AASWomen Newsletter for Dec 6, 2024

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 6, 2024
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Sethanne Howard, Hannah Jang-Condell, and Ferah Munshi

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

This week's issues:

1. Cross-post: Burcin Mutlu-Pakdil chases dwarf galaxies
2. I defend the planet from asteroid collisions
3. Brilliant white male characters more believable, some viewers say
4. Science magazine article on gender gap changes over time in physics, engineering, and computer science (PECS).
5. Women in STEM Building Bridges between scientists and decision makers
6. Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope Research and Support Participation Opportunities Final Text and Due Date
7. AAS Member AI Survey
8. FINESST: Science Mission Directorate’s Graduate Student Research
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.

Cross-post: Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil chases dwarf galaxies

By Toni Feder, for Physics Today

She navigated barriers in Turkey and the US to become an astronomy professor.

Credit: IF/THEN® Collection

Write an essay on your ideal person. That assignment in middle school set Burçin Mutlu-Pakdil on the path to becoming a scientist. Wondering who the “cleverest person in the world” was, she started reading about Albert Einstein and his science. She became especially interested in astronomy.

That interest took Mutlu-Pakdil from Istanbul, Turkey, where she grew up, to the country’s capital city of Ankara for her bachelor’s degree. She earned her PhD from the University of Minnesota in 2017. An unusual galaxy she studied as a PhD student is informally named after her. Today she is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. An observational astronomer, she studies tiny, faint dwarf galaxies; she hopes they will reveal secrets about dark matter.

Read more at

https://pubs.aip.org/physicstoday/article/77/8/24/3304677/Q-amp-A-Burcin-Mutlu-Pakdil-chases-dwarf