Women In Astronomy: December 2022

Friday, December 23, 2022

AASWomen Newsletter for Dec. 23, 2022

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 23, 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. Happy Holidays
2. COVID-19's effect on astronomy publications: Boosted rates but a worsening gender gap
3. Mary Helen Wright Greuter
4. JWST report
5. Taliban bar women from university education in Afghanistan
6. Job Opportunities
7. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
8. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
9. Access to Past Issues
10. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
12. 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. Happy Holidays

From: aaswomen

By Sethanne Howard

Happy Holidays to one and all. Celebrate the winter/summer solstice.

2. COVID-19's effect on astronomy publications: Boosted rates but a worsening gender gap

From: Nicolle Zellner via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

A recent article published by Physics World reported that astronomers "published more papers per year during the COVID-19 pandemic than they did beforehand – but men enjoyed a disproportionate share of the increase."

4. JWST report

From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Sethanne Howard

The AAS President issued a responsse to the recent James Webb Telescope report

5. Taliban bar women from university education in Afghanistan

From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By The Associated Press

"Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Tuesday banned female students from attending universities effective immediately in the latest edict cracking down on women’s rights and freedoms. The university ban comes weeks after Afghan girls took their high school graduation exams, even though they have been banned from classrooms since the Taliban took over the country last year.”

Friday, December 16, 2022

AASWomen Newsletter for December 16, 2022

Jane Rigby, item 2.
Credit: Stephen Voss for Nature

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 16, 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. Beth Brown Memorial Award Winners for 2022
2. JWST's Jane Rigby leads Nature's Ten people who shaped science in 2022
3. Herschel Museum of Astronomy secures handwritten draft of Caroline Herschel’s memoirs
4. AstronomerAND: a new podcast featuring a diverse array of astronomers
5. December 8 is Latina Women's Equal Pay Day
6. Does diversity training work? We don’t know — and here is why.
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

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

1. Beth Brown Memorial Award Winners for 2022

From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]

By Dara Norman

"The AAS supports a prize program at the annual meeting of the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP): the Beth Brown Memorial Awards. They honor the memory of a vigorous and engaged young astronomer who passed away at age 39 from a pulmonary embolism. Beth Brown earned her bachelor's degree from Howard University and, in 1998, became the first African American woman to earn a PhD from the University of Michigan's astronomy department. She died in 2008 just before beginning a new position as Assistant Director for Science Communication at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. Although her time working in the professional astronomical community was short, she had a significant impact on our discipline, not least by serving as a role model for many students from underrepresented groups."

2. JWST's Jane Rigby leads Nature's Ten people who shaped science in 2022

From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Alexandra Witze

"Of all the hundreds of things that could have gone wrong with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) after it launched on 25 December 2021, Jane Rigby kept thinking of one nightmare scenario. As the US$10-billion telescope unfolded in deep space, it had to deploy a secondary mirror in front of its huge primary mirror so that it could capture and relay the precious photons back to Earth.

“That’s the one that scared me the most,” says Rigby, who is the telescope’s operations project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. “I could just visualize this beautiful telescope, the gold mirrors in space, focusing the light to nothing with no secondary mirror there.”

Despite her nerve-wracking vision, the telescope deployed its secondary mirror perfectly, along with all its other components over the course of one month. Rigby then helped lead the work to assess the telescope’s performance. The mission succeeded beyond almost everyone’s expectations. From the first jaw-dropping images released in July to the discoveries of distant galaxies and exoplanet atmospheres, JWST has dominated astronomy headlines throughout 2022. And of the thousands of astronomers who worked on the telescope over decades, Rigby has been a linchpin."

3. Herschel Museum of Astronomy secures handwritten draft of Caroline Herschel’s memoirs

From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Fine Books & Collections Magazine

"The Herschel Museum of Astronomy in Bath has been successful in its quest to buy Caroline Herschel’s own handwritten manuscript draft of her memoir, thanks to generous funding from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF), ACE/V&A Purchase Grant Fund and the Friends of National Libraries, facilitated via Christie’s Private Sales.

The fascinating 57-page document represents Caroline’s life in her own words and is an enormously important addition to the Herschel Museum’s collection, not least because her many scientific achievements were historically overshadowed by those of her brother, William Herschel (1738-1822).

This Manuscript Memoir gives us a unique and personal insight into the life and formative years of one of Britain’s most prominent astronomers and pioneering women in science. Much of Caroline’s personal correspondence and writing is still held by the Herschel family, so the acquisition of this manuscript provides a rare opportunity for public access."

4. AstronomerAND: a new podcast featuring a diverse array of astronomers

From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

A new weekly podcast, AstronomerAND, hosted by Jessica Schonhut-Stasik, features in-depth discussions with "astronomers from all over the community with a wide range of intersectionalities... or 'ands'."

Find more information at

https://www.spreaker.com/show/astronomerand

5. December 8 is Latina Women's Equal Pay Day

From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]

By Justice for Migrant Women

"Latina Equal Pay Day is the day that we observe the average additional months and days that Latinas have to work in order to be paid what a white, male non-Hispanic worker was paid in one year. For Latinas, it takes an average of 23 months to be paid what white, male non-Hispanic workers were paid in 12 months.

This year we will observe Latina Equal Pay Day on December 8th. Latinas were paid 54 cents to the dollar paid to white men in 2021. Latina Equal Pay Day is not a celebration. It is a day that we mark to show a grave disparity that exists for working Latinas across our nation. It is also a day of action when community members, advocates, business leaders and political leaders."

6. Does diversity training work? We don’t know — and here is why.

From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Betsy Levy Paluck

"In early June 2020, as Black Lives Matter protests flowered across the United States following the murder of George Floyd, businesses and other institutions rushed to enhance their diversity efforts. Chief diversity officer hires tripled among the largest publicly traded companies, enhancing diversity, equity and inclusion offerings for which U.S. companies paid an estimated $3.4 billion to outside firms that year.

What have we achieved with all this effort? In 2022, this question has special significance, as measures to increase diversity and racial equity have come under political attack, often by people who believe those shouldn’t be goals in the first place. But even among people who believe in the basic mission, common questions about diversity training have shifted from “Which training is best?” to “Is the training even a good idea?” and “Does the training have negative effects?”

The problem is that the real answer to all three of these questions is: We don’t know."

Article requires registration; read more at

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/12/12/diversity-training-effectiveness-psychologist/

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

- Tenure-Track Assistant Professor in Astrophysics, University of North Florida, Jacksonville, FL
https://www.unfjobs.org/postings/22087

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.

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

Join AAS Women List through the online portal:

To unsubscribe from AAS Women by email:

10. Access to Past Issues

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

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

Thursday, December 15, 2022

COVID-19's effect on astronomy publications: Boosted rates but a worsening gender gap

A recent article published by Physics World reported that astronomers "published more papers per year during the COVID-19 pandemic than they did beforehand – but men enjoyed a disproportionate share of the increase."

istockphoto.com

The change widened the gender gap in astronomy, as reported in Nature Astronomy by Vanessa Böhm (University of California, Berkeley) and Jia Liu (Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Japan). They examined the public records of refereed astronomy articles and non-refereed pre-prints published between 1950 and 2022 and found that the overall annual output of the field increased, mainly driven, they report, "by boosted individual productivity in most countries." They also found, though, that fewer papers were written by female astronomers and fewer women are among incoming new researchers as compared to pre-pandemic trends, in 14 out of 25 countries studied.

In response to a request by the AASWomen editors, Ethan Vishniac, Editor-in-Chief for journals published by the American Astronomical Society, wrote

I’m grateful for the authors for the work they did on this important topic and I think it’s a great service to the community. Past that, I think the community needs to think about what we can do to alleviate the disproportionate effect of the pandemic on women and younger researchers.

Find a general summary of the article at Physics World and the peer-reviewed artcile (with data and graphs) at Nature Astronomy.

Friday, December 9, 2022

AASWomen Newsletter for December 09, 2022

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

Dr. Jane Rigby from item 2 (Credit: BBC)

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 09, 2022
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Alessandra Aloisi, and Sethanne Howard

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. Be well! --eds.]

This week's issues:

1. CSWA Demographics Survey of Academic Institutions

2. BBC's 100 inspiring and influential women of 2022 includes JWST project scientist Jane Rigby

3. How to manage your time as a researcher

4. Supporting feminine leadership could help create a just and kinder future

5. Fear of Professional Backlash May Keep Women from Speaking Up at Conferences

6. Job Opportunities

7. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

8. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

9. 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.

Tuesday, December 6, 2022

CSWA Demographics Survey of Academic Institutions

By Sukanya Chakrabarti

Stock Photo

The Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA) is conducting a demographics survey to assess the tenure and promotion rates of astronomers in primarily U.S. academic institutions, with a focus on individuals at the intersection of multiple identities. Earlier surveys by Drs. Meredith Hughes in 2013 (presentation, report), Joan Schmelz in 2003 (summarized in 2011 and 2013), Jennifer Hoffman and Meg Urry in 2003 (data, report), and a 1992 STSCI survey now provide a 30-year baseline over which we can assess possible changes in tenure and promotion rates. Motivated by the recent AAS Decadal survey and the report from the Panel on the State of the Profession and Societal Impacts, this survey also includes questions about mentoring, parental leave, and other factors that may affect tenure and promotion. The survey has been designed with input from CSWA members as well as social scientist Dr. Vicki Baker. This particular survey is focused on astronomers at academic institutions, and future surveys will also aim to assess the career trajectories of astronomers at non-academic institutions, such as national observatories. The survey has been distributed to AAS members through the AAS member list and via a chairs list to U.S. academic departments.

While there has been an improvement at the entry level in astronomy (Martinez & Chritnacht 2021) for women and people of color, improvements in the upper echelons of academia are still lacking. Understanding the effects of parental leave on tenure and promotion is also critical to addressing the so-called “maternal-wall” problem where one sees substantial decrease in women’s participation in male-dominated STEM fields after having children (Cech & Blair-Loy 2019). Recent work has also highlighted long-term racial disparities in funding rates at the National Science Foundation (Chen et al. 2022). One may hope that the recent development of centers like the Center for the Advancement of STEM Leadership at UC-Santa Cruz to support early-career faculty and scholars of color will have a positive impact on our field in addressing these disparities. While such a center to support early-career faculty is quite new, there are now several long-running successful programs to support students of color - at the Banneker Institute, and the Lamat summer program, to name a few.

To better understand the trends in our field for women and people of color at the faculty level, it is essential that we gather demographic data across the country. To date, we have had more than 1137 respondents to our survey. Gathering data from more astronomers will enable us to develop a more statistically sound and robust picture of tenure and promotion rates for astronomers and to potentially study the impact of various societal factors on tenure and promotion.

The survey is here, and we encourage astronomers at U.S. academic institutions to take a few minutes to fill it out by December 15, 2022.

References

Cech, E. & Blair-Loy, M., 2019, “The changing career trajectories of new parents in STEM”, Proc. National Acad of Sciences, 2019, 116(10), 4182-4187.

Chen, C., et al., 2022, 10.31219/osf.io/xb57u

Friday, December 2, 2022

AASWomen Newsletter for Dec 2, 2022

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 2, 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. 2022 Holiday Gift-giving Guide
2. Women and LGBTQ+ people aren’t tokens — don’t treat them as such
3. The Women Behind ENIAC
4. We’re Living in a New Era for Women in Space, On Screen and Off
5. Job Opportunities
6. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
8. Access to Past Issues
9. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
11. 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. 2022 Holiday Gift-giving Guide

From: Nicolle Zellner via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

By Emily Rice, Debbie Kovalsky, and Kelle Cruz

Hello and happy holidays from STARtorialist HQ! In case we are new to you, STARtorialist was founded by professional astronomers to curate space- and science-themed products, support independent designers, and contribute to STEM education and outreach. After several years of pop-up ”BOOTHtiques” at AAS meetings, our online shop (https://shop.startorialist.com/) launched in summer 2020. We are grateful for the ongoing support of the astronomy research community, especially during the holiday season.

2. Women and LGBTQ+ people aren’t tokens — don’t treat them as such

From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Gwen Grinyer

"I recently turned down an invitation to participate in an important conference in my field. Such an invitation is normally an honour — and an opportunity for professional advancement that many early-career scientists don’t get. So, why did I decline?

The invitation wasn’t to talk about my research, but to co-organize a one-hour session for delegates to engage in conversations about equity, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in physics. According to conference rules, I was told, this session had to be led by a woman. My heart sank. I felt I was invited only because of my gender — not because of my qualifications as a scientist.”

3. The Women Behind ENIAC

From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Joanna Goodrich

Kathy Kleiman’s new book "Proving Ground: The Untold Story of the Six Women Who Programmed the World’s First Modern Computer” follows on her previous documentary film on the women responsible for programming ENIAC, the first general-purpose computer. In this interview, Kleiman discusses the accomplishes of these women and her inspiration in telling their story.

4. We’re Living in a New Era for Women in Space, On Screen and Off

By Margaret Weitekamp

"The critically acclaimed film 'Hidden Figures' (2016) brought public attention to significant aspects of NASA’s history. Based on Margo Lee Shetterly’s book of the same name, the movie dramatized the real-life story of three African American female mathematicians—KatherineJohnson (Taraji P. Henson), Mary Jack son (Janelle Monáe), and Dorothy Vaughn (Octavia Spencer)—who worked at the aeronautical research facility that became NASA’s Langley Research Center.

This history was not unknown. After all, President Barack Obama awarded Katherine Johnson the Presidential Medal of Freedom in November 2015, before both the movie and the book came out. And NASA announced some months before the movie was released that a newbuilding at Langley would be called the Katherine G. Johnson Computational Research Facility. But the popular reception of the movie greatly increased awareness of their story. Perhaps most significantly, the term “hidden figures” became shorthand for historiesthat had been forgotten (or previously ignored or dismissed), giving people a way to name those whose work had largely been overlooked.

The time seemed right for celebrating NASA’s women. In April 2016, Nathalia Holt published 'Rise of the Rocket Girls', recounting the histories of the women working at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory from its earliest days. Also in early 2016, months before HiddenFigures came out, Maia Weinstock, a science writer at MIT and Lego enthusiast, began designing a set of minifigures or “minifigs” depicting notable women of NASA.”

5. 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

- Tenure-track Assistant Professor in Astrophysics, University of North Florida

https://www.unfjobs.org/postings/22087

- Tenure-Track Astronomy Professor at Agnes Scott College

https://www.agnesscott.edu/careers/faculty-openings/full-time-faculty-in-physics-astronomy.html

- Tenure-Track Astronomy/Astrophysics Assistant Professor at Towson University

https://towson.taleo.net/careersection/fac_ex/jobdetail.ftl?job=220000X6

- Brinson Prize Fellowship in Planet Formation at Wesleyan University (deadline December 15)

https://careers.wesleyan.edu/postings/9271

- Two EMIT (Establishing Multimessenger Astronomy Inclusive Training) Postdoctoral Fellowships at Fisk University and Vanderbilt University

write to k.holley@vanderbilt.edu, with the subject line “EMIT Fellow”

- 2 postdoc positions in Supernova and in Data science in the Astronomy Department of the University of Virginia, Charlottesville - deadline Dec 15

https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/faa60782

- Assistant Professor of Astronomy at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville - deadline Dec 31

https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/7ae63067

- Downsbrough Endowed Chair in Astrophysics, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey

https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/f873796a

6. 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.

7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

Join AAS Women List through the online portal:

To unsubscribe from AAS Women by email:

8. Access to Past Issues

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

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

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.

10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

Join AAS Women List through the online portal:

To unsubscribe from AAS Women by email:

11. Access to Past Issues

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

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

Thursday, December 1, 2022

Cross-post: An American’s five-country research tour

Written by Tess Jaffe for the career issue of Physics Today.

Photo Credit: NASA

A year ago former Physics Today editor-in-chief Charles Day asked me to write a narrative of what we termed my “rather bizarre career path.” That’s a reasonable summation. My first research experience in astronomy was a summer internship I did after my freshman year of college. Having no astronomy background, I applied on a whim and happened to be accepted as their wild card for the year. While modeling stellar atmospheres, I fell in love with the subject. It was a fantastic experience that made me decide to pursue a physics major. But when I returned for my sophomore year, motivated and with a plan, I effectively flunked out of the physics program. That roller-coaster experience turned out to be a microcosm of my career.

Read more about Dr. Jaffe's career path and salary history at

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/PT.3.5100