Today’s
suggestion comes from Sonali Shukla. Sonali researches the formation of young
stars, in particular, X-ray and infrared signatures of disks around these types
of stars. She uses data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the Spitzer
Space Telescope. After completing two years as a postdoc at the Pennsylvania
State University studying properties of brown dwarfs and young stars, she is
now in an education and outreach position in the physics department at the
University of Maryland.
Ever
wonder what you could gain from joining or starting a local Women in
Astronomy/Physics/ Science group? When
I was an undergraduate, I was the only female student in the physics program
until my junior year. With such small numbers, there was no such women’s group
in my department. However, I got along well with all my fellow students, and
was blissfully unaware of any unconscious bias against women.
In
graduate school, I had several female friends, and one of my colleagues and I
decided to start a Women in Physics group – something that didn’t exist at my
university. Our first meeting was a tea, and was well-attended by faculty and
students. I mostly expected the meetings to mainly be of a social nature, but our
next tea meeting brought up some surprises: while chatting, many students discovered
some common slightly negative interactions with certain faculty and staff. Most
of them consisted of only mildly insensitive comments, but it wasn’t until we
were together as a group that we were able to put the pieces together. Working
as a team with faculty support and our department chair, we were able to positively
address some of these issues and the group went from strength-to-strength
afterwards. During my time in graduate school, the group became a fixture in
the department. We held group lunches and social events, established a
mentoring program, shared resources, and even managed to instigate and create a
college-wide policy on parental leave policies for graduate students.
