Friday, January 3, 2025

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of January 3, 2025
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. Emily Calandrelli: 100th Woman in Space
2. Five Trailblazing American Women Will Be Featured on Quarters in 2025
3. See the Quadrantid meteor shower
4. Hudson Valley and Maria Mitchell
5. Australia 2025: Smart Science – Astronomy
6. 150 Years of Women at Berkeley Astronomy: Early Stars
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. Emily Calandrelli: 100th Woman in Space
From: Women In Astronomy via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

On November 24, 2024, Emily Calandrelli, an aerospace engineer and popular science communicator, became the 100th woman to reach space. Calandrelli joined five other passengers on Blue Origin’s ninth space tourism flight.

Read more at:

https://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2025/01/emily-calandrelli-100th-woman-in-space.html

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2. Five Trailblazing American Women Will Be Featured on Quarters in 2025
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]

By: Julia Binswanger

The U.S. Mint has announced the five trailblazing American women who will be depicted on quarters released in 2025: Ida B. Wells, a journalist and civil rights activist; Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA; Vera Rubin, a pioneering astronomer; Stacey Park Milbern, a disability activist; and Althea Gibson, a legendary golfer and tennis player.

Read more at

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/these-five-trailblazing-american-women-will-be-featured-on-quarters-in-2025-180985705/

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3. See the Quadrantid meteor shower
From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]

By: Jake Foster and Imo Bell

The year starts with a bang with the Quadrantids, one of the strongest and most reliable yearly meteor showers. Active from 28 December 2024 until 12 January 2025, this shower is famous for its ‘fireballs’, exceptionally bright meteors. In 2025 the Quadrantids peak on the night of 4 January, with a possible rate of up to 120 meteors per hour at the maximum.

Read More at:

https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/space-astronomy-highlights-2025#January

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4. Hudson Valley and Maria Mitchell
From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]

By: Reed Sparling

From the beginning, stargazing has been part of the curriculum at Poughkeepsie’s Vassar College. That’s because Maria Mitchell — America’s first female professional astronomer — was one of nine instructors selected to join the school’s founding faculty in 1865.

Read more at

https://www.scenichudson.org/viewfinder/pioneering-female-astronomers-legacy-lives-on-in-valley-and-beyond/

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5. Australia 2025: Smart Science – Astronomy
From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]

By: Brian Schmidt, Australian National University

In 2014, a number of major figures in Australian astronomy wrote fictionalized imaginations of what the 2025 Decadal Plan might look like. It is interesting to look back on it now that it is 2025, including how they imagined the gender balance in astronomy would change over the decade.

Read more at:

https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/2014/05/australia-2025-smart-science-to-reach-for-the-stars-australia-must-focus-on-astronomy

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6. 150 Years of Women at Berkeley Astronomy: Early Stars
From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.edu]

By: Jessica Lu

The number of women from Berkeley working in early stars is amazing.

Read more at:

https://astro.berkeley.edu/about/150w-astro/

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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

- 2025 Space Astronomy Summer Program at STScI - 15 positions
https://stsci.slideroom.com/#/permalink/program/82298

- Astronomy Lecturer faculty position in the Physics Department at UCF teaching not only intro astronomy but also upper-level undergrad astronomy subjects,
https://jobs.ucf.edu/jobs/lecturer-astronomy-and-physics-orlando-florida-united-states and https://aas.org/jobregister/ad/a120f94

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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/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.

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10. Access to Past Issues

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/search/label/AASWOMEN

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