Issue of June 19, 2026
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. Career Interview Series: Sarah Lipscy on her non-academic career path in astronomy
2. Recommendations for the Astronomy Graduate Admissions Process
3. 63 years after first woman in space, how far has the sector come?
4. Black Space Week 2026: Interview with Amina Diop
5. Groundbreaking US astronaut Christina Koch wins top Spanish award
6. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter
7. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter
8. 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 Sarah Lipscy attends an AAS meeting, she needs an hour to get to each session. She might only be crossing the hall, but the five or ten-minute conversations she has with other attendees on the way light her up. “It’s one of my favorite meetings because I’m an astronomer by training. That’s my people,” Lipscy says.
As the Director of Business Winning and International Business Development within the Space and Mission Systems sector at BAE Systems, Inc., Lipscy spends much of her day with engineers and business partners. When she has the chance to be with other astronomers, she takes the opportunity to chat, even if that means a five-minute walk takes an hour.
Read more at
https://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2026/06/career-interview-series-sarah-lipscy-on.html
By AAS Working Group on Graduate Admissions: Emily Levesque, Courtney Dressing, Rachel Ivie, Grace Krahm, Meredith MacGregor, Daniel Piacitelli, and Tom Rice
The AAS Working Group on Graduate Admissions shares recommendations for changes to current astronomy graduate admissions practices. These include changes to application content, timelines, and communication with the goal of improving key elements of the admissions process.
Read more at
https://baas.aas.org/pub/2026i008/release/1
By Beril Çanakcı
She called it “Chaika,” the Russian word for seagull. It was the radio call sign used by Valentina Tereshkova when she spoke to Soviet ground control from her Vostok 6 capsule on June 16, 1963, as she became the first woman to travel to space. Twenty-six years old, a former textile factory worker from a village in Russia’s Yaroslavl region, she had just made history as the first woman in space. Over the next 71 hours, she completed 48 orbits of Earth, logging more time in space than all American astronauts combined to that point.
Read more at
By Kaz Gary
This interview is part of Astrobites coverage of #BlackSpaceWeek presented by Black in Astro. Today’s interviewee is Amina Diop, a fifth-year doctoral student at the University of Virginia.
Diop first discovered astronomy, and her love for it, from her TV, growing up on a healthy diet of French dubbed space documentaries. It wasn’t until she watched these documentaries that she realized the field of astronomy even existed as her home country of Senegal had little opportunities to study astronomy at that time. Through these documentaries, she learned about institutions such as NASA in the United States where she could pursue her dream of studying the stars. “I remember thinking ‘I need to get myself to the US, to NASA, to study astronomy.’” Her family had little idea of what an astronomy career entailed and she would be the first in her family to pursue a PhD.
Read more at
https://astrobites.org/2026/06/16/amina-diop-interview/
For more information on Black Space Week and Black in Astro:
By Rafael Salido and Gavin Blackburn
US astronaut Christina Koch, the first woman to take part in a lunar mission, was named the winner of a top Spanish prize on Wednesday for having "helped extend the frontiers of humanity."
The jury of the Princess of Asturias Award for Concord said Koch's career was an inspiration for future generations, particularly women. It reflects "humanity's ability to overcome challenges and adversity through hard work, collaboration and empathy."
Koch, 47, was part of the four-member crew of the Artemis II mission which in April flew around the Moon, the first lunar flyby in more than 50 years. She is widely viewed as a potential candidate for future lunar-surface missions.
Read more at
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