AASWomen Newsletter for June 14, 2024

Dr Heloise Stevance, item 6.
Credit Dr Heloise Stevance.

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of June 14, 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. Celebrate Black in Space Week 2024
2. Eclipsed No More: Women Astronomers You Should Know
3. AfNWA Women in Astronomy in Africa Book
4. Latest Elsevier Gender Equality Study Reveals 20 Years Of Progress, But Challenges Remain For Women in Research And Innovation
5. Pioneer Women Astronomers Flourished a Century Ago
6. Dr Heloise Stevance wins 2024 Caroline Herschel Prize Lectureship
7. 2024 Kavli Prize in Astrophysics Awardee Sara Seager
8. ‘3 Body Problem’ Proves Why TV Needs More Women in STEM
9. Astronomy on Tap
10. Astronomy Festival on the National Mall
11. Job Opportunities
12. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
13. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
14. 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.

Celebrate Black in Space Week 2024

By Ashley Walker, Caprice Phillips, AJ Link, LLM, KeShawn Ivory, Naia Butler-Craig, Robert Washington III, and Cheyenne Polius

Black In Astro is excited to announce #BlackSpaceWeek, which runs from June 16 to June 22, 2024 and will provide the opportunity for the Black Space Community to celebrate our multidimensionality and everything that it entails. Starting with the #BSWRollCall and continuing for the rest of #BlackSpaceWeek, we cannot wait to get into #MTheory and what it means to be #AfroDynamic; we will provide a #LiftOff platform to showcase our collective talents and reflect on #ContainingMultitudes; and finish the week by putting on #ForTheCulture and looking towards an #NDimensional future by honoring our past. Click here to

• see the schedule of events, 
• submit artwork, 
• register for panels and chats, and
• register for research showcases.

We are multidimensional beings made of stardust. This year, for #BlackSpaceWeek, the Black In Astro team wants to uplift how our community brings our multidimensional identities and experiences with us into Space. 

The concept of multidimensionality allows us to acknowledge that our identities are not just intersectional, but ever changing and ever evolving based on our lived experiences. Multidimensionality is a way of expressing our constant relationship with everything around us, from the current matrices of oppression to the historical wisdoms of our ancestors, and from our individual struggles to our collective liberation. 

To embrace multidimensionality is to celebrate how we are just as complex and fascinating 

and worthy of awe as the universe we are traversing. 

Come join us for #BlackSpaceWeek 2024!

AASWomen Newsletter for June 7, 2024

Vera Rubin, item 5.
Credit: KPNO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of June 7, 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. NASA SMD Bridge Program: Funding Opportunities for non-R1 Institutions
2. Australia’s key program for gender equity in STEM was scrapped last week
3. Create Your Own Astronomy Masterpiece to Inspire and Engage
4. Celebrate Your New Zealand Science Heroine
5. Who is the person behind Nvidia's next-gen platform 'Rubin'?
6. ‘I saw that discrimination wasn’t hearsay or rumours — it really did exist’
7. A shocking 79% of female scientists have negative experiences during polar field work
8. MeerKAT Radio Telescope Call for Observing Proposals
9. Job Opportunities
10. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
11. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
12. 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.

NASA SMD Bridge Program: Funding Opportunities for non-R1 Institutions

By Padi Boyd, NASA Headquarters

Learn about the NASA SMD Bridge Program at the Summer AAS meeting in Wisconsin!

The Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Bridge Program’s primary goal is to develop sustainable partnerships between NASA science and engineering researchers and faculty and students at institutions historically under-resourced by NASA. These institutions include Minority-serving Institutions (MSIs) such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs), Primarily Black Institutions (PBIs), and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs), and also Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs) and community colleges. These research collaborations include faculty and NASA researchers and paid student research opportunities, with the goal of transitioning the students from undergraduate studies into graduate schools and/or employment by NASA or other STEM employment.

A unique element of the program is that it is being co-created with the community it seeks to serve. A community workshop in October 2022 gathered together hundreds of community members to understand the current landscape at a variety of under-resourced institutions (URIs), as identified above. Themes and perspectives from the workshop have provided a foundation for establishing funding opportunities in the Bridge Program. Importantly, the key takeaways from the workshop were

• To build research capacity, the ideal NASA Bridge Program would center the needs of students, faculty, and institutions that have been historically and systematically marginalized.

• The ideal NASA Bridge Program would lead a paradigm shift by assuming primary responsibility for building impactful relationships/partnerships with marginalized and underserved communities  to diversify its workforce and the STEM community.

Common themes from the workshop include

• the need for NASA to help facilitate new partnerships where no NASA collaboration currently exists. 

• the importance of strong positive mentorship in developing students into STEM professionals, as well as the impacts of poor mentorship on retention of STEM students. 

A report from the workshop is public and available on the SMD Bridge website. Workshop content, including agenda, and recordings are available on the workshop website. 

Members of the SMD Bridge Program team have organized a special session for the Summer AAS meeting in Madison at

10 am - 11:30 am on Tuesday, June 11

Ballroom C

We’re looking forward to sharing an overview of the program, presenting some examples of newly selected teams who have received seed funding to initiate research partnerships between a wide variety of URIs across seven NASA Centers, and providing updates on current and future funding opportunities through NASA SMD’s Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Science (ROSES) omnibus solicitation. Everyone is welcome to attend!

A list of other DEIA and Education activities at the AAS meeting can be found here.