Women In Astronomy

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy maintains this blog to disseminate information relevant to astronomers who identify as women and share the perspectives of astronomers from varied backgrounds. If you have an idea for a blog post or topic, please submit a short pitch (less than 300 words) to wia-blog at lists.aas.org. The views expressed on this site are not necessarily the views of the CSWA, the AAS, its Board of Trustees, or its membership.

Friday, February 28, 2014

AASWOMEN February 28, 2014

Posted by Unknown

AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of February 28, 2014
eds. Michele M. Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, Nick Murphy, & Nicolle Zellner

This week's issues:

1. STATUS newsletter for January 2014 now available online

2. Guest post: AAS Dinners to Discuss Dual-Career Couples

3. Addressing the Campus Rape Culture in the US

4. US Position Threatened?

5. Additional Women's History Month Resources

6. Embracing Adventure, Achieving Success

7. APS March Meeting Events Focused on Women and Minorities

8. Summer AAPT meeting requests posters/papers

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 of the AASWomen Newsletter

Guest post: AAS Dinners to Discuss Dual-Career Couples

Posted by Unknown

Today I am sharing a guest post by P. R. McCullough. Dr. McCullough received a PhD in Astrophysics from UC Berkeley in 1993, then moved to University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign first on a Hubble fellowship, then becoming an assistant professor. Dr. McCullough moved to the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, MD in 2002 and is an associate astronomer there.

How many times have you read, "We seek a highly motivated and qualified individual ... "?

Young's double slit experiment, Cooper pairs, quantum entanglement, these and other phenomena are understood not by treating the associated individuals independently, but by acknowledging their duality. For Young's double-slit experiment, by considering the light passing through one slit or the other slit individually, you will get the wrong answer, every time, regardless of your own good intentions, your institution's policies, and even society's human-made laws.

Addressing the Campus Rape Culture in the US

Posted by Ed Bertschinger

Trigger Warning: this blog entry refers to sexual assault on college and university campuses.

Unpleasant topics should not always be avoided. Ask any college or university president or provost what her or his top concerns are, and chances are that the top five will include sexual violence. That's because one in five women are sexually assaulted while in college and the spotlight is being turned on colleges in a serious way. Two weeks ago, the University of Virginia hosted a conference on this topic; one month ago the White House launched a new initiative to reduce sexual assault on campuses. Numerous colleges and universities face sexual assault investigations under Title IX, and a new law, the Campus Sexual Violence Elimination (SaVE) Act, is going into effect this year. Every college and university that receives federal funding -- including all those with students receiving Pell grants -- is now required to provide ongoing prevention and awareness campaigns for students and faculty. They are coming soon to colleges and universities near you.

AASWomen February 21, 2014

Posted by M M Montgomery

AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of February 21, 2014
eds. Michele M. Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, Nick Murphy, amp; Nicolle Zellner

This week's issues:

1. Sexual Harassment: A Call to Shun

2. Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

3. Preparing for International Women's Day

4. Women's History Month - Astronomy & Space Exploration

5. Women in Italian Astronomy

6. National Astronomy Week

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

Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin

Posted by Neil Gehrels

There are a lot of neat people stories in the history of science. I've recently been interested in women astronomers who made major advances but are not as well known as the big 3: Caroline Herschel, Annie Jump Cannon and Henrietta Swan Leavitt. This month I am writing about Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin (1900-1979) who stuck with her convictions to make big discoveries on the nature of stars. She has a really nice autobiography called "The Dyers Hand" (published in the collection "Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin: An Autobiography and Other Recollections") which I found in the Stanford stacks during a recent visit.

Cecilia Payne grew up in Britain and went to University of Cambridge. There, a class by Eddington inspired her to pursue astronomy. Eddington encouraged her to go to the US where there were more opportunities for women. She applied to Harvard and received a fellowship for graduate studies with Shapley.

Sexual Harassment: A Call to Shun

Posted by Joan Schmelz

Some months back, I came face-to-face with one of the astronomy community’s most notorious sexual harassers. There I was, minding my own business, making my way through the coffee line, when BOOM! He turned around, and there was no escape. I’ve known about him for years, listened with sympathy to the stories from his victims, trying to figure out how to help. I understood the damage he had done to the vulnerable young astronomers who found themselves in his sights. I’ve talked to CSWA, AAS council members, and his university/laboratory/institution colleagues about what to do and how to stop him. I always come away empty – he’s too powerful, too popular, and too successful.

People had told me that he was charming, and he started working it as I got my coffee. I could feel the waves of it rushing over me – and it made me angry. This is what his victims faced, I realized. How are we ever going to stop him?

I refused to smile, my jaw set and my body rigid. I was strong in the face of the charm offensive, but he wouldn’t just leave it be and walk away. Instead, he doubled down.

AASWOMEN Newsletter for February 14, 2014

Posted by Unknown

AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of February 14, 2014
eds. Michele M. Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, Nick Murphy, & Nicolle Zellner, guest ed. Elysse Voyer

Today's guest editor is Elysse Voyer. Elysse studies the evolution of star-forming galaxies in the local and distant universe. She received her PhD from The Catholic University of America in Washington D.C., carrying out her doctoral research as a NASA GSRP Fellow at Goddard Space Flight Center. She recently finished a postdoc at the Laboratoire de Astrophysique de Marseille in France working as a member of the GALEX Ultraviolet Virgo Cluster Survey (GUViCS) team.

This week's issues:

1. Please don't try to play the "socioeconomic class" trump card

2. Nail Salons: Appropriate Astronomy Women’s Group Venue?

3. Where Are All the Women?

4. MPs: gender bias 'putting women off top science jobs'

5. YseX Is a Matter of Concern Rather Than a Matter of Fact

6. 44 Stock Photos That Hope To Change The Way We Look At Women

7. US Team now accepting applications for the International Conference on Women in Physics