Friday, April 29, 2022

AASWomen Newsletter for April 29, 2022

AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of April 29, 2022
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Alessandra Aloisi, Jeremy Bailin and Sethanne Howard

[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. Be well! --eds.]
From Item 6

This week's issues:

1. IDEA Actions for Our Science Communities

2. NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins celebrates ‘milestone’ for diversity in space industry

3. Judith Pipher (1940–2022)

4. Sanetra Bailey – The Brains Behind the Brains of the Roman Mission

5. Lost Women of Science Podcast, Season 2, Episode 5: La Jolla

6. Early Ukrainian Women Scientists (3 part series)

7. Draft of the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope available for comment.

8. Job Opportunities

9. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

11. 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.


1. IDEA Actions for Our Science Communities
From Nicolle Zellner via http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/

By Nicolle Zellner and Karly Pitman, CSWA co-Chairs

In the past few years, there has been a noticeable shift in how organizations, institutions, and professional societies (among others) are integrating inclusion, diversity, equity, and accessibility (IDEA), justice, and/or belonging into their daily practices. The Women in Astronomy blog has published numerous posts on this topic while highlighting IDEA advocates and allies. In a recent post, Joan Schmelz, director of the Science and Technology Institute and the NASA Postdoctoral Program at Universities Space Research Association, wrote about her approach for intentionally infusing IDEA culture throughout Astronomy.

Read more at

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2022/04/idea-actions-for-our-science-communities.html

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2. NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins celebrates ‘milestone’ for diversity in space industry
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Char Adams and Donna M. Owens

NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins made history Wednesday when she and a crew launched into space aboard the SpaceX Dragon, from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Watkins will be the first Black woman to serve a long-duration mission on the International Space Station.

Read more at

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/nasa-astronaut-jessica-watkins-celebrates-milestone-diversity-space-in-rcna25378

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3. Judith Pipher (1940–2022)
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By George H. Rieke, Marcia J. Rieke & Craig W. McMurtry

Judith Pipher died aged 81 on Monday 21 February 2022. She obtained her PhD in rocket infrared astronomy under Martin Harwit in 1971 at Cornell. She once said that a woman in the lab was such an anomaly at the time that she felt Harwit and his postdoc, Jim Houck, seemed to want to protect her from getting dirty rather than let her build stuff. Nonetheless, she hand-built the individual detectors and the optical filters needed for her research. Harwit recalls: “Judy’s willingness and grace in facing these difficulties, then, as well as throughout her later career, has been inspirational.” Her thesis, Rocket Submillimeter Observations of the Galaxy and Background, not only pioneered infrared astronomy, but did so in the very challenging environment of launching liquid-helium cooled telescopes on sounding rockets. These observations were among the first evidence that much of the output of very young, hot stars is absorbed by dust in the surrounding interstellar clouds and emitted in the far infrared, and that this process operates all along the plane of the Milky Way. The phenomenon has been a cornerstone for infrared astronomy ever since.

Read more at

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-022-01654-7

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4. Sanetra Bailey – The Brains Behind the Brains of the Roman Mission
From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]

By Ashley Balzer

Sanetra Bailey has worked at NASA Goddard for 10 years. Her role has expanded over time, shifting from designing digital circuits for robotic satellites to large observatories – including NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission, the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope. Among its many cosmic pursuits, this mission will explore the nature of dark energy and dark matter and hunt for planets beyond our solar system.

Read more at

https://www.nasa.gov/content/goddard/sanetra-bailey-the-brains-behind-the-brains-of-the-roman-mission

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5. Lost Women of Science Podcast, Season 2, Episode 5: La Jolla
From: Heather Flewelling [flewelling.heather_at_gmail.com]

By Katie Hafner

The first modern-style code ever executed on a computer was written in the 1940s by a woman named Klára Dán von Neumann—or Klári to her family and friends. And the historic program she wrote was used to develop thermonuclear weapons. In this season, we peer into a fascinating moment in the postwar U.S. through the prism of von Neumann’s work. We explore the evolution of early computers, the vital role women played in early programming, and the inextricable connection between computing and war.

Read more at

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/lost-women-of-science-podcast-season-2-episode-5-la-jolla

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6. Early Ukrainian Women Scientists (3 part series)
From: Heather Flewelling [flewelling.heather_at_gmail.com]

By Hilda Bastian

This 3-part series covers a small selection from the massive legacy of early Ukrainian women scientists’ science, initiative, and courage – 15 amazing people born before World War 2, coming in groups of 5, in birth order. Each bio begins with a very short summary, so you can scroll through the pictures and summaries to get a quick impression of their lives and achievements.

Read more at

https://absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2022/04/27/early-ukrainian-women-scientists-part-1-from-fossils-to-the-planets-and-back

https://absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2022/04/28/early-ukrainian-women-scientists-part-2-from-mushrooms-to-physics-a-programming-language-plants-bees

https://absolutelymaybe.plos.org/2022/04/29/early-ukrainian-women-scientists-part-3-from-birds-to-math-space-plants-in-space

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7. Draft of the Nancy Grace Roman Telescope available for comment.
From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]

When it is released as final text, D.14 Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Research and Support Participation Opportunities will solicit proposals aimed at supporting the progress of and exploiting the scientific and technical data from the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, formerly known as the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope or WFIRST, the top-ranked large space mission recommended by the National Academies decadal survey of astronomy and astrophysics for 2012-2021, New Worlds, New Horizons in Astronomy and Astrophysics. This opportunity will comprise three categories: Wide Field Science (WFS); Project Infrastructure Teams (PITs); and Coronagraph Community Participation Program (CPP)..

ROSES-2022 Amendment 14 releases a draft version of program element D.14 for community comment.

Comments and questions concerning this draft of D.14 Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Research and Support Participation Opportunities are due by May 31, 2022, to Dominic Benford at Dominic.Benford@nasa.gov, with the subject line "D.14 Roman Feedback".

Read the draft at

https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/solicitations/summary.do?solId=%7b1BD0AA55-40BB-1419-EEA1-64FF5B4269D3%7d&path=&method=init

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8. Job Opportunities

For those interested in increasing excellence and diversity in their organizations, a list of resources and advice is here:

https://aas.org/comms/cswa/resources/Diversity#howtoincrease

- Research Scientist II (Visitor Support Scientist), Georgia State University Center for High Angular Resolution Astronomy (CHARA), Mount Wilson Observatory, CA https://gsu.taleo.net/careersection/jobdetail.ftl?job=22000456

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9. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

To submit an item to the AASWOMEN newsletter, including replies to topics, send email to aaswomen_at_lists.aas.org .

All material will be posted unless you tell us otherwise, including your email address.

When submitting a job posting for inclusion in the newsletter, please include a one-line description and a link to the full job posting.

Please remember to replace "_at_" in the e-mail address above.

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10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

Join AAS Women List through the online portal:

To Subscribe, go to https://aas.simplelists.com and in the "Subscribe" area, add in your name, email address, select "The AASWomen Weekly Newsletter", and click subscribe. You will be sent an email with a link to click to confirm subscription.

To unsubscribe from AAS Women by email:

Go to https://aas.simplelists.com in the "My account and unsubscriptions", type your email address. You will receive an email with a link to access your account, from there you can click the unsubscribe link for this mailing list.

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11. Access to Past Issues

https://aas.org/comms/cswa/AASWOMEN

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

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