Issue of April 18, 2025
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Sethanne Howard, Ferah Munshi, Stella Kafka, and Ben Keller
[We hope you all are taking care of yourselves and each other. --eds.]
This week's issues:
1. Cross-post: PhD Parents: The Pros and Cons of Having a Child During Your Doctorate
2. AAS Responds to Reported Cuts to NASA Science — Take Action Now!
3. AAS Education Committee requests information about undergraduate astronomy programs
4. "Intro to Equity-Minded Mentoring" Workshop on 22 April
5. Amanda Nguyen becomes 1st Vietnamese woman to fly to space: 'This journey really is about healing’
6. Nominations Will Open Soon for 2026 AAS Prizes
7. Request for Letters of Intent for 2025–2026 AAS-EPD Mini-Grant Program
8. NASEM Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics
9. Reminder: Women Astronomers Day
10. How and where to watch the Lyrid meteor shower
11. Women of the Sky: From Muses to Scientists
12. Job Opportunities
13. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
14. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
15. 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.
When is it a good time to have a child if you're studying for a PhD? Science writer Julian Nowogrodzki explores this question with several researchers who had children during the PhD process in this Nature article originally published January 25, 2025.
Read the entire article at https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00058-7
Read more at:
https://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2025/04/cross-post-phd-parents-pros-and-cons-of.html
The American Astronomical Society is gravely concerned by the deep cuts to NASA science funding reported tobe in the draft President’s Budget Request for Fiscal Year 2026. If enacted, the nearly 50% cut to the NASA Science Mission Directorate would be catastrophic to our nation’s leadership in the space sciences, damaging a broad range of research areas and significantlyimpacting our nation’s STEM workforce.
Take action now by asking your members of Congress to sign a bipartisan letter in supportof NASA science. https://aas.org/urge-nasa-support
Read more at: https://aas.org/press/aas-statement-nasa-cuts
The AAS Education Committee is surveying departments on the requirements of their undergraduate astronomy degrees: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSckvRiiOM8jYIKGsbAdL5NDYBO1VmM33cyuPdDEKUp8plqvpg/viewform
Right now the inputs are biased towards locations more focused on teaching, with limited responses from R1 departments in particular. We hope to collect responses from a range of places offering undergraduate astronomy degrees, so please consider filling out. Any faculty member who knows the details can do it. Should only take 5-10 minutes.
Resource guides for undergraduate (https://msha.ke/aas_education#undergrad-resources) and graduate students in astronomy (https://msha.ke/aas_education#grad-resources)
Are you a mentor to undergraduate or graduate students? Consider registering forour upcoming mentoring workshop on 22 April, offered free to you and facilitated by experts of the Equity in Graduate Education Consortium!
Research has shown that faculty interactions with students in the classroom, laboratory, and advising meetings influence students’ professionalsocialization, academic performance, and persistence in higher education. In this two-hour virtual workshop, faculty will reflect on their current advising and mentoring practice, learn how to develop equity-minded mentoring relationships and establish sharedexpectations between mentors and mentees. The workshop will be led by Equityin Graduate Education Consortium facilitators Dr. Denzil Streete and Dr. John Vasquez.
Register at: https://apsphysics.zoom.us/meeting/register/oObVpUE5SE2ghN4JhwMYpA#/registration
By: Monisha Ravisetti
"In this moment, I just want all survivors to know: You can heal. No dream is too wild, and if it's so wild and out there — like going to space — you can absolutely make it through, and it can absolutely be possible." Amanda Nguyễn stepped out of a windowed white capsule in the West Texas desert on Monday (April 14), placed her hands firmly on her chest, then punched them toward the sky, beaming with joy. Having just flown beyond the Kármán line — recognized as the division between Earth and the rest of the universe — she'd just become the first Vietnamese woman to fly to space. She'd also just closed the loop on a dream she paused for 10 years to advocate for civil rights, keeping a promise to her younger self that she would "return to her."
Content warning: sexual assault
Each of the twelve prizes was established and endowed by an individual or committee. The criteria, qualifications, and restrictions for each prize were set at the time that the AAS accepted the prize. The result is a collection of prizes which vary quite a bit as far as who is eligible, how winners will be selected, how many winners may be selected each year, and what the winner or winners will receive with the prize. Be sure to read the prize description carefully before submitting a nomination.
Completing a nomination requires input from multiple individuals. The nominator is responsible for coordinating with all of them! Gone are the days when the nominator could submit a nomination without the nominee being aware. Nominees are now required to provide a substantial amount of documentation for their own nomination.
Self-nominations are accepted for all the prizes. The nomination process does not allow the prize referees to know if a nomination was submitted by the nominee or by someone else.
Nominees will be required to complete the AAS Professional Ethics Self Disclosure Form as part of the nomination.
Read More At: https://aas.org/posts/news/2025/04/nominations-will-open-soon-2026-aas-prizes
The American Astronomical Society (AAS) is accepting Letters of Intent for the 2025-2026 cycle of its Education & Professional Development (EPD) Mini-Grant Program. Letters of Intent are due on May 9th, 2025. The program aims to support innovative EPD experiences for astronomy and astrophysics educators and professionals.
Read More At: https://aas.org/education/aas-epd-mini-grant-program
By:
The Committee on Astronomy and Astrophysics (CAA) provides an independent, authoritative forum for identifying and discussing issues in astronomy and astrophysics with the research community, the federal government, and the interested public. The committee supports scientific progress in astronomy and astrophysics by providing advice to the federal government on the implementation of decadal survey recommendations.
The Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics (Astro2020) report was released on November 4, 2021. Submit suggestions for experts to participate in this activity. The call for experts closes on April 30, 2025 at 11:59 PM EDT.
Read More At: https://www.nationalacademies.org/our-work/committee-on-astronomy-and-astrophysics
Woman Astronomers Day is celebrated on August 1 every year. This holiday celebrates the many achievements of women in science that have long gone unrecognized. The contributions that female astronomers have made are even more impressive considering they practiced astronomy as a hobby, having been denied a chance at formal education. The most well-known is Maria Mitchell, who made a name for herself not only by her accomplishments in astronomy but by her dedication to furthering women’s education. This holiday celebrates her achievements and sheds light on the importance of recognizing women’s contributions to science.
Read more at:
https://nationaltoday.com/woman-astronomers-day/
This annual celestial display occurs every April when the Earth passes through debris left by comet C/1861 G1 (Thatcher) on its orbit around the Sun – a journey that is thought to take about 416 years. “It’s sort of falling apart as it goes,” said Dr Ed Bloomer, an astronomer at Royal Observatory Greenwich.
As Earth orbits the Sun it collides with this debris and the specks of dust burn up in the Earth’s atmosphere. That creates a meteor shower, which is seen in the same part of the sky each year. The Lyrids appear to come from near the constellation Lyra, the harp, from which the shower gets its name.
It is thought to be the oldest recorded meteor shower, with sightings documented in China in 687BC. When is it visible?
The Lyrid meteor shower lasts for several days, with Bloomer noting the greatest period of activity is expected to be between 19 and 25 April, although meteors might be visible from early this week.
The shower is best viewed in the northern hemisphere but can be seen in the southern hemisphere where the constellation of Lyra is visible.
You can also use star map apps on your phone to help locate the constellation of Lyra.
As Bloomer noted, the Lyrids do not look like fireworks, but rather transient sparks of light – although occasionally larger pieces of debris burn up in the atmosphere resulting in bright, longer-lasting meteors known as fireballs.
Read More At: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2025/apr/13/how-and-where-to-watch-the-lyrid-meteor-shower
If you happen to be in Florence Italy the Museo Galileo please visit its exhibition, the first of its kind in Italy, which focuses on the role of women in astronomical research and on exploring the female images that most frequently feature in representations of the cosmos from the Renaissance to the early twentieth century.
Read More At: https://www.museogalileo.it/en/exhibitions/exhibition-archive/women-of-the-sky.html
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
- Full-Time Scientific Data Analyst with the MAVEN Imaging UltraViolet Spectrograph Team at U. Colorado
https://jobs.colorado.edu/jobs/JobDetail/?jobId=63235
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