Issue of January 5, 2024
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Sethanne Howard, and Hannah Jang-Condell
[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. --eds.]
This week's issues:
1. DEIA&B Sessions & Events at AAS New Orleans
2. Action Collaborative on Preventing Sexual Harassment in Higher Education
3. The Rainbow Village at AAS
4. Survey on parents in astronomy
5. Nominate a AAS Plenary Speaker
6. IAU Working Group on Women in Astronomy
7. NASA Science Mission Directorate Inclusion Plan Requirements Town Hall
8. World University Rankings 2024 for physical sciences
9. The United Nations General Assembly has declared February 11 the International Day of Women and Girls in Science
10. Could shining a light on the central role of creativity and collaboration in science be key to addressing the gender imbalance in STEM?
11. XPoSat a totally women-engineered satellite
12. Tatiana Ehrenfest-Afanassjewa
13. The Language of Astronomy Is Needlessly Violent and Inaccurate
14. Volunteer Reviewers Invited for NASA FINESST
15. Job Opportunities
16. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
17. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
18. 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.
The 243rd AAS meeting in New Orleans, Louisiana will be held on Jan. 7-11, 2024 jointly with the High Energy Astrophysics and Historical Astronomy Divisions of AAS. Congratulations to the organizers for putting together a great program and strong representation of women in the slate of plenaries!
Please come by to visit with members of the CSWA at the following locations:
- Sun. 01/07, AAS Grad School & REU Fair
5:30-7:00 p.m. Ernest N. Morial Convention Center Great Hall
Booth #04 - Exhibit hall (all week)
AAS Inclusion Committees, Booth #825
This year’s women and gender minorities in astronomy networking event will be hosted by 1400degrees.org on Mon. Jan. 8 from 6:30 - 9 p.m. CT.
Other networking events are being hosted by
- SGMA
SGMA Meet & Greet for LGBTIA Members and Students
Mon. Jan. 8 from 6:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m. CT
convention center room 206 - CSMA
CSMA Meet & Greet
Wed. Jan. 10 from 6 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. CT
offsite restaurant
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2024/01/deia-sessions-events-at-aas-new-orleans.html
Action Collaborative is a collaboration between academic institutions that grew out of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) 2018 Sexual Harassment of Women report. Its goal is to "collaboratively work toward and share targeted action on addressing and preventing sexual harassment across all disciplines and among all people in higher education". More specifically, members pledge to advance research on preventing sexual harassment, develop evidence-based policies, share and implement those policies, and assess progress towards preventing sexual harassment in academia.
Read more at
http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2023/12/action-collaborative-on-preventing.html
Are you a person of color or an ally to people of color in astronomy and related fields? Have you wanted to connect with other people of color at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meetings but found it difficult to do so? Have you wanted a space throughout the entire meeting to connect with other folks and receive support and resources for your career? If so, you are not alone!
This January, we are launching The Rainbow Village at #AAS243, an initiative born out of the need to provide a permanent space throughout the AAS meeting where people of color can gather, support each other, and obtain access to organizations that are directly serving people of color in astronomy.
See more at
https://aas.org/posts/news/2023/12/rainbow-village-aas-gathering-place-people-color-astronomy
Astrobites interviewed Junellie Gonzalez Quiles, Coordinator for the League of Underrepresented Minoritized Astronomers (LUMA) about LUMA and the Rainbow Village. Read the interview at
https://astrobites.org/2023/12/22/rainbow-village-junellie-gonzalez-quiles/
A team of scientists — including Professor Jessica DeGol, Dr. Melinda Soares-Furtado and Dr. Veronica Allen — are collaborating on an investigation that focuses on parents in astronomy. The goal is to determine if there are any measurable differences in the challenges parents face based on various identity factors, as well as better understanding the impact of the global pandemic on our experiences.
To gather data for our study, we have created a 10-minute survey, consisting of 32 multiple choice questions and 4 open-ended questions. We have roughly fifty responders so far and are seeking more. We are asking parents in the field of astronomy to take the survey and to share it it with astronomer colleagues. We believe it is important to also include dads and nonbinary parents in our research, so their participation is highly encouraged as well.
Here is the link to the survey: https://uwmadison.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3O5lOSgWzQP0xpA?fbclid=IwAR2Y9DFbGL3KftubjqjWDaevCwwt8pLilj7i33q1Syh1pf7DOj9fmQgNwdQ
Thank you so much for your time and consideration. We truly appreciate your support in advancing our understanding of the experiences of parents in astronomy.
One of the central features of the AAS summer and winter meetings is their plenary talks spanning the full breadth of astrophysics. Some plenaries are given by prize winners from the AAS and other organizations, while other speakers are selected by the AAS Vice Presidents (VPs). Most plenary talks present science content, but talks on the state of the profession, demographics, and societal issues of relevance to the astronomical community are also regularly scheduled.
The VPs solicit nominations from the community for potential plenary speakers and/or topics. We seek dynamic speakers who can deliver engaging, visual-rich presentations to a general audience of astronomers, on topics that are of broad interest to the community. On the nomination form, please provide specific information on the candidate’s speaking ability. This is especially important for candidates from under-represented groups and institutions and early-career scientists — they may be less well-known, but we really want to provide speaking opportunities for them. The candidate speaker list will not necessarily be limited to those nominated by the community. Self-nominations are accepted.
Submit a nomination at
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSft7F8YMNlI12JKZHeQUhqDpjQveEmuNVRZKJ5F8vwAQ3rPgA/viewform
In 2024 the IAU meets in Cape Town, South Africa. Working Group 3 is Women in Astronomy. The Scientific Organising Committee for this meeting is working on the details, which will soon be posted https://astronomy2024.org/working-group-3-women-in-astronomy/. In the meantime, you can learn more about the work of this Working Group at this website
https://iau.org/science/scientific_bodies/working_groups/122/
On February 20, 2024, starting at 3 PM Eastern, NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Inclusion Plan Community of Practice will host a webinar to discuss requirements for and evaluation of Inclusion Plans in ROSES-2024. Inclusion, defined as the full participation, belonging, and contribution of organizations and individuals, is a core NASA value and SMD has been piloting the addition of Inclusion Plans for some program elements in Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES). At their core, Inclusion Plans are designed to raise awareness of barriers to creating and sustaining positive, inclusive working environments and to get proposers actively thinking about ways to foster diverse and inclusive practices for their research and mission teams.
Starting in ROSES-2023, Inclusion Plan requirements were standardized for all participating program elements. Beginning in ROSES-2024, the evaluation processes for these plans has also been standardized. The webinar will (1) discuss the motivation and goals of Inclusion Plans, (2) describe Inclusion Plan requirements and how they differ from previous years, and (3) discuss how Inclusion Plans will be evaluated.
In advance of the webinar, questions may be submitted and upvoted on at: https://nasa.cnf.io/sessions/ceeq/#!/dashboard
For more resources for Inclusion Plans, please visit: https://science.nasa.gov/researchers/inclusion
The webinar will be broadcast live via WebEx. Connection details follow:
Join from the webinar link: https://nasaenterprise.webex.com/nasaenterprise/j.php?MTID=m1cf2abd210b74467dacd39fdbfe06038
Times Higher Education has put out its annual statistics of worldwide universities. Among the collected data is the Female:Male student ratio, which ranges from 99:1 all the way to 5:95.
Read more at
By Awareness Days
International Day of Women and Girls in Science is an annual observance that celebrates the achievements and contributions of women and girls in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). This day recognizes the importance of gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls in the scientific community. In this article, we will explore what International Day of Women and Girls in Science represents, when it occurs, its significance, and how it is observed.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science, established by the United Nations (UN), is a day dedicated to promoting gender equality in STEM fields and encouraging more women and girls to pursue careers in science and technology. It aims to break down barriers and stereotypes that have historically limited the participation of women in these fields.
International Day of Women and Girls in Science is observed on February 11th each year. This date was chosen to honor the birthday of Marie Curie, a pioneering physicist and chemist who made groundbreaking contributions to the fields of radioactivity and nuclear physics. Marie Curie remains an inspirational figure for women in science.
Read more at
By For Women in Science
“At school there were definitely the types of people who were told they were the arty ones, people who were told they could only be creative so they had to study subjects like English, drama, history and music.” These are the words of physicist Jess Wade who believes this is a misconception: “A career in science is a career in creativity,” she says.
Shakila Bik, a chemistry graduate and director of scientific and regulatory affairs for L’Oréal UK & Ireland thinks we are living in a really important and interesting time in science. She adds: “We need creative women at the forefront to bring their perspective through their lens and lived experiences.”
In this video you’ll hear more from Jess, Shakila and from Ijeoma Uchegbu, professor of pharmacy at University College London, on the subject of creativity in science and the role of women in successful scientific discovery.
“To create new knowledge you need different people,” says Ijeoma. And Jess adds: “You bring together all of these diverse perspectives and you see things that you didn’t see as possible before.”
Watch the video at
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/lifestyle/loreal-groupe/stem-gender-imbalance/
By Firstpost
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)’s recently launched space observatory satellite, the XPoSat or X-ray Polarimeter Satellite is one that has been completely designed by the women scientists and engineers, working at ISRO, Mission Director Dr Jayakumar M has revealed.
Speaking at a press conference after the successful launch of the XPoSat, and several other payloads on board the PSLV-C58 rocket from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikotta, the Dr Jayakumar said, “We are extremely happy to see the grand success of the launch of the PSLV. XPoSat is a space observatory.”
Read more at
By Margriet van der Heijden
Who were Paul Ehrenfest and Tatiana Afanassjewa? As is so often the case with couples, more is known about him than about her. The first 40 years of Ehrenfest’s life and work have been documented in a scientific biography, and memoirs have been written by Ehrenfest’s students—among them the mathematician Dirk Struik, the physicist Johannes Burgers, and Jan Tinbergen, one of the 1969 Nobel laureates in economics. Their writings recall the vibrant and intellectually inspiring atmosphere that Ehrenfest and Afanassjewa created in their home in Leiden.
By contrast, Afanassjewa’s work and her contributions to the lively scientific debates have long gone unnoticed, even in the Netherlands. Only recently did her innovative work and contributions in the fields of thermodynamics, statistical mechanics, and mathematics education draw broader attention. Yet an unwavering love for physics and the natural sciences was what brought Ehrenfest and Afanassjewa together in 1903, and it was what cemented their relationship thereafter.
Read more at
By Juan P. Madrid
This summer, a team of students and I were enjoying breathtaking views of the night sky while we collected data using telescopes at the McDonald Observatory in West Texas. One night, when we were outside on a telescope catwalk between the screams of a mountain lion, one of my students amazed me with her interpretation of the fate of Andromeda, the galaxy closest to our Milky Way. In describing how these two galaxies will merge a few billion years from now, she said they will experience “a giant galactic hug.”
The kindness, but also the accuracy, of the language my student used was in sharp contrast to the standard description we use in astronomy to explain the final destiny of Andromeda and the Milky Way: “a collision.” But as astronomers have predicted, when Andromeda and the Milky Way finally meet, their stars will entwine and create a larger cosmic structure, a process that is more creating than destroying, which is what we envision when we use the term collision. A galactic hug is scientifically truthful, and it’s led me to believe that astronomers should reconsider the language we use.
Read more [subscription may be required] at
ROSES-2023 Future Investigators in NASA Earth and Space Science and Technology (FINESST F.5) solicits proposals for graduate student research projects. Volunteers with either Earth Science or Space Science expertise are invited as volunteer reviewers at
and
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
- Executive Director, Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, AZ
https://lowell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Lowell_ED_PS_vF_website_12-22-23-2.pdf
- Visiting Assistant Professor of Astronomy, Williams College, Williamstown, MA
https://jobregister.aas.org/ad/6b720776
- Equity-minded Tenure-Track Faculty Physics Instructor, MiraCosta College, Oceanside, CA
https://jobs.miracosta.edu/postings/3945
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