Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Meet Your CSWA, James Keane

James Keane is a research scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He is a planetary scientist, studying orbital dynamics, rotational dynamics, and geologic processes on terrestrial and icy worlds across the Solar System utilizing data from NASA's robotic missions (GRAIL, New Horizons, etc.). James is also an avid artist and science communicator, using pen and pencil to communicate complicated scientific ideas.

 

 

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

A female Ph.D. student’s cautionary tale and the need for peer mentorship

By Bárbara Cruvinel Santiago

In 2018, I moved to NYC to attend my Physics Ph.D. program at Columbia. Life was far from perfect due to personal and family issues, political turmoil in my home country, being away from my loved ones, and a much less than ideal new housing situation. After working for a year, however, I was looking forward to going back to school. Given my track record, getting my B.S. in Physics at Yale under a full-ride need-based scholarship, and working for a year at MIT’s Nobel-prize-winning LIGO lab, I thought I was up for the challenge, but grad school turned out to be different from anything I had ever encountered.

Friday, August 14, 2020

AASWOMEN Newsletter for August 14, 2020

AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of August 14, 2020
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Maria Patterson, Jeremy Bailey, and Alessandra Aloisi

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

This week's issues:

1. Recap: Virtual CSWA Meet and Greet @ the 236th AAS Meeting

2. Women's in-class participation, performance increase with more female peers, instructors

3. NSF grant changes raise alarm about commitment to basic research

4. Frances Allen, first woman to win Turing Award for contributions to computing, dies at 88

5. Astropy call for funding proposals for inclusion, diversity, and empowerment

6. Virginia T. Norwood: The Mother of Landsat

7. Remembrance of Joan Feynman

8. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine seeking experts for study on equity and inclusion

9. Beyond Pink Microscopes: How Two Researchers are Changing the Culture of Science

10. Conferences failing to protect LGBT+ researchers: Promoting equity, diversity and inclusion at meetings requires more than a code of conduct, analysis finds

11. Five tips for boosting diversity on campus

12. Senior U.S. lawmaker wants National Academies to scrutinize racism in science

13. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

14. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

15. Access to Past Issues

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

Recap: Virtual CSWA Meet and Greet @ the 236th AAS Meeting

Drawing on community input from a brief survey, our panel focused on addressing the special challenges our community faces, especially in the era of social distancing and social unrest. Recognizing that women can identify along multiple axes, the CSWA invited representatives from the AAS diversity committee to participate on this panel. Panelists were Dr. Jackie Monkiewicz (Working Group on Accessibility and Disability, WGAD), Dra. Nicole Cabrera Salazar (Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy, CSMA), and Dr. Rolf Danner (Committee for Sexual-Orientation & Gender Minorities on Astronomy, SGMA). Dr. Stella Kafka (CSWA) moderated.

In support of Black Lives Matter, the Meet and Greet started with a moment of silence to reflect on the episodes of social injustice that were occurring at the time of the meeting (early June 2020). Subsequently, posts that highlight the work of Black astronomers were (and will continue to be) cross-posted on the CSWA blog page.

The panel discussions centered around three topics: work-life balance, supporting each other, and making on-line meetings inclusive. What follows are comments from the participants on the panel, including the moderator. A link to the CSWA Resources page is included at the end.

Friday, August 7, 2020

AASWomen Newsletter for August 7, 2020

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of August 7, 2020
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Maria Patterson, Jeremy Bailey, and Alessandra Aloisi

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

This week's issues:

1. Women in Space Seminar Series Episode 3: Lack of Representation and Systemic Racism in Academia  
2. 51 Pegasi b Fellowship 
3. NASA ExoPAG, SAG22: A Target Star Archive for Exoplanet Science
4. Ben Barres Fellowship
5. ‘It’s like we’re going back 30 years’: how the coronavirus is gutting diversity in science  
6. The pandemic is hitting scientist parents hard, and some solutions may backfire 
7.  Language may undermine women in science and tech
8. The 'female' brain: why damaging myths about women and science keep coming back in new forms
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

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