Tuesday, September 18, 2018

Career Profile: Executive Director

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

Dr. Stella Kafka is the Executive Director of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (AAVSO). She enjoys enabling scientific research and in addition to her academic positions has worked as the CTIO REU/PIA site director and in the American Institute of Physics publishing group.

What field do you currently work in?

Observational astronomy – variable stars (especially semi-detached binaries – CVs)

What is the job title for your current position?

Executive Director – Chief Executive Officer and Chief Science Officer at the AAVSO

Tuesday, September 11, 2018

Announcement of DPS Workshop on Proposal Writing: Friday October 26th

The success of scientists depends upon their ability to obtain funding. Using Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) from NASA as a primary example, this workshop will focus on teaching the audience key points to writing a successful proposal.

Topics to be covered include:
8:00-8:15- General introduction and welcome
8:15-9:15- Proposal lifecycle, guidance on writing for specific audiences, compliance checklist
9:15-9:30- Break
9:30-10:30- Evaluation criteria, the review process, programmatic balance, debriefs and appeals, and making changes to address review concerns
10:30-11:00- General wrap up and group Q&A
11:00-11:30- One-on-One Q&A as needed.

Proposal Writing Workshops help early career scientists, as well as those looking to improve their previous proposal performance. As a result of this session, participants will be able to understand the proposal writing, reviewing, and selection process for federally funded proposals, as well as help those who have previously submitted proposals improve their performance. The workshop will be done in a format that allows for a great deal of audience participation.

Tuesday, September 4, 2018

Balancing Your Act

By Michelle Zellner

Michelle has been a trainer, coach, and facilitator for over 20 years.  Her business, Better Beings, encompasses individual clients, weekend workshops, and a week-long wellness retreat.  She is also an event key-note speaker and is highly sought  to deliver corporate trainings.  Thus far, she has conducted over 2000 trainings, both live and via webinar.  Along with her knowledge, the connection she makes with the audience often results in requests for repeat visits.

Michelle’s background has enabled her to deliver on a wide variety of training topics, including: exercise, nutrition, weight loss, stress management, sleep, preventing and managing chronic disease, work-life balance—and many more. 

Learn more about Michelle at:
www.betterbeings.net and on fb and Instagram @betterbeingsus

This blog entry is an modified excerpt from her upcoming book.

Stress is part of everyone’s life, but if you don’t learn to find some balance, serious health consequences could be waiting!  We often waste resources (time, money and energy) or are simply not distributing them effectively, and this leads to feeling overwhelmed, undervalued and unappreciated. Burnout---physical, mental, emotional or professional---could be near, but is totally preventable. Follow along and fill out the evaluation tools to help you identify how balanced YOUR act is.