AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of June 6, 2019
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride
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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
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| 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
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1. AAS 234 Summer Meeting Sessions You Shouldn't Miss
From: JoEllen McBride via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
The summer meeting of the American Astronomical Society will take place Sunday, June 9 through Thursday, June 13 in St. Louis, MO. The CSWA has identified sessions that feature the various AAS diversity committees and may be of interest to readers of the blog.
Find out what they are at
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2. NAS Members Approve a Bylaw Amendment to Permit Rescinding Membership
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]
"At the business session of the 156th Annual Meeting of the National Academy of Sciences on April 30, members in attendance voted in favor of an amendment to the NAS bylaws that would permit the NAS Council to rescind membership for the most egregious violations to a new Code of Conduct, including for proven cases of sexual harassment. As is the case for virtually all substantive amendments to the bylaws, it was distributed to the full membership for a vote, which required a simple majority to pass. Voting ended on May 31, and the amendment was approved by a large margin, with 84% voting for the amendment and 16% against."
Read press release at
Read a summary from Nature magazine at
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3. Make reports of research misconduct public
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
C. K. Gunsalus, director of the National Center for Professional and Research Ethics at the University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign, advocates for making reports of research misconduct public. If guilty institutions do not do so, they perpetuate misbehavior and breed mistrust.
Read more at
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4. 75 years after D-Day: Salinas woman, 98, served as military geologist during World War II
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
Remembering the men – and women – who served in World War II.
“World War II brought new opportunities for women, seen prominently from women working wartime industries in the U.S., said Beth Johnson, a geology professor at the University of Wisconsin, Fox Valley who wrote the book "Women and Geology: Who Are We, Where Have We Come From, and Where are We Going?" Ruth Andresen, now 98, recalls that she “became a junior geologist and served as a bibliographer with MGU. She would be one of 14 women out of the 114 professionals of the unit.”
Read more at
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5. Astronomy Magazine: Women in the Apollo Program
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]
Astronomy Magazine has published three articles highlighting the contributions of women to the Apollo Program. The AASWomen editors will highlight these and more in an upcoming post at womeninastronomy.blogspot.com, to appear the week of July 20, the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 mission to the Moon.
Meet the Mercury 13: Women who fought for flight:
[Find out about efforts to award the Congressional Gold Medal to these women at
Poppy Northcutt: The only woman in the Apollo control room:
Barbara Crawford Johnson: The woman who pointed NASA's path to the Moon:
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6. Tracking Down JoAnn Morgan, a Semi-Hidden Figure of U.S. Space History
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
“[JoAnn] Morgan was the only woman inside the control room at the historic launch of Apollo 11 in 1969. … At the time, she was a 28-year-old instrumentation controller and the first woman permitted to be inside the firing room—where all personnel were locked in 30 minutes before blastoff—during an Apollo launch.” She faced resistance, to be sure, including obscene phone calls at her console. Additionally, “…in the old blockhouses, there was no ladies’ restroom, so either the security guard had to clear the men’s room, or I had to walk… to a different building to use the bathroom,” she recalls.
Read more at
[Stay tuned for a blog piece about the contributions of women to the Apollo program, to run the week of July 20. -- eds]
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7. Astrophysicist explains how boxing makes her a better scientist
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]
Life goals: Kicking a## and studying stars.
Read more at
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8. Group devoted to combating sexual harassment in science is in turmoil as leaders exit
From: Alessandra Aloisi [aloisi_at_@stsci.edu]
“Seven leaders have left the #MeTooSTEM advocacy group, founded last year to advocate for and provide legal help to survivors of sexual harassment in science. The scientists who left complained about the abrasive style of and lack of transparency from the group’s founder, neuroscientist BethAnn McLaughlin of Vanderbilt University in Nashville…”
Read more at
Read the original interview at
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9. Ph.D. programs drop standardized exam
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
More Ph.D. programs at the top-50 research universities in the United States are dropping the GRE General Test as a requirement for admission. At least 50% of life science programs have adopted the "GRExit" policy. Just 2% of Physics programs do not require GRE general scores.
Read more at
Read the AAS's statement on the GRE at
Find the report of the AAS Task Force on Diversity in Graduate Education at
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10. Use peer-to-peer research collaboration in graduate school
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
Peer-to-peer research, described as research without the direction of a faculty member, has benefitted three communication PhD students by increasing their professional competence and boosting productivity. It's all about being held accountable.
Read more at
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11. How I explained a gap in my CV when applying to graduate school
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]
Jasper Elan Hunt, a newly accepted graduate student in the neuroscience PhD program at the University of Oxford (UK), describes how "owning the experience and addressing it directly" strengthened his graduate school applications.
Read more at
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12. Racial and gender biases plague postdoc hiring
From: Ale Aloisi [aloisi_at_@stsci.edu] and JoEllen McBride [joellen_mcbride_at_gmail.com]
By Katie Langin
"Bradley Miller is more likely to be hired than José Rodriguez. Zhang Wei (David) is more competent than Jamal Banks. And both Miller and Zhang are more competent and hirable than Maria Rodriguez or Shanice Banks.
These postdoc job candidates are fictional. But the differences in how they’re viewed based on name alone—despite identical CVs—by a sample of professors are real. That’s according to a recent study that unearths evidence of racial bias in biology and a combination of gender and racial bias in physics, highlighting both the pervasive nature of various biases in science as well as important disciplinary differences."
Read more at
Find the journal article at
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13. The Data Science Diversity Gap: Where Are the Women?
From: Ale Aloisi [aloisi_at_stsci.edu]
The Editorial Team at “Inside Big Data” comment that “data science and related fields, including artificial intelligence, business intelligence, and big data, are seeing tremendous growth. Data is important in numerous industries, from healthcare to transportation, making data scientists a must-have role in most companies. As more technology emerges, even more data can be collected, which only increases the need for experts.” They then ask, “Why Are So Few Women Working in Data Science?”
Read more at
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14. In Space, This Diverse Company Naturally Attracts Women: COO
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com]
By Elizabeth Howell
"Julie Baker remembers a moment just before Ursa Space Systems got its first round of financing, when the satellite data and analytics company included herself and "about 10 other men" -- although, she points out, there was a female intern during her first summer there.
Then in October 2017, Ursa raised $7 million -- allowing it to expand rapidly from that small group to 48 people in less than a year. Ursa ended up with about 50% gender parity, an unusual feature in this male-dominated industry. But Baker, a co-founder and chief operating officer, says the key was not hiring for gender, but hiring for diversity."
Read more at
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15. These 12 Women Are Killing It in STEM Fields — and They Want You to Join Them
From: JoEllen McBride [joellen.mcbride_at_gmail.com.]
Look at Physics and Astro representing in this list!! Also, 500 Women Scientists!
Read more at
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16. Job Opportunities
For those interested in increasing excellence and diversity in their organizations, a list of resources and advice is here: https://cswa.aas.org/#howtoincrease
- Research Chair, all fields & all career levels, Western Ontario University
- AAS Media Fellowship
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19. Access to Past Issues
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