Issue of September 20, 2024
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Sethanne Howard, Hannah Jang-Condell, and Ferah Munshi
[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. --eds.]
This week's issues:
1. Crosspost: Encieh Erfani brings attention to fellow displaced scholars
2. Women in Astronomy Citizen Science Event
3. 2025 NASA Astrophysics Mission Design School Applications Due November 4, 2024
4. Call for 2025 ExoExplorers and ExoGuides
5. NASA's 'Hidden Figures' awarded Congressional Gold Medals for pioneering space work
6. Disappearing scientists: Attrition and retention patterns of 2.1 million scientists in 38 OECD countries
7. Letters of Intent and proposal deadlines for IAU Symposia in 2026
8. Examining how a documentary film can serve as an intervention to shift attitudes and behaviours around sexism in STEM
9. Decadal Survey Incubation Program
10. Nature Editorial: Why aren’t there talks with the Taliban about getting women and girls back into education?
11. Job Opportunities
12. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
13. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
14. 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.
Everything changed for Iranian cosmologist Encieh Erfani in the fall of 2022. On 16 September, 22-year-old Mahsa Amini died in police custody in Tehran following her arrest for allegedly breaching the country’s strict dress code for women. In Mexico at the time for a visiting fellowship, Erfani followed the news as the largest demonstrations in Iran since 2009 ensued.
A week after Amini’s death, Erfani spoke up in support of the “Woman, Life, Freedom” protest movement and resigned from her faculty position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Basic Sciences in Zanjan. Soon after, she says, her family in Iran received a threatening phone call. Erfani chose to remain in exile, fearing imprisonment if she were to return home.
Read more at
https://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2024/09/crosspost-encieh-erfani-brings.html
A NASA Cit Sci Leaders Series Event. Thursday, September 26, 2024 3:00 PM - 4:30 PM ET
Women hold up half the sky… but they don’t show up in these numbers in NASA-sponsored citizen science projects. Why is this? And what can we - men, women, and nonbinary people - all do to welcome people of all genders to participate?
All participatory science projects operate within specific cultural, economic and, and social structures. How do these societal forces shape women’s involvement in NASA-sponsored citizen projects, and what can we do to ensure that we are not inadvertently replicating structures or messages that deter participation in our projects?
This event will situate women's participation in astronomy citizen science in a broader social context and provide guidance on how projects can foster inclusive environments that women feel welcome in. We will also look at how lessons learned from this case study of women’s participation can be applied to broaden participation in our projects more generally.
Register for the event at
https://gmri-org.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcocOGorzMtGtE-zrw1O0ro7geVYvB4COVr#/registration
See more about the NASA Cit Sci Leaders series at
Now through November 4, 2024, NASA is encouraging applications for its 2nd Biennial Astrophysics Mission Design School. Offered by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, AMDS is a 3-month long early career development experience to help prepare the next generation of space science and engineering mission leaders. Participants learn the process of developing a science hypothesis-driven robotic space mission in a concurrent engineering environment while getting an in-depth, first-hand look at instrument design, mission life cycle, costs, schedule and the trade-offs inherent in each.
Applicants with the following education and career experience are eligible: Science and engineering Doctoral candidates (advancement to candidacy required), recent Ph.D.’s (up to three years beyond their Ph.D.), Postdocs, Junior Faculty with a Ph.D., and non-research Engineering Master-level students within six to nine months of graduation will be considered on a space-available basis.
Open to U.S. Citizens and legal permanent residents living within the U.S at the time of application and during the full session. There is no charge to attend, and applicants from diverse backgrounds are particularly encouraged to apply. Diversity, equity and inclusion are important to us, and we strive to create a welcoming environment where participants’ contributions and unique perspectives are valued.
Apply and learn more at
http://go.nasa.gov/missiondesignschools
NASA’s Exoplanet Explorers (“ExoExplorers”) Seminar Series is now accepting applications for its 5th cohort, which will run January - June 2025! This program supports the professional development of PhD candidates and postdoctoral researchers focused on exoplanet-related research or instrumentation. Each member of the cohort will be featured in a webinar that will be live-streamed to the exoplanet community, helping to increase their visibility within the field. Participants will also learn from established exoplanet researchers and engineers (“ExoGuides”) and will have access to professional development events on topics chosen by the cohort.
ExoExplorer and ExoGuide applications are both due by 6p Pacific time on October 18th, 2024.
For more information, including a full description of the program and instructions on how to apply, please visit the ExoExplorers website at:
https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exep/exopag/exoexplorers/
By Chandelis Duster
A group of Black female scientists and mathematicians known as NASA's “Hidden Figures” were honored with Congressional Gold Medals on Wednesday, the highest award given to citizens by Congress, for their contributions to space exploration.
Katherine Johnson, Mary Jackson, Dorothy Vaughan and Christine Darden were awarded the distinction along with other women for their contributions to developing the U.S. space program during the decades-long space race.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson praised the women and said they “made it possible for Earthlings to lift beyond the bounds of Earth, and for generations of trailblazers to follow.”
Read more at
Research has been showing that women scientists continue to disappear from science at a significantly higher rate and in higher percentages than men. This is what social scientists have thought for decades—but this is no longer the case today, according to a study published in Higher Education.
In the mathematized STEMM disciplines (MATH, PHYS, COMP, ENG), there is simply no difference between men and women in dropping out of science; the same is true for all STEMM disciplines combined.
Read more at
https://phys.org/news/2024-09-scientists-attrition-retention-patterns-million.html
Read the peer-reviewed study at
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10734-024-01284-0
By Laura Ferrarese, IAU Assistant General Secretary
This is to alert you to the fact that the Letters of Intent (LoI) received for Symposia to be held in 2026 are posted at https://iau.org/science/meetings/proposals/loi/2026/
LoIs are not mandatory, but encouraged to avoid unnecessary competition between proposals and to stimulate possible collaborations between otherwise competing groups. Therefore, if you have submitted an LoI, and/or if you are planning to submit a full proposal by the December 1st deadline, please take a look at the webpage above and, if warranted, consider possible coordination and collaborations.
I remind you that the Rules and Guidelines for IAU Scientific Meetings are available at https://www.iau.org/science/meetings/rules/
Finally, you will find listings of past and scheduled IAU symposia at https://iau.org/science/meetings/past/symposia/ and https://iau.org/science/meetings/future/symposia/
Two studies in Scientific Reports by Evava Pietri and collaborators find that the "Picture a Scientist" documentary featuring stories and research about bias in STEM resulted in measurable changes in viewers knowledge about and intentions to address bias in STEM.
Read the article at
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-024-72395-y
The overarching goals of the Decadal Survey Incubation Program are to promote (1) innovation in the research, development, and demonstration of new measurement technologies in preparation for future integrated observing system architectures, and (2) science activities that support maturation of measurement concepts, retrieval algorithms, models, data assimilation, and/or integrated observing system approaches.
ROSES-2024 Amendment 49 releases final text and due dates for A.55 DSI. Notices of intent are requested by October 17, 2024, and proposals are due December 17, 2024. A preproposal conference will be held September 25, 2024, 1:00-3:00 PM Eastern Time.
Read more at
By Nature
Three years after the Taliban took over Afghanistan, systemic discrimination against girls and women, including violence, is rampant. Girls remain locked out of education once they reach the age of 12 and women are banned from most jobs, including nearly all forms of research and teaching. The list of prohibitions on women has been extended to include speaking or singing in public. Last week, some 130 women attended a conference in Tirana, Albania — the largest public gathering of Afghan women who met to discuss the crisis since the takeover. “In our country, we now live like prisoners,” one delegate told The Guardian (see go.nature.com/3mostsa).
This shocking situation is made worse by the fact that the international community has no official mechanism or named initiative for talking with the Taliban about getting girls and women back to their lecture halls, libraries and laboratories. In a 22 August interview with the BBC, Richard Bennett, the United Nations special rapporteur for Afghanistan, said that there are no formal talks between the Taliban and the international community to return girls and women to education. He said: “The elephant in the room is why is there no working group [between the Taliban and other nations] to look at human rights and women’s rights.”
Read more at
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02992-4
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
- Assistant Professor in Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
https://puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/apply/application.xhtml?listingId=35861
- Future Faculty in the Physical Sciences Postdoctoral Fellowship, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
https://puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/apply/application.xhtml?listingId=36062
- Postdoctoral research positions in Astrophysical Sciences
https://puwebp.princeton.edu/AcadHire/apply/application.xhtml?listingId=36285
- James Arthur Postdoctoral Fellowship, New York University, New York, NY
https://cosmo.nyu.edu/index.php/opportunities/
- Tenure-Track Faculty Position in Astronomy and Astrophysics, Penn State University, University Park, PA
https://psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic/job/Penn-State-University-Park/Tenure-Track-Faculty-Position-in-Astronomy-and-Astrophysics_REQ_0000060251-1
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