Issue of August 12, 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. Mistaken email on AASWomen distribution list
2. Career Profile: From Extragalactic Astronomy to Science Policy with Dr. Julie Davis
3. University of Michigan Astronomy Preview Weekend
4. Physics Today August 2022 cover features Maria Mitchell, “Physics is for Girls"
5. Mariam Al Astrulabi: The female Muslim astronomer who reached for the stars
6. CHIPS Act is Win for Combatting Sexual Harassment
7. Virtual Q&A event hosted by NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) fellows on applying for NHFP
8. Nichelle Nichols, trailblazer for gender, race, and space, dies at 89
10. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
11. 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. Mistaken email on AASWomen distribution list
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
Earlier this week, you might have received an abbreviated email from me through this distribution list with two short links and nothing else. This was a "bookkeeping" email that I sent internally to keep track of items for the upcoming newsletter, which I accidentally sent to the wrong list. My apologies for cluttering your mailboxes!
Back to top.2. Career Profile: From Extragalactic Astronomy to Science Policy with Dr. Julie Davis
From Bryné Hadnott via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com
The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers, planetary scientists, etc. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.
Dr. Julie Davis is the John N. Bahcall Public Policy fellow at the American Astronomical Society. She received her PhD in astronomy from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she worked on large extragalactic radio surveys and extreme galaxy outflows. She graduated in August 2021 and moved to Washington, DC, where she now advocates for the astronomical sciences on behalf of all AAS members.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2022/08/career-profile-from-extragalactic.html
Back to top.3. University of Michigan Astronomy Preview Weekend
From: Michael Meyer [mrmeyer_at_umich.edu]
The University of Michigan Department of Astronomy invites juniors, seniors, recently graduated students, and Master’s students to join us for a virtual preview event. We welcome applications from students who will contribute to our department's mission of promoting diversity and inclusion in the field of Astronomy and Astrophysics - Astronomy is for Everyone. This event is a collaboration with the College of Literature, Science and the Arts (LSA) and Rackham Graduate School. This event is an opportunity to explore graduate education at Michigan, meet faculty and current graduate students, and learn about life in Ann Arbor. Students who are accepted and attend this Preview event will receive a waiver for their application fee when they apply to the Astronomy PhD program.
Apply online at
https://lsa.infoready4.com/#dean
Back to top.4. Physics Today August 2022 cover features Maria Mitchell, “Physics is for Girls"
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
By Johanna L. Miller
"Like most women who study physics these days, I have a lot of experience being in the minority. Most of my classmates in college and graduate school were men. Of all the physics classes I took, only one was taught by a woman. For most of my first decade working at Physics Today, I was the only woman in the room at many an editorial meeting.
I also have a lot of experience listening to questionable theories of why that gender imbalance is no big deal—it’s just the natural state of things. Among the theories I’ve heard is that women are inherently uninterested in physics (on average, of course), because we’re “hardwired” to prefer working with people rather than objects or abstract ideas. I’ve also heard it said that women shy away from careers in physics because we perceive them to be incompatible with the time demands of raising children.
So I was interested to read in Joanna Behrman’s article “Physics … is for girls?” that in US schools in the early 19th century, natural philosophy (the predecessor subject of physics) was considered a subject more for girls than for boys—not despite women’s social role as mothers and nurturers, but because of it."
Read more and see the cover at
https://physicstoday.scitation.org/do/10.1063/PT.6.3.20220805a/full
Back to top.5. Mariam Al Astrulabi: The female Muslim astronomer who reached for the stars
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
By Mariam Elsayeh Ibrahim
"We often credit scientific progress to recent developments, to the near present. What this fails to take into account are the thousands of years of scientific research, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age. Many of the figures involved during that time are then lost to the annals of history. One of them was Mariam Al Astrulabi, a Syrian Muslim woman, whose astrolabe sparked the beginning of development in the field of astronautics and space navigation."
Read more at
https://english.alaraby.co.uk/features/female-muslim-astronomer-who-reached-stars
Back to top.6. CHIPS Act is Win for Combatting Sexual Harassment
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
By Katherine Jordan
"The first time I visited a congressional office, we talked extensively about ways to combat sexual harassment in academia, and particularly in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields. That conversation was in 2019. On my latest visit in 2022, that was still one of the main topics of conversation on the Hill. Sexual harassment is rampant in academia. When universities should be leading and inspiring change in other organizations, the rate of sexual harassment in academia exceeds that of government or the private sector and is second only to the U.S. military. We hear countless stories across universities of early-career scientists and researchers being forced out of academia due to sexual and gender harassment.
The CHIPS and Science Act, recently passed by Congress, made headlines for appropriating billions of dollars for semiconductor manufacturing and authorizing hundreds of billions for science research and development. While scientists and researchers heralded the bill's passage, many are seemingly unaware of the inclusion in the final legislation of a bipartisan bill: the Combatting Sexual Harassment in Science Act. By including this provision in the CHIPS and Science Act, Congress has taken on an aggressive commitment toward addressing rampant sexual harassment in scientific fields. The bill, which President Biden is expected to sign today, outlines a plan to radically redesign anti-harassment efforts in higher education and scientific research, and ensure we are not losing the talents of our next generation of scientists and researchers because of widespread sexual harassment in academia."
Read more at
https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2022/08/09/chips-act-win-tackling-sex-harassment-opinion
Back to top.7. Virtual Q&A event hosted by NASA Hubble Fellowship Program (NHFP) fellows on applying for NHFP
From: Jane Huang [jnhuang_at_umich.edu]
A group of current and incoming NHFP fellows will be holding a Zoom Q&A for early career astronomers from 12:00 pm to 1:00 pm EDT on 31 August 2022 to help demystify the fellowship application process and the fellowship experience. This is a volunteer effort self-organized by fellows. Opinions expressed in this event are those of individual fellows and do not represent those of the NASA Hubble Fellowship Program.
More information about the event can be found at
https://aas.org/events/2022-08/applying-nasa-hubble-fellowship-qa-fellows
Back to top.8. Nichelle Nichols, trailblazer for gender, race, and space, dies at 89
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]
By Samantha Hill
"Nichelle Nichols, who passed away July 30 at the age of 89, was well known for her role in Star Trek: The Original Series as Lieutenant Uhura, one of the first recurring major television roles played by a Black woman. But long after the series’ short, three-year run, Nichols continued to influence others to pursue careers in physics and astronomy."
Read more at
See photos of Nichols flying on the Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) Observatory at
https://www.startrek.com/article/new-photos-video-of-nichelle-nichols-nasa-sofia-mission
Back to top.9. Job Opportunities
For those interested in increasing excellence and diversity in their organizatio ns, a list of resources and advice is here:
https://aas.org/comms/cswa/resources/Diversity#howtoincrease
- Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Fundamental Interactions (IAIFI) Fellow, MIT/Harvard/Northeastern/Tufts
https://iaifi.org/fellows
- Curator of Astronomical Photographs, Harvard College Observatory, Cambridge, MA
https://sjobs.brassring.com/TGnewUI/Search/home/HomeWithPreLoad?partnerid=25240&siteid=5341&PageType=JobDetails&jobid=1966063
- Lawrence Fellowship, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL), Livermore, CA
https://st.llnl.gov/opportunities/postdocs/postdoc-program/lawrence-fellowship
10. 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.
Back to top.11. 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.
Back to top.12. Access to Past Issues
https://aas.org/comms/cswa/AASWOMEN
Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.
Back to top.
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