AASWomen Newsletter for November 22, 2019

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of November 22, 2019
eds: JoEllen McBride, Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and Alessandra Aloisi

Henrietta Leavitt, from item 3

This week's issues:

1. Kick-off Post for Two-Body Problem Series

2. New Video Interview Series from the Europlanet Early Career and Diversity Committees

3. How Henrietta Swan Leavitt Helped Build a Yardstick to Measure the Universe

4. The Scientist Who First Showed Us The Double Helix: A Personal Look At Rosalind Franklin

5. Supporting Parents and Caregivers in Science, Engineering, and Medicine

6. The Long Road to Getting, and Keeping, More Women in Science

7. Navigating the 'Old Boys' Club' of Science, With a Friend

8. Why I'm not applying for promotion

9. Want more women and minorities in STEM? Address social oppression in the classroom, says new research

10. 5 Ways to Welcome Women to Computer Science

11. The mental health of PhD researchers demands urgent attention

12. Are you guilty of equity offset?

13. Job Opportunities

14. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

15. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

16. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

AASWomen Newsletter for October 25, 2019

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of October 25, 2019
eds: JoEllen McBride, Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and Alessandra Aloisi

Jessica Meir and Christina Koch, NASA, from item 3

This week's issues:

1. Career Profiles: Astronomer to Communications and Stewardship Staff Writer

2. Zibi Turtle: Titan of Exploration

3. Why spacesuit design choices - not women's physiques - delayed the first all-female spacewalk

4. NASA reveals new spacesuits designed to fit men and women

5. Announcement: Upcoming Proposal Writing Workshops for R&A Proposals

6. Bill Recognizing 'Hidden Figures' for Contributions to U.S. during the Space Race Headed to President Trump's Desk to become Law

7. All co-first authors are equal, but some are more equal than others

8. Being reminded of bias makes students treat female professors fairer

9. Townhall: STEM Student Success- Investing in Minority Serving Institutions for Our Future Workforce

10. Three Ways Your STEM Organization Can Have More Women Leaders - AWIS Research

11. Vote for the Woman Because She's a Woman

12. The Ghost of the Glass Ceiling That Still Haunts Equal Pay

13. What Girls Really Need to Succeed in STEM

14. By age 6, kids tend to see white men as more 'brilliant' than white women

15. Job Opportunities

16. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

17. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

18. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

Women, People of Color and People with Disabilities Still Underrepresented in Science and Engineering

The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics recently released the 2017 Women, Minorities, and Persons with Disabilities in Science and Engineering report, the federal government's most comprehensive look at the participation of these three demographic groups in science and engineering education and employment.

The report shows the degree to which women, people with disabilities and minorities from three racial and ethnic groups -- black, Hispanic and American Indian or Alaska Native -- are underrepresented in science and engineering (S&E). Women have reached parity with men in educational attainment but not in S&E employment. Underrepresented minorities account for disproportionately smaller percentages in both S&E education and employment.

Source: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/2017/nsf17310/

Celebrating National Hispanic Heritage Month: The Arecibo Observatory Space Academy

Photo montage by Ricardo Correa 

Today’s guest bloggers are Edgard Rivera-Valentin and Luisa Zambrano-Marin. Ed is the Project Manager for the Space Academy and a staff scientist in the Planetary Radar group at the Arecibo Observatory. Luisa is the Program Coordinator for the Space Academy and a data analyst for the Planetary Radar Group at Arecibo Observatory.

We are Latinos, we are Scientists, and we are Educators. We often struggle to succeed in a field in which we are underrepresented and devalued both consciously and unconsciously by peers. Our upbringing, culture, and expectations are diverse and diverge from the “norm”. We understand what it’s like to feel unprepared for college, graduate school, and the professional workforce. And all too often, we know the struggle of breaking through established barriers in the scientific community. We are the 3%. 

Hispanics and Latinos are the largest underrepresented group with a measured interest in STEM fields. Studies show that Hispanic and Latino students are equally as interested in entering a STEM major in college as their White counterparts, and yet we are less likely to graduate with a degree in a STEM field (Crisp and Nora, 2012). There is indisputably a gap to be filled, one that we know occurs past the interest in STEM and before the student decides their career path. At the professional stage, it gets even more noticeable, despite the fact Latinos and Hispanics compose nearly 20% of the U.S. population, we only account for 3% of the STEM doctoral degrees and 3% of Physics faculty in the United States. 

So something is very wrong when we have a significant percentage of the population of which a significant number show strong interest in STEM fields and yet are not well represented in the professional stage.