Issue of June 7, 2024
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. NASA SMD Bridge Program: Funding Opportunities for non-R1 Institutions
2. Australia’s key program for gender equity in STEM was scrapped last week
3. Create Your Own Astronomy Masterpiece to Inspire and Engage
4. Celebrate Your New Zealand Science Heroine
5. Who is the person behind Nvidia's next-gen platform 'Rubin'?
6. ‘I saw that discrimination wasn’t hearsay or rumours — it really did exist’
7. A shocking 79% of female scientists have negative experiences during polar field work
8. MeerKAT Radio Telescope Call for Observing Proposals
9. Job Opportunities
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.
The Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Bridge Program’s primary goal is to develop sustainable partnerships between NASA science and engineering researchers and faculty and students at institutions historically under-resourced by NASA. These institutions include Minority-serving Institutions (MSIs) such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), Primarily Black Institutions (PBIs), and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and also Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs) and community colleges. These research collaborations include faculty and NASA researchers and paid student research opportunities, with the goal of transitioning the students from undergraduate studies into graduate schools and/or employment by NASA or other STEM employment.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2024/06/nasa-smd-bridge-program-funding.html
With little fanfare last week, Science and Industry Minister Ed Husic announced that the position of Australia’s Women in STEM Ambassador would be discontinued.
The reason for this advice? Hundreds of disconnected STEM activities that have not been very effective in addressing gender equity issues and an increase in the number of women in STEM-qualified occupations at the same percentage as men (4%).
However, the position's cancellation could actually be good news.
Read more at
By National Girls Collaborative Project
Join Girls STEAM Ahead with NASA and educators from the MicroObservatory Robotic Telescope Network in this interactive webinar. Learn how to remotely control a real telescope and create stunning astrophoto masterpieces using a simple image enhancement tool used by astronomers. Designed specifically for facilitators to include engaging digital and hands-on activities, this empowering event is your gateway to nurture your audiences’ STEM identity. Register by July 26, 2024, to receive a materials kit that you can use during this webinar.
The webinar is at August 13, 2024, 12:15 PM Pacific / 3:15 PM Eastern. Register at
http://ngcproject.app.neoncrm.com/np/clients/ngcproject/event.jsp?event=770
By Assocation for Women in the Sciences
On 14 June, all New Zealanders are invited to celebrate their science heroines for Dell Day.
Dell Day marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Dame Miriam Dell, a botanist, science teacher and advocate of women’s rights. To honour Dame Miriam, the Association for Women in the Sciences (AWIS), of which Dame Miriam was Patron, hopes to bring together all New Zealanders to celebrate New Zealand women in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths).
Read more at
https://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC2406/S00018/celebrate-your-new-zealand-science-heroine.htm
See in particular this biography of Beatrice Tinsley
https://teara.govt.nz/en/biographies/6t5/tinsley-beatrice-muriel
By Judy Lin
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang surprised the audience by disclosing its next-generation platform's name "Rubin." Since Nvidia has been naming its products and platforms after famous scientists, who is the "Rubin" that the next generation platform is named after?
Richard Chang, a retired engineer-turned-popular science writer, wrote that Jensen Huang already gave a hint to the mystery. "Vera is the name of the CPU to be used for the platform."
Chang pointed out that Nvidia has been naming its products after scientists since 1998. For example, in 2022, Nvidia named its CPU and GPU architecture after Grace Hopper, the "Mother of COBOL", and the next-generation products announced this time is an astronomer. Rubin and Vera are the first and last names of Vera Rubin, who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates.
Read more at
https://www.digitimes.com/news/a20240606VL202/nvidia-rubin-blackwell-ai-gpu-nvidia-grace.html
By Robin Donovan
JoAnn Trejo’s early mentors include a primary-school vice-principal who inspired her to continue her education and an engineer who helped her to get summer research jobs testing groundwater at a mining site.
Now senior assistant vice-chancellor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) medical school, Trejo co-leads the university’s Faculty Mentor Training Program , alongside measures to encourage postdoctoral scholars from under-represented backgrounds. A pharmacologist, Trejo grew up in poverty in a single-parent, Mexican immigrant family.
Data and research back up the success of her initiatives.
Read more at
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-01685-2
By Rebecca Duncan
Every day, women are working on frontier science in Earth’s unforgiving polar environments. Our study, published today in PLOS Climate, investigated what their experiences are actually like.
Fieldwork in the Arctic and Antarctica is a critical part of the scientific research that’s addressing the unprecedented challenges of global climate change. It ranges from day trips to living onboard research ships in the Arctic and Southern Oceans, to spending months at research bases in the polar regions.
Women play a critical role in just about all of it. They take on fieldwork roles from research assistant to team leader. However, our survey found women overwhelmingly report negative experiences during polar fieldwork.
Conditions need to change – institutions and fieldwork leaders have a responsibility to consider women’s needs. They also must increase accountability for problematic behaviour.
Read more at
By Fernando Camilo
The South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO) announces an opportunity to apply for observing time on the MeerKAT telescope.
A minimum of 3,000 hours of telescope time will be awarded through this opportunity. Novel proposal types are offered in this Call.
Read more at
https://aas.org/posts/news/2024/06/meerkat-radio-telescope-call-observing-proposals
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
- Postdoctoral Associate in Exoplanet, Stellar and Solar Research
https://lowell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/2024-26-Exoplanet-Postdoctoral-Associate-Position-Announcement.pdf
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.
Join AAS Women List through the online portal:
To Subscribe, go to https://aas.simplelists.com/aaswlist/subscribe/ and enter your name and email address, 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment