institute, in Baltimore, Maryland. I still remember sitting at the front of the lecture hall, listening to Sheila teach Feminism 101 in one riveting hour. I was simultaneously exhilarated (what clarity! the professoriate began in monasteries! the tropes of celibacy and singular focus and the sense of a “calling” are with us still) and terrified that the men in the room would be turned off by this challenge to their supposed meritocracy. But when the talk ended and I turned around, I saw only excited, smiling people.
Read more at
https://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2022/10/remembering-sheila-tobias.html
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2. Update from the AAS Committee for the Status of Women in Astronomy
From: Jeremy Bailin via AASNews Digest
As part of the CSWA's Strategic Plan, we are undertaking a number of projects within the focus areas of Harassment & Bullying, Creating Inclusive Environments for an Ethical Workplace, Professional Development, and CSWA Operations and Interactions. A group of current and past CSWA members is writing a series of papers that present the results of a large community survey conducted in 2019. The first paper details the background of the project, the methods, and the quantitative and qualitative survey data. The second paper presents the recommendations that the authors are making to the AAS. Our goal is to submit both of these papers to the Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society by the end of 2022.
https://aas.org/posts/news/2022/10/update-aas-committee-status-women-astronomy
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3. 5 women who should have won a Nobel Prize
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
By Katie Hunt
It was an all-male lineup of laureates for last year’s Nobel Prizes in medicine, physics and chemistry, awards which grant the recipients entry to the most prestigious club in science.
That none of the 2021 winners in those categories were female was, for some critics, more evidence of systemic bias in science, with women already less likely to be given credit or named as lead author on scientific papers despite more and more women participating in scientific research.
However, others say last year was a blip in a broadly positive trend, pointing to a lag effect…
Read more at
https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/30/europe/nobel-science-prizes-scn
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4. Newly minted Nobel laureate Carolyn Bertozzi melds chemistry and biology to advance medicine
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
By Krista Conger
Bioorthogonal chemistry, for which professor of chemistry Carolyn Bertozzi, PhD, was awarded the Nobel Prize Oct. 5, is a complicated name for what is a relatively simple (and elegant) concept: engineering two molecules, bobbing separately in the molecular sea of a living cell, so they have eyes only for each another. When their paths cross, they consummate their relationship with a tight embrace.
The method can be used to bring many kinds of molecules together, affixing fluorescent tags to sugar molecules to track their location on or inside a cell, to snap together components of disparate proteins to jolt the immune system into action inside a tumor, or to assemble a neurological-cancer-fighting drug after its individual components have slithered across the blood-brain barrier.
Read more at
https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2022/10/bertozzi-nobel.html
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5. A poor introductory science degree grade has ‘devastating’ effect on students from under-represented groups
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
[A} new study was carried out by a team led by the mathematician Nathaniel Brown from Pennsylvania State University, who examined the records of 109,070 students from six large, publicly funded research universities between 2005 and 2012. The researchers found that a white male student receiving grades of A, B or C in all introductory courses had a 48% chance of going on to earn a STEM degree. For a Black male student, however, the probability was 31% and for a Black female student it was only 28%.
Read more at
Read the journal article at
https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/1/4/pgac167/6706685
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6. Improving soft skills crucial to keeping women in science, finds study
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
Interpersonal skills such as teamwork, communication and resilience can be harder to teach than technical, cognitive and achievement-related abilities, often referred to as “hard skills”. Soft skills can, however, be important predictors of career success. Research has shown that due to structural and social barriers in STEM, particularly in male-dominated fields, women can struggle with high-status soft skills such as influencing colleagues and building strong strategic networks. Combined with lower levels of professional confidence, this leads to women leaving STEM fields at higher rates than men.
Read more at
https://physicsworld.com/a/improving-soft-skills-crucial-to-keeping-women-in-science-finds-study/
Read the journal article at
https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2123105119
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7. 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
- Tenured or Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Penn State University, PA
https://science.psu.edu/astro/job-opportunities
- Assistant Professor in Astrophysics & Cosmology at Yale University
https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/a329163d
- Assistant Professor in Physics Education Research or Astronomy Education Research, Texas A&M University-Commerce, TX
https://tamus.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/en-US/TAMUC_External/details/Assistant-Professor---Physics---Astronomy_R-054331
- Assistant Professor of Astrophysics, Louisiana State University, LA
https://lsu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/LSU/job/0271-JW-Nicholson-Hall/Assistant-Professor---Tenure-Track--Astrophysics-_R00073419
- Five College Astronomy Department Fellow, Mount Holyoke College, South Hadley, MA
https://careers.mtholyoke.edu/en-us/job/493170/five-college-astronomy-department-fellow
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8. 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.
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9. 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.
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10. Access to Past Issues
https://aas.org/comms/cswa/AASWOMEN
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
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