AASWomen Newsletter for June 12, 2026

Sari in Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, item 6.
Credit: Smithsonian

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of June 12, 2026
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Sethanne Howard, Ferah Munshi, Stella Kafka, and Ben Keller

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

This week's issues:

1. Don't miss our CSWA Cohorts Splinter Session at AAS 248
2. Heising-Simons Foundation Solicits Host Institutions For Astronova Fellowship
3. Fourth Workshop for Astronomy Beyond the Common Senses for Accessibility and Inclusion
4. Who Was Nancy Grace Roman?
5. Spacewoman with Eileen Collins on Planetary Radio
6. A sari from Mars: How an Indian ISRO scientist's outfit reached the Smithsonian US museum
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.

Don't miss our CSWA Cohorts Splinter Session at AAS 248

This spring the Committee on the Status of Women launched our CSWA Cohorts to foster networking and support among our members. Join us at AAS 248 for our Splinter Session: CSWA Cohorts - Accelerating Networking in Astronomy. 

Session information:

Monday, June 15, 2026 | 2:00 PM PT - 4:00 PM PT

Session Title

CSWA Cohorts - Accelerating Networking in Astronomy

Session Type

Splinter

Building/Room

Pasadena Convention Center - Conference Center, 104

Summary

The AAS's Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy invites members to attend this session on its ongoing CSWA Cohorts program. Drawing inspiration from cohort model peer groups, this networking initiative aims to connect people within and across career stages in astronomy to solve problems and provide support to each other in challenging times and situations. We will report on progress from the 70+ member pilot cohorts, discuss ways to provide deeper connections between members and adjust strategy for virtual networking, and provide opportunities for cohorts to bring in new members and meet in person at the conference. Event is open to all AAS attendees, regardless of gender, status, or background.

AASWomen Newsletter for June 5, 2026

Lexi Gault, 2024–2026 AAS Media Fellow, item 3.
Credit: CorporateEventImages/Phil McCarten/AAS

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of June 5, 2026
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Sethanne Howard, Ferah Munshi, Stella Kafka, and Ben Keller

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

This week's issues:

1. AAS 248: Add your story in astronomy to our collective history with an Oral History Interview
2. AAS Action Alert Submit Comments Urging Against Harmful Changes to Federal Grantmaking
3. Nominations for 2027 AAS Prizes and Media Fellowship
4. Mentorship Program Opportunity for Postdoctoral Applicants
5. Student Applicants Invited to Respond to Graduate Survey
6. Women make up 53% of science & technology ranks in EU, but underrepresented among scientists and engineers
7. First and last authors more likely to be men in leading science journals
8. How the pandemic shifted the trajectory of women in STEM
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

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

AAS 248: Add your story in astronomy to our collective history with an Oral History Interview

AAS 248 begins June 14, 2026 in Pasadena, California. The 248th meeting of the American Astronomical Society runs through June 18 and promises a jampacked schedule of speakers, splinter sessions, and more. 

This year, the AAS Oral History Project invites everyone to tell their story within astronomy by scheduling an oral interview at the conference. There are no requirements to fulfill to be interviewed. Everyone in the astronomy community is welcome, from undergraduates to emeritus, researchers, technicians, and family members. Add your story to the astronomy community.

Image: AAS/HAD

Schedule your oral history interview at AAS 248 https://tinyurl.com/oralhistaas248

Make your story part of our collective history at AAS 248!

Registration for AAS 248 is still open through June 12 at AAS.org.

Full information on the Oral History Inteviews Splinter Session is included below.

Daily: Monday-Wednesday | 9:00 AM PT - 5:00 PM PT

Session Title
Oral History Interviews

Session Type
Splinter

Building/Room
Pasadena Convention Center - Conference Center, 215

Summary
Everyone has a story to tell, and we want to hear yours. The AAS Oral History Project, operated by the Historical Astronomy Division (HAD), invites you to participate in preserving the human side of astronomical science during this meeting, especially as our community is experiencing dramatic shifts in policy and funding.

Since 2015, our project has been collecting the personal narratives that reveal the climates and communities that shape our science. Partially funded by the American Institute of Physics Niels Bohr Library and the AAS, this initiative builds on a successful 2013 pilot. Jarita Holbrook is the principal investigator.

Your interview will last 1.5 to 2 hours and cover your educational journey, career strategies, work-life balance, collaborations, leadership experiences, and mentoring relationships. We explore both personal milestones and current community issues, including diversity, tenure challenges, collaborative research recognition, project cancelations, and professional uncertainties. Interviews conclude with your advice for the next generation of scientists.

Our project is uniquely inclusive—everyone in the astronomical science community is welcome, from undergraduates to emeritus faculty, technicians to researchers, family members to STEM support staff.
Your experiences will inform future scientists and help preserve the cultural context of how we conduct science. These stories become part of the historical record, with several interviews already archived in the AIP collection, ensuring that future generations understand not just what changed in our field, but what it felt like to experience those changes.

Please consider dedicating time from your busy conference schedule to contribute your voice to this important historical record. Your story matters.

Schedule your interview: https://tinyurl.com/oralhistaas248
Questions: Contact: wgpah-chair@aas.org
We look forward to hearing your story

AASWomen Newsletter for May 29, 2026

Kirsten Banks, item 4. Credit: Forbes

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of May 29, 2026
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Sethanne Howard, Ferah Munshi, Stella Kafka, and Ben Keller

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

This week's issues:

1. Action Alert: Protect Programs to Broaden Participation in STEM
2. Career Interview Series: How Stories and Stars Led Lauren Albin to Astronomy
3. Crosspost: The Bra-and-Girdle Maker That Fashioned the Impossible for NASA
4. Kirsten Banks named one of Forbes 30 Under 30
5. Highlights from the AAS YouTube Channel
6. Job Opportunities
7. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
8. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
9. 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.

Crosspost: The Bra-and-Girdle Maker That Fashioned the Impossible for NASA

Today's crosspost is by Nicholas de Monchaux, author of "Spacesuit: Fashioning Apollo" and originally posted to the MIT Press Reader on April 9. 

The Bra-and-Girdle Maker That Fashioned the Impossible for NASA

By Nicholas de Monchaux

Apollo 8 crew is photographed posing on a Kennedy Space Center (KSC) simulator in their space suits. From left to right are: James A. Lovell Jr., William A. Anders, and Frank Borman.
Image Credit: NASA

In 1966, when seamstresses at the International Latex Corporation arrived at its new Apollo Suit shopfloor in Frederica, Delaware, they were essentially “taught to sew again from scratch.” And for good reason: Compared to the company’s bras and girdles, the craftsmanship needed to fashion a spacesuit was, in every sense, out of this world.

At the same time that ILC’s seamstresses were being asked to meet unprecedented precision standards, they were denied traditional tools, such as fastening pins used to maintain sewing accuracy. To a garment whose reliability depended on an impermeable rubber bladder, mechanical aids like pins were an inherently risky proposition.

The most valued seamstresses were those like Roberta Pilkenton, who could sew together the outermost layer of the Apollo suit, the Thermal Micrometeoroid Garment (TMG). Pilkenton crafted the TMG’s 17 concentric layers, with hundreds of yards of seams, without a single tool except her own guiding fingers.

Read more at

https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/the-bra-and-girdle-maker-that-fashioned-the-impossible-for-nasa/

Read what Lara Kearney has to say about NASA's Artemis spacesuit, built by Axiom Space, at

https://www.nasa.gov/humans-in-space/nasa-moon-mission-spacesuit-nears-milestone/

AASWomen Newsletter for May 22, 2026

Nancy Grace Roman, the first chief of astronomy at NASA. Credit: NASA

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of May 22, 2026
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Sethanne Howard, Ferah Munshi, Stella Kafka, and Ben Keller

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

This week's issues:

1. Call for Applications: Education Mini-Grant Proposals Due 9 June
2. AIP Offers New Resources for International Physicists and Astronomers
3. AAS 248 Special Session: What Astronomers Can Do About Climate Change: Infrastructure, Education, and Communication
4. Crosspost: A step-by-step guide to nailing your tenure promotion package
5. Today in the history of astronomy: The birth of Nancy Grace Roman
6. Annual report of the IAU Women in Astronomy Working Group
7. Call for volunteers from the SEA-Change in Physics & Astronomy Committee
8. Why I Did Not Appreciate My Ph.D. Adviser—Until I Became a PI
9. 2026 Caroline Herschel Medal presented to Professor Heike Rauer
10. 2026 Call for Proposals from the Women and Girls in Astronomy Program
11. Woman Astronomers Day 2026
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.