AASWomen Newsletter for February 19, 2021

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of February 19, 2021
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Maria Patterson, Alessandra Aloisi, and Jeremy Bailin

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

Arianna Rosenbluth, from item 3
Credit: The Rosenbluth Family

This week's issues:

1. The pursuit of gender equity in astronomy: how do we know what’s working?

2. #BlackInAstro founder Ashley Walker is fighting for equality in the space sciences

3. Arianna Rosenbluth Dies at 93; Pioneering Figure in Data Science

4. Pay gap widens between female and male scientists in North America

5. Panel: Money, Gender & Diversity in Higher Ed

6. Jon Schneider's Tech Blog: Interview: Amanda Schneider Milne, Software Developer / Manager / Executive

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 of the AASWomen Newsletter

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

AASWomen Newsletter for June 7, 2019

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

Issue of June 6, 2019

eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

[AAS has migrated their email system to Microsoft Exchange, so please check your spam folder if you did not receive the newsletter this week. It is no longer possible to subscribe or unsubscribe to the AASWomen newsletter by means of Google Groups, and we continue to work on developing new instructions. Please follow us on social media for updates and bear with us as we work out all the kinks. 

Twitter @AAS_Women Facebook https://bit.ly/2PkU9of]

This week's issues:

1. AAS 234 Summer Meeting Sessions You Shouldn't Miss 

2. NAS Members Approve a Bylaw Amendment to Permit Rescinding Membership

3. Make reports of research misconduct public

4. 75 years after D-Day: Salinas woman, 98, served as military geologist during World War II

5. Astronomy Magazine: Women in the Apollo Program 

6. Tracking Down JoAnn Morgan, a Semi-Hidden Figure of U.S. Space History  

Astrophysicist Federica Bianco spends at
least an hour training in a boxing gym
everyday. (image by Alan Yu/WHYY)

7. Astrophysicist explains how boxing makes her a better scientist

8. Group devoted to combating sexual harassment in science is in turmoil as leaders exit 

9. Ph.D. programs drop standardized exam 

10. Use peer-to-peer research collaboration in graduate school

11. How I explained a gap in my CV when applying to graduate school

12. Racial and gender biases plague postdoc hiring

13. The Data Science Diversity Gap: Where Are the Women?

14. In Space, This Diverse Company Naturally Attracts Women: COO

15. These 12 Women Are Killing It in STEM Fields — and They Want You to Join Them

16. Job Opportunities

17. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

18. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

19. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

Career Profile: Astronomer to Analytics Company Founder and Chief Scientist

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with Dr. Genevieve Graves, an astronomer who left astronomy to co-found a "people analytics" company, hiQ Labs, and become its chief data scientist. Dr. Graves received her Ph.D. at UC Santa Cruz working with Professor Sandra Faber.  Following her Ph.D., she went to the UC Berkeley Department of Astronomy as a Miller Fellow, and then to the Department of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University as a postdoctoral fellow.  Her astronomical research focussed on star formation histories and galaxy evolution.  

Recently, she was featured in the Harvard Business Review in an article on "Why people quit their jobs" (see the "This is an Early Warning Signal" feature box).

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. New Career Profiles are posted approximately every month.

Astronomer to Health Care Data Scientist

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with Kimberly Scott, an astronomer turned health care data scientist.

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. New Career Profiles are posted approximately every month.

Career Profiles: Astronomer to Data Scientist at a Non-Profit

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with Erin Grand, an astronomer turned data scientist at a non-profit organization.

For access to all our Career Profile Project interviews, please visit http://aas.org/jobs/career-profiles. New Career Profiles are posted approximately every month.

A Data Driven Approach to Ending the Wage Gap

Originally printed in Quartz:

More than 20 years that have passed since the National Committee on Pay Equity first called for action on the gender wage gap. But not much has changed. Women continue to earn less than men, and research shows that women often have less successful salary negotiations, sacrificing tens of thousands of dollars in future earnings. As a woman who works in the tech industry, I often find myself asking: What will it take to truly drive change and close the gender wage gap?

For me, the answer is data.

After I graduated with a PhD in Astrophysics from UC Berkeley, I was interviewing for a job as a data scientist in San Francisco. My prospective new boss said, “I know you make about $14,000 a year as a graduate student at Berkeley, I’m going to offer you more than that.” And he did! Imagine my excitement when my starting salary was much more than my graduate stipend.

At the time, I had no idea what I should be making, nor did I know how to negotiate, as my last “job” had been in a completely different industry. What’s more, I had no other comparable offers to use as a baseline. I attempted to a higher salary because I was told that you always should, but I was ultimately unsuccessful.

Read the full story at Quartz.

Astronomer to Data Scientist, Three Years Later

In August 2012, I began my first job as a data scientist. I handed my completed dissertation to my committee on a Friday and the following Monday I started work. Leaving academia (and astronomy) was not an easy decision for me. I remember starting that first day thinking: "Well... if this doesn't work out, I guess I'll reapply for post-docs again next year." It ended up working out better than I could have imagined. I wrote several posts about this transition during my first year working as a data scientist, but I thought I'd reflect and talk about what it has been like working as a data scientist, now that I am further along in my career.

Much of what I said in my post Astronomy vs Data Science continues to hold true today, and so below I will simply add some new perspectives now that I have a bit more experience in the field. 

Nailing the Tech Interview

Advice from Both Sides of the Interview Table

A year ago, I made the transition from astrophysicist to data scientist. One of the harder parts of making the transition was convincing a tech company (during the interview process) that I could do the job. Having now been on both sides of the interview table, I’d like to share some advice to those wishing to break into the tech/data science industry. While this advice is applicable to candidates in general, I’m going to be gearing it towards applicants coming from academia / PhD programs.

Most tech companies are interested in smart, talented people who can learn quickly and have good problem solving skills. We see academics as having these skills. Therefore, if you apply for internships or jobs at tech companies, you will most likely get a response from a recruiter.  The problem is that once you get an interview, there are a lot of industry-specific skills that the company will try to assess, skills that you may or may not have already.

Below are some of the traits we look for when recruiting for the Yammer analytics/data team, descriptions of how we try to determine if a candidate has these traits, and what you should do to ‘nail’ this aspect of the interview.

Astronomy vs. Data Science

In response to my last post about the transition from Astronomer to Data Scientist many readers wanted to know the pros and cons of academia versus tech. Below I outline a few of the major differences between these career paths. Obviously, there is a lot of variety in individual companies, institutions, and experiences -- so please understand that the below is simply my (somewhat biased) perspective.

Astronomer to Data Scientist

I recently made the transition from astrophysics researcher to data scientist for a tech company (Yammer / Microsoft). Below are suggestions for people in academia / research who are interested in pursuing a tech job.

Most tech companies are interested in smart, talented people who can learn quickly and have good problem solving skills. Scientists have these attributes. Therefore if you apply for jobs at tech companies, you'll likely get at least a response from a recruiter. However, once you get an interview, there are many other skills that the company will try to assess, skills that you may or may not have already.

Below are some tips which will help you both in the application / interview process, as well as on the job at a tech company.