CSWA Sessions & Events at AAS Phoenix 2026

We look forward to seeing you at the 247th American Astronomical Society meeting to be held January 4-8, 2026 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.

CSWA will be hosting and co-hosting several events early in the week.  Please come by to meet your CSWA representatives, network, and support women in our field.  Events and activities are open to all registered attendees who are interested in participating or learning more.  Find the full schedule for AAS 2026 at https://aas.org/meetings/aas247

Sun. Jan. 4:
AAS Grad School & REU Fair
Phoenix Convention Center, 301 C
5:30-7:00 p.m. MT

Come hear about CSWA's strategic plan and current activities and how you can get involved with AAS at the CSWA table!

Mon. Jan. 5:
CSWA Cohorts Kickoff Session
Phoenix Convention Center, 232 B
2:00-3:30 p.m. MT

The AAS's Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy invites in person and virtual attendees to kick off the new CSWA Cohorts program. Drawing inspiration from cohort model peer groups (e.g., Lean In Circles; Every Other Thursday: Stories and Strategies from Successful Women Scientists by Ellen Daniell; institutional support groups and mentoring programs), this session aims to connect people within and across career stages in astronomy to solve problems and provide support to each other in challenging times and situations. The goal of the CSWA Cohorts program is to establish topical peer groups that will continue these conversations virtually year-round. Event is open to all AAS attendees, regardless of gender, status, or background.

Sign up for cohorts or suggest a group at https://forms.gle/YUQBhEboZjZvvKPJ8

Mon. Jan. 5:
1400 Degrees and AAS CSWA Networking Event at AAS 247
Offsite event, RSVP link below
6:30-8:30 p.m. MT
* Remarks from CSWA and guest speaker Dr. Meg Urry around 7 p.m.

1400 Degrees is partnering with the American Astronomical Society’s Committee for the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA) for an evening networking and community-building event at the AAS247 meeting in Phoenix, Arizona on January 5th, 2026. Connect over dinner and beverages with scientists from different institutions, career stages, and scientific sub-disciplines within physics and astronomy, in a casual and comfortable environment.

Event is open to ages 21+ colleagues attending the AAS conference who are interested in supporting women and gender minorities in physics and astronomy.

RSVP is required as event space is limited, so make sure to indicate your interest in attending quickly or get on the waitlist at https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1FNRU5ZQLhMh7tc8daXZ6oeXVjNNYCZTL46ipQJoB9ds/viewform?ts=6924ae7f&edit_requested=true .

Hosts: Karly Pitman/CSWA and Gabriele Betancourt-Martinez (Heising-Simons Foundation; 1400 Degrees: https://1400degrees.org/)

Please join us for our CSWA sessions. We can't wait to see you. 

CSWA Sessions & Events at AAS National Harbor 2025

by Karly Pitman, CSWA Chair

We look forward to seeing you at the 245th American Astronomical Society meeting to be held January 12-16, 2025 at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center in National Harbor, Maryland.  

CSWA will be hosting and co-hosting several events early in the week.  Please come by to meet your CSWA representatives, network, and support the advancement of women in our field.

AAS and CWSA Meeting Schedule:

Sun. Jan. 12:

AAS Grad School & REU Fair

Prince George’s Exhibit Hall E

5:30-7:00 p.m. ET

Come hear about CSWA's strategic plan and current activities and how you can get involved with AAS at the CSWA table!

Mon. Jan. 13:

CSWA Hackathon - Take Action for Equity

Chesapeake 6

1:00-3:15 p.m. ET

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA) has recently authored several papers with recommendations by and for our community on ways to support gender equity and the success of women in astronomy. In this interactive, solutions-oriented session, attendees will choose from a menu of canonical and systemic problems facing women in our field (e.g., issues impacting employment pipeline and retention, compensation, two-body problem, workplace civility, barriers to power and leadership, etc.) and collaborate in real time to brainstorm practical and tactical solutions to address them. We all know what the problems are - what we need is dedicated time together to solve them. If you don’t have time to volunteer for a committee but want to effect change and take action, this is your opportunity.

Tue. Jan. 14:

1400 Degrees and AAS CSWA Networking Event at AAS245

(Offsite event at Rosa Mexicano, RSVP link below; 6:30-9:00 p.m. ET)

1400 Degrees is partnering with the American Astronomical Society’s Committee for the Status of Women in Astronomy for an evening networking and community-building event at the AAS245 meeting in National Harbor, Maryland, on January 14th, 2025. Connect over dinner and beverages with scientists from different institutions, career stages, and scientific sub-disciplines within physics and astronomy in a casual and comfortable environment. Feel free to share this invitation with your (21+) women and gender minority colleagues attending the AAS conference. Space is limited, so make sure to RSVP quickly. We hope to see you there!

 

Link to RSVP on Eventbrite: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1400-degrees-and-aas-cswa-at-aas-2025-tickets-1083319611119

Hosts: Karly Pitman/CSWA and Gabriele Betancourt-Martinez (Heising-Simons Foundation; 1400 Degrees: https://1400degrees.org/)

We hope you can join us for some or all of these events. Find the full schedule for AAS 2025 at https://aas.org/meetings/aas245. 

Assessing the Demographics of Participants in AAS Press Conferences

By Elizabeth Fenstermacher

In support of the CSWA’s Strategic Plan for the 2020s, a survey to assess the participation of community members at official AAS press conferences was conducted. In Assessing the Demographics of Participants in Press Conferences at Meetings of the American Astronomical Society (2010-2022), Grace Bagdon, Nicolle Zellner, Patricia Knezek, and the AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA) examined the demographics of who is invited to participate in press conferences and reported on the participants’ perceptions of the influence that participating in even just one AAS press conference has on one’s career and forward trajectory. 

A few highlights:

Figure 6 in Bagdon et al. (2021).



• 59.7% of respondents felt that participation in press conferences impacted their career in a positive way. Women were more likely than men to feel this way, and those from small academic institutions were significantly more likely to feel this way.

• Around 35% of respondents who identified as women had participated in more than one press conference while over 48% of men could say the same.

• Respondents report that the ‘Dual Anonymous’ method has been shown to increase the participation, and thus the representation, of women.

Figure 22 (left) and Figure 23 (right) in Bagdon et al. (2021).

When asked to provide feedback on the results of this research, longtime AAS Press Officer Rick Fienberg stated,

The most important sentence (in my opinion) is this one from the Recommendations section: ‘This study has…demonstrated that press conference participation is broadly representative of AAS membership and that this participation can positively impact a career.’ That alone should prompt more people to step forward to participate in press conferences.

In response to the reports findings of an overwhelming support for the ‘Dual Anonymous’ method, Rick recommended that ‘Public Information Officers’ (PIOs) at investigator institutions should also be encouraged to utilize a dual anonymous method as well, when selecting what is newsworthy. He offered the following:

...when reaching out to PIOs for recommendations, it’d be worthwhile to encourage them to do the same, i.e., to focus on the abstracts and not the authors when looking for newsworthy results to highlight. I suspect if you were to look at the people who’ve participated in multiple press conferences over the years, you’d find that they are more likely than average to have worked with a PIO. In my experience, PIOs often recommend the same people repeatedly.

Figure 9 in Bagdon et al. (2021).

See more data and read the full report here.

 

AASWomen Newsletter for November 18, 2022

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of November 18, 2022
eds: Jeremy Bailin, Nicolle Zellner, Alessandra Aloisi, and Sethanne Howard

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

This week's issues:

1. On Gender Equality and Imposter Syndrome: A Case Study and Life Stories by Astrophysicist Jocelyn Graham Bell

2. 19th International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists (ICWES19)
3. Female peer mentors early in college have lasting positive impacts on female engineering students that persist beyond graduation
4. Career Development Fellowship for Trans, Non-Binary, and Intersex People in STEM
5. Systemic Racism Reflected in Grant Allocations, Researchers Argue
6. Matching female university students & professionals with high school girls
7. AAAS Awarded Nearly $20M to Establish Three Distinct Initiatives Supporting Representation in STEMM Fields
8. Job Opportunities
9. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter
10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter11. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/ at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.

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AASWomen Newsletter for December 17, 2021

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 17, 2021
eds: Heather Flewelling, Nicolle Zellner, Maria Patterson, Alessandra Aloisi, and Jeremy Bailin

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

Dr. Chien-Shiung Wu
Item 2, Credit: USPS

This week's issues:

1. Meet Your CSWA: Karly Pitman

2. Discovering Dr. Wu

3. This female coder wrote the Apollo project by hand

4. Remembering Astronomer Henrietta Swan Leavitt

5. How to end the hemorrhaging of senior women in STEM

6. Virtual conferences are better for the environment and more inclusive

7. Professional development opportunity for women and gender minority graduate students and postdocs

8. Job Opportunities

9. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

An online version of this newsletter will be available at http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com at 3:00 PM ET every Friday.

AASWomen Newsletter for April 5, 2019

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

April 5, 2019

eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

This week's issues:

1. Cross-post: Guide to Organizing Inclusive Scientific Meetings

2. Town Hall Webinar: Decadal Survey on Astronomy and Astrophysics

3. Deadline Extended: NASA Planetary Science Summer Seminar

4. 10 Unusual Tips For How To Advance Women In STEM, National Academy Of Sciences

5. NASEM Report: Preventing Sexual Harassment

6. Mixed messages about women’s representation in science—and a missing piece of the picture

7. 32 Women Who’ve Changed Life As We Know It 

8. The Failure of NASA’s Spacewalk SNAFU? How Predictable it Was

9. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

AASWomen Newsletter for March 1, 2019

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

March 1, 2019

eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

This week's issues:  

1. Does your conference spark joy? Two days at Women in Space 2019 

2. NASA Renames Facility to Honor 'Hidden Figures' Subject Katherine Johnson

3. Announcing the 11th Annual Susan Niebur WiPS Networking Event – LPSC 2019 

4. Conferences on General Relativity, Gravitation, and Gravitational Waves

5. Deaf Students Feel the Universe’s Vibrations in New Workshop

6. When Pioneers Disappear from History 

The Tower of the Moon and the Stars,
built by Queen Sonduk (632 CE).
Image by Gabriella Bernardi.

7. How some men are challenging gender inequity in the lab

8. 18 Children's Books About Female Scientists, Because STEM-inism Is The Future

9.  The unforgotten sisters: Sonduk, the astronomer queen

10. Job Opportunities   

11. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

12. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

13. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter 

Does your conference spark joy? Two days at Women in Space 2019

Group photo from Women in Space 2019

By Adeene Denton

Adeene Denton is a Presidential Fellow pursuing her PhD at Brown University in planetary geoscience, with a focus on early martian climatic and geologic history as well as basin formation on Pluto. She is both a scientist and a historian focused on approaching future planetary exploration from a scientific and humanistic perspective.

Editor's Note: This is one of a series of recaps of the Women in Space conference. Each will feature the viewpoint of someone at a different career stage.

On February 7 and 8, 2019, I returned to the Women in Space conference for its second year of programming. In its inaugural outing in Toronto, I found Women in Planetary Science and Exploration (as it was then called) to be a conference experience unlike any other. Scientists, engineers, humanities scholars, and educators were all welcomed to the space as valued contributors to our discussion. Now in its second year and in a new venue in Scottsdale, Arizona, Women in Space has grown and improved while continuing to be one of the only conferences of its kind: a conference where the experiences of women and non-binary people dictate the programming, rather than having programming made for us by an institution that bears us only a passing, cursory interest. And while no conference is ever perfect, I’m here not to critique Women in Space, but to praise it. I want to talk about the critical things it’s getting right, because it’s the only conference I’ve attended that has done so.

AASWomen Newsletter for December 21, 2018

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

December 21, 2018

eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

[Happy Holidays to all! --eds.]

This week's issues:

1. Transitioning From Astronomy to the Space Industry 

2. Conference attendance boosts authorship opportunities

3. COSPAR SYMPOSIUM CALL FOR PAPERS: “Small Satellites for Sustainable Science and Development”

4. Women Scientists Who Made Nuclear Astrophysics

5. NASA Appoints Its First Female Chief Flight Director 

6. How One Organization Is Keeping Women In STEM Careers   

7. How Implicit Bias and Lack of Diversity Undermine Science  

8. What Happens When You Double Blind Astronomers?

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 of the AASWomen Newsletter

AASWomen Newsletter for September 28, 2018

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of September 28, 2018
eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Cristina Thomas, Maria Patterson, and JoEllen McBride

This week's issues:

1. Women in Space Conference

2. A Hologram of the First Woman of Color in Space Debuted on Museum Day

3. Women much less likely to ask questions in academic seminars than men

4. Portrayals of female STEM characters in TV and film haven't improved in 10 years

5. The People Who Could Have Done Science Didn't

6. A lack of digital skills could be hurting young professional women

7. Google's Notable Women app uses AR to put women on any US bill

8. Job Opportunities

9. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

11. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

AASWomen Newsletter for March 16, 2018

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

Issue of March 16, 2018

eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Christina Thomas, and Maria Patterson

This week's issues:

1. Autism Isn't the Problem              

2. Science — without the mansplaining

3. Same Course, Different Ratings

4. Female researchers publish childcare recommendations for conference organizers

5. Watch: Female Astronauts Speak About Women in STEM

6. Senior female scientist dropout rate causing concern

7. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

8. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

9. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

AASWomen for August 4, 2017

AAS Committee on the Status of Women

Issue of August 4, 2017

eds: Nicolle Zellner, Heather Flewelling, Christina Thomas, and Maria Patterson

This week's issues:

1. Women in Leadership: Power

2. How Sexual Harassment And Bias Undermine Women’s Access To Scientific Careers

3. The Plan to End Science’s Sexist #Manel Problem

4. Study Tracks Gender Ratios at Conferences

5. Advice to the Young from Pioneering Astrophysicist Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin, Who Discovered the Composition of the Universe

6. Women Breaking Barriers: Career Advice from Leading Women in Business, Technology, and Beyond

7. Job Opportunities

8. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

10. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter

#AAS229: Making the Most of the AAS Winter Meeting with Twitter

It can be intimidating to attend the AAS winter meeting, especially the first time. This winter ~2500 astronomers will gather in Grapevine, Texas to exchange ideas, discuss research, and network with other professionals in astronomy. The program can be overwhelming, with thousands of oral and poster presentations as well as dozens of workshops and events. But for our relatively small community, it’s also a fun week to reconnect with friends and meet new people who may become lifelong colleagues. 

This guide is for those who are looking to expand their AAS experience by utilizing the power of Twitter. We highlight some great ways to connect digitally at the conference.  If you have further suggestions for how to make the most of AAS+Twitter, please contact Nicole or Jessica and we will add them to this post.

Cross-post: DPS/EPSC 2016 Plenary on Unconscious Bias by Dr. Patricia Knezek

This is a cross posting from the Women in Planetary Science blog.

The new DPS Sub-committee on Professional Culture and Climate implemented many ideas at the 2016 meeting in Pasadena, some of which were: a plenary talk featured in this post, more prominent displays of the anti-harassment policy at the meeting entrances, a hotline for reporting harassment incidents, and additional questions about the meeting climate on the post-meeting survey. The meeting survey will be e-mailed to attendees in the near future, please take a moment to fill it out!

Dr. Patricia Knezek insightful talk outlines the prevalence and importance of unconscious bias, what it is (and what it is not), demographic data (including some for planetary science by Julie Rathbun and others), and what we can do to mitigate unconscious bias.
Her slides are available here.

If you have not already taken the Harvard Implicit Association Test, it is an interesting way to test your own biases (and not just for gender bias!)

Thanks to Patricia for this talk, and for the members of the DPS Professional Climate and Culture sub-committee for all of your efforts towards making the meeting a comfortable space for all.

DPS Professional Culture & Climate Subcommittee/Announcement of DPS Plenary

The Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS) of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) created the Professional Culture and Climate Subcommittee (PCCS) this past year with the goal of considering and recommending actions that the DPS can take to remove or reduce factors in our professional culture that lead to anything other than scientific merit in consideration of any members's ability to achieve success as a planetary scientist.

Top, L-R: Christina Richey, Nancy Chanover, Rebecca Oppenheimer, & Karen Meech
Bootom, L-R: Guy Consolmango, Sarah Horst, Matthew Tiscareno, & Sona Hosseini

The current members of the PCCS are:

Christina Richey (co-CHAIR, ASRC Federal and NASA HQ)

Nancy Chanover (co-CHAIR, New Mexico State University)

Rebecca Oppenheimer (American Museum Natural History)

Karen Meech (University of Hawaii IFA)

Guy Consolmagno (Vatican Observatory)

Sarah Horst (Johns Hopkins University)

Matthew Tiscareno (SETI Institute)

Sona Hosseini (Jet Propulsion Laboratory)

Events at the 227th American Astronomical Society Meeting

Several key events will be occurring at the 227th American Astronomical Society meeting, held January 4th-8th at the Gaylord Palms Resort in Kissimmee, Florida. Danny Barringer posted to Astrobetter for the upcoming meeting, and Jason Wright had previously written a first timer's guide to the AAS meeting for Astrobetter.

Below are highlights for events that may be of interest:

1. Student Pavilion and Mentoring Events:

The NEW Student Pavilion, located in the exhibit hall, will provide a unique space for students to meet, network, and collect information.  The Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy (CSMA), the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (CSWA), and the Committee for Sexual-Orientation & Gender Minorities in Astronomy (SGMA) have teamed up to provide table space and well as mentoring opportunities Tuesday-Friday.  Mentoring sessions will be held at 10 AM and 2 PM each day and will include mentors form various backgrounds (more information on mentors will be available in a future Women in Astronomy blog post).  The sign up sheets will be available starting at the UG Orientation Reception and will then be available at the student pavilion.

My Impressions: The IAU XXIX General Assembly

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) XXIX General Assembly (GA) took place from August 3-14 in Honolulu, Hi.  In addition to a high-level scientific program, the GA included 4 Women’s Lunches and several Mentoring Events organized by the IAU Women’s Working Group (through Chair Francesca Primas) and the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (through me).  The events were highlighted throughout the two weeks in the IAU GA newspaper.  It was a busy two weeks, and this recap will include some key notes, highlights, and even a few concerning points from the IAU GA.

Preliminary results from the CSWA Survey on Workplace Climate that were recently presented at the IAU GA.  Note, the total number of respondents to this survey was 426.

Update on Events at the IAU XXIX General Assembly: Women Lunches and Early Career Events

The IAU XXIX General Assembly Women’s Lunch Events and the Early Career Events

IAU XXIX General Assembly: August 3-14, Hawaii Convention Center

organized by: 

The IAU Women in Astronomy Working Group

&

The Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy 

Reminder: Inclusive Astronomy Conference & Call for Help: IAU XXIX General Assembly Women's events

Several events occurring this summer will give astronomers the chance to discussion equity and inclusion topics and participate in ways to improve our community.  This blog will be dedicated to two upcoming conferences and for two different purposes:

-The Inclusive Astronomy Conference (which has finalized their Science Program and has extended the deadline for registration to this Friday)

AND

-The Women’s events for the IAU XXIX General Assembly (which includes a call for topics to be covered and a request for volunteers from the community to lead table discussions or to serve as a mentor for early career members).

Gender Representation at a Specialized Astronomy Conference

Today's guest blogger is Kyle Willett. Kyle is a postdoc in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota. He works on galaxy morphology and their relation to active black holes, particularly as part of the Galaxy Zoo project.

Members of the astronomy community have recently been tracking participation at conferences as a function of gender. This is intended to address some basic questions about behavior at conferences, such as:

• How equal are the allotments of talks among men and women?
• Are men and women asking questions of speakers at the same rate?
• Does it matter if the speaker/session chair is a man or a woman?
• Are women/men more likely to ask the first question in a session? Does this affect the gender balance of remaining questions?

In the broader sense, this is intended to measure if our collective behavior at conferences — in choosing speakers, engaging with them, and interacting with the audience — is as inclusive as it should be. If not, then hopefully the community can come up with some ideas of best practices to follow.