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Issue of June 16, 2023
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Sethanne Howard, and Hannah Jang-Condell
[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. --eds.]
This week's issues:
1. Crosspost: Encourage whistle-blowing: how universities can help to resolve research’s mental-health crisis
2. Increasing Women’s Representation in STEM Fields
3. Meet Annie Jump Cannon, the “Harvard Computer” that Brought Order Out of Chaos
4. Sexual Harassment Still Pervades Science
5. 'Her Space, Her Time': Quantum physicist Dr Shohini Ghose to release book championing women in science
6. Tackling pervasive sexism in Australian science requires money, leadership and time
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.
By the editors of Nature
Researchers working in academia are more likely to experience anxiety and depression than are members of the population at large, as we report in a Feature investigating the mental-health crisis in science. The COVID-19 pandemic has taken its toll on researchers, as it has on many in wider society, but it is clear that a major factor common in academia is a toxic work environment. Credit: Alamy
A proliferation of short-term contracts, low salaries (particularly for early-career researchers), competitive working environments and pressure to publish are all contributors — but so are bullying, discrimination and harassment. Study after study has reported on the devastating effects that these behaviours can have, especially on under-represented groups such as women, people of colour, low-income students and members of sexual and gender minorities.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2023/06/crosspost-encourage-whistle-blowing-how.html
By Nina Gray
Women remain underrepresented in academe, despite existing diversity efforts and significant investments. Traditionally, members of the academy have been evaluated based on publications, recommendation letters and teaching evaluations. While these tools seem objective, repeated studies show they are biased. To counter this, members of the academy must alter the culture that gives rise to and reinforces identity-based bias. The path forward is not to decrease reliance on performance metrics, but to change ingrained views and add new, intentional behaviors that will reduce their bias.
Read more at
By Paul M. Sutter
In the early 20th century our understanding of stars was a complete and total disaster. It took the genius of Annie Jump Cannon, who was hired as a human computer, to create some order out of the chaos.
Read more at
By Jenny Morber, Starre Vartan
Scientific field work has long been rife with sexual harassment in part because of its remote nature, and despite the impression that institutions are responding to these claims via high-profile academic cases that have stalled or ended careers, very little is changing.
A 2018 National Academies of Science (NAS) report found that more than half of women faculty and staff, and up to half of women students, have experienced sexual harassment. This incidence is second only to the military. Outside the personal psychological destruction sexual harassment causes, it negatively affects careers, and affects what research that gets done and who does it. This is unfair and bad for science. Yet despite the severity of the issue, harassment statistics in the sciences haven’t budged since the 1980s.
Read more at
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sexual-harassment-still-pervades-science/
By Shubhangi Dua
Dr Shohini Ghose specializes in quantum information science and is one of few female physicists paving the way for women in science, a field traditionally dominated by men. Ghose is Professor of Physics and Computer Science at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada, and her research publications focus on quantum communication, teleportation, multiparty quantum correlations and quantum chaos. During lockdown Ghose decided to write her third book, celebrates great women from the history of physics and science.
Read more at
By Robin Bell
"I’m no stranger to tackling sexism in science. From 2004 to 2010, I led a programme to diversify the Lamont–Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University in Palisades, New York, by changing its culture. When I started, only two members of Lamont’s teaching faculty were women — less than 10%. Today, more than half of faculty members are women.
For the past five months, I’ve been a visiting scientist as the Fulbright distinguished chair in science, technology and innovation at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s national science agency in Hobart. One of my goals was to share evidence-based practices to diversify scientific workplaces.
In April, a scathing report revealed gender inequity, bullying and sexual harassment in the Australian Antarctic Division. Three days after its release, tears filled people’s eyes during my talk on fostering culture change in polar research when I spoke of the need to fix the system, not the women."
Read more at
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-01925-x
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