Issue of July 15, 2022
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Alessandra Aloisi, and Sethanne Howard
[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. Be well! --eds.]
This week's issues:
1. Cal-Bridge program receives $5M in California state budget
2. Student evaluations show gender bias even in most equal country
3. Meet the Woman Who Makes the James Webb Space Telescope Work
4. NASA SMD Bridge Program Workshop
5. EEOC Issues Report on Women in STEM Jobs in the Federal Sector
6. Interview Series: Dr. Lia Medeiros
7. The Explosive Ambitions of Kate the Chemist
8. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.
1. Cal-Bridge program receives $5M in California state budget
From: Alexander Rudolf [alrudolph_at_cpp.ed]
The most recent California state budget includes $5 million for the Cal-Bridge program. Launched in 2014, Cal-Bridge is an intersegmental California State University (CSU)-University of California (UC) bridge program that currently helps historically underrepresented community college and CSU students progress to UC and other PhD programs nationally. In 8 years, over 75% of Cal-Bridge scholars have successfully made the leap into a PhD program.
The new state money will allow Cal-Bridge to expand into a comprehensive, end-to-end pathway for these students from the CSU through their UC PhD to help diversify the California public university faculty and science and technology workforce. Fully funded, the Cal-Bridge Initiative has the capacity to produce as many as 200 diverse PhDs in multiple STEM disciplines each year. A more diverse faculty will, in turn, motivate more underrepresented students to stay in STEM majors, further promoting diversity in the California and national tech workforce.
Press release: https://ps.uci.edu/news/2718
For more information go to www.calbridge.org
Back to top.2. Student evaluations show gender bias even in most equal country
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
By Tom Williams
"Gender bias exists in students’ evaluations of their university teachers even in the country regarded as “the cradle of equality” worldwide, a new study has found.
An analysis of nine semesters’ worth of Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) reports at the University of Iceland (UI) found that male students tended to rate their female teachers lower in both teaching and course organisation.
Comments made about lecturers also tended to conform to gender stereotypes, with female academics praised or criticised for their caring abilities, while remarks made about men tended to focus on their level of knowledge and expertise.”
Read more at
Read the full study at
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/07294360.2022.2087604?needAccess=true&journalCode=cher20
Back to top.3. Meet the Woman Who Makes the James Webb Space Telescope Work
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu] and Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]
By Lee Billings
"“Give me a telescope, and I can come up with something good to do with it,” says Jane Rigby, an astrophysicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who serves as the agency’s operations project scientist for the $10-billion James Webb Space Telescope, the largest and most powerful off-world observatory yet built by humankind. Over the course of her career, Rigby has used many of the world’s premier ground- and space-based astronomical facilities—and she is helming one of Webb’s many “early release science” campaigns front-loaded for its first year of observations, utilizing the telescope to study star formation in galaxies across eons of cosmic time. But her main work with Webb is to work with her team to ensure everyone fortunate enough to use it can do “something good,” by looking after the full breadth of scientific investigations the telescope will perform for researchers around the globe during its planned five-year primary mission. This is no small task: For those hoping to squeeze as much science as possible out of this one-of-a-kind observatory, each and every moment of Webb’s time is precious—and Rigby oversees the schedule.”
Read more at
Back to top.4. NASA SMD Bridge Program Workshop
From: Padi Boyd [patricia.t.boyd_at_nasa.gov]
NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) will be holding a community workshop in October with the goal of co-creating the NASA SMD Bridge Program. The NASA SMD Bridge Program is a new initiative to improve diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility within the NASA workforce and within the U.S. science and engineering communities. The program aims to increase engagement and partnering between NASA centers and Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs), such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs), and PhD-granting Universities, with a focus on paid research and engineering student positions at participating institutions to transition science and engineering students from undergraduate studies into graduate schools and employment by NASA.
The NASA SMD Bridge Program Workshop will be fully virtual and is scheduled to take place from October 17-22, 2022. Any and all members of the STEM or STEM education communities are welcome to attend.
Interested parties may submit an indication of interest (through July 25, 2022) to attend the workshop at
https://www.hou.usra.edu/meetings/smdfall2022/iofi
More information about the workshop can be found at
https://science.nasa.gov/smd-bridge-program
Back to top.5. EEOC Issues Report on Women in STEM Jobs in the Federal Sector
From: Heather Flewelling [flewelling.heather_at_gmail.com]
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) today issued a report on the participation and experiences of women who work in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) within the federal government. Although there has been a great deal of focus on women in STEM in the private sector, little has been reported on the diversity and experiences of women working in STEM in the federal sector.
Read more at
https://www.eeoc.gov/newsroom/eeoc-issues-report-women-stem-jobs-federal-sector-0
Back to top.6. Interview Series: Dr. Lia Medeiros
From: Heather Flewelling [flewelling.heather_at_gmail.com]
By Clarissa Do O
Dr. Lia Medeiros is a NSF Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS). She is interested in using computation and theory to better understand compact objects, such as black holes. She is part of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) collaboration, contributing to the collaboration’s efforts to image black holes such as the M87 and Sgr A* images. Originally from Brazil, Lia moved around a lot during her younger years, and from a young age she enjoyed learning and studying math because it was the same in every country: “I realized that it was knowledge that would always be transferred to wherever I was”.
Read more at
https://astrobites.org/2022/07/08/interview-with-dr-lia-medeiros
Back to top.7. The Explosive Ambitions of Kate the Chemist
From: Heather Flewelling [flewelling.heather_at_gmail.com]
By Kenneth Chang
The dream is Vegas.
“Don’t make fun of me,” said Kate Biberdorf, a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, “but it would be a live show in Vegas where it’s a science show.”
That is not a typical aspiration of someone who teaches chemistry to undergraduates. For Dr. Biberdorf — better known as Kate the Chemist — that dream is part of her goal to capture the fun of scientific exploration and to entice children, especially girls, to consider science as their life’s calling.
Read more at
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/11/science/kate-chemist-tv.html
Back to top.8. 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 .
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Back to top.9. 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.
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Back to top.10. Access to Past Issues
https://aas.org/comms/cswa/AASWOMEN
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
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