Friday, October 14, 2022

AASWomen Newsletter for October 14, 2022

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of October 14, 2022
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Alessandra Aloisi, and Sethanne Howard

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

This week's issues:

1. Crosspost: Dr. Ellen Stofan: In many cases careers are not linear!
2. How well-intentioned white male physicists maintain ignorance of inequity and justify inaction
3. Resources from 2022 International Day of the Girl
4. This 33-year-old made more than 1,000 Wikipedia bios for unknown women scientists
5. Nature Awards announces 2022 Inspiring Women in Science winners
6. National Academies Announce Inaugural Recipients of Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications
7. Studies elucidate why and how women physicist's papers are cited less
8. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
10. 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. Crosspost: Dr. Ellen Stofan: In many cases careers are not linear!
From: Nicolle Zellner via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

By Mikayla Huffman and Kelsi Singer

Dr. Ellen Stofan is the Under Secretary for Science and Research at the Smithsonian. She oversees its science research centers as well as the National Museum of Natural History and the National Zoo. The Smithsonian Libraries and Archives, Office of International Relations, Smithsonian Scholarly Press and Scientific Diving Program also report to Stofan. Her focus is the Smithsonian’s collective scientific initiatives and commitment to research across the Institution, especially addressing issues such as biodiversity, global health, climate change, species conservation, astrophysics and the search for life outside Earth’s solar system.

Read more at

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2022/10/crosspost-dr-ellen-stofan-in-many-cases.html

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2. How well-intentioned white male physicists maintain ignorance of inequity and justify inaction
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Melissa Dancy and Apriel Hodari

"Background: We present an analysis of interviews with 27 self-identified progressive white-male physics faculty and graduate students discussing race and gender in physics. White men dominate most STEM fields and are particularly overrepresented in positions of status and influence (i.e. full professors, chairs, deans, etc.), positioning them as a potentially powerful demographic for enacting systemic reform. Despite their proclaimed outrage at and interest in addressing inequity, they frequently engage in patterns of belief, speech and (in)action that ultimately support the status quo of white male privilege in opposition to their intentions.

Results: The white male physicists we interviewed used numerous discourses which support racist and sexist norms and position them as powerless to disrupt their own privilege. We present and discuss three overarching themes, seen in our data, demonstrating how highly intelligent, well-intentioned people of privilege maintain their power and privilege despite their own intentions: 1) Denying inequity is physically near them, 2) Locating causes of inequity in large societal systems over which they have little influence and 3) Justifying inaction.

Conclusions: Despite being progressively minded, well-meaning, and highly intelligent, these men are frequently complicit in racism and sexism in physics. We end with recommendations for helping these men to engage the power they hold to better work with women and people of color in disrupting inequity in physics."

Read more at

https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.03522

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3. Resources from 2022 International Day of the Girl
From: Sethanne Howard [sethanneh_at_msn.com]

International Day of the Girl was celebrated on October 11, 2022, with the theme Our time is now -- our rights, our future". Some celebrations and related resources include:

Unicef International Day of the Girl 2022

https://www.unicef.org/gender-equality/international-day-girl-2022

High School Student and Founder of Nano Labs asks, “What would happen if girls supported girls?”

https://ngcproject.org/resources/high-school-student-and-founder-nano-labs-asks-what-would-happen-if-girls-supported-girls

Gulan Gawdan is hosted by the US Department of State's Community Exchange Program, commmitted to supporting opportunities for young Kurds and Iraqis in STEM.

https://ngcproject.org/resources/welcome-cee-fellow-gulan-gawdan

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4. This 33-year-old made more than 1,000 Wikipedia bios for unknown women scientists
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Timothy Harper

"When Jessica Wade was invited to Buckingham Palace to receive the prestigious British Empire Medal, she stood out for being a young woman honored for her contributions to science.

Ironically, she was being honored for trying to change that.

The 33-year-old London-based physicist has become something of a phenomenon herself — both an irresistible force and immoveable object — in her very personal campaign to bring more girls to study and work in STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)."

Read more at

https://www.today.com/parents/jessica-wade-wikipedia-women-scientists-rcna51628

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5. Nature Awards announces 2022 Inspiring Women in Science winners
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

By Springer Nature

"Kizzmekia Corbett, Assistant Professor of Immunology and Infectious Diseases at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Tem Menina no Circuito, a Brazilian initiative founded with the aim of inspiring girls from the most deprived schools in Brazil to enjoy STEM subjects, are the recipients of this year’s Inspiring Women in Science Awards. The awards, held by Nature Awards in partnership with The Estée Lauder Companies, champion those who are working to encourage girls and women* to engage with STEM** subjects and who work to support women to stay in STEM careers around the world. The winners were announced at a ceremony in London on 11 October."

Read more at

https://group.springernature.com/gp/group/media/press-releases/inspiring-women-in-science-awards-winners-2022/23587040

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6. National Academies Announce Inaugural Recipients of Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

The inaugural winners of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communication include astrophysicists Chanda Prescod-Weinstein and Arianna Long.

Read more at

https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/2022/10/national-academies-announce-inaugural-recipients-of-eric-and-wendy-schmidt-awards-for-excellence-in-science-communications

https://www.nationalacademies.org/awards/excellence-in-communication/winners/chanda-prescod-weinstein

https://www.nationalacademies.org/awards/excellence-in-communication/winners/arianna-long

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7. Studies elucidate why and how women physicist's papers are cited less
From: Jeremy Bailin [jbailin_at_ua.edu]

Two studies published this week analyze the citation inequity between physics papers written by women and men. One, which covers papers published between 1995 and 2020, finds an overall citation disparity of over 4%, and growing with time. The other particularly addresses the "first-mover advantage", and finds that an important driver in citation differences are that, although papers that publish first on a topic receive a boost in citations, papers authored by women do not receive as much of a boost as those authored by men.

Read more at

https://physicsworld.com/a/citing-like-its-1995-why-women-physicists-find-their-papers-referenced-less/

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03239-w

Read the full studies at

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01770-1

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-022-00997-x#Sec2

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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 .

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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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.

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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10. Access to Past Issues

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

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

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