Guest Post: Eilat Glikman on 'In Praise of Remote Observing'

This week's guest-blogger is Eilat Glikman. Eilat holds an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics postdoctoral fellowship at Yale University.  She studies dust reddened quasars and their role in quasar/galaxy co-evolution, as well as faint quasars at high redshifts.  Eilat has two young children ages 7 and 4 and is dedicated to finding that elusive formula for work/life balance.  

When I decided to pursue a career in astronomy (and academia) I was not aware of the incredible amounts of travel required.  I hate to travel, get stressed in the run up to a trip, am terrible at packing and get homesick quite easily.  Of course, when I arrive at my destination I usually enjoy myself, whether it is observing and getting awesome data or going to a conference and having stimulating and vibrant discussions.  Still, it was a rude awakening when I realized the extreme amounts of airline miles that some astronomers rack up (and the frequent flyer culture that ensues).

In graduate school, I made the best of my trips by adding Hawaiian vacations to IRTF runs.  But toward the end of graduate school, when I was pregnant, traveling to a remote mountaintop in order to go observing was no longer tolerable and I started taking advantage of remote observing whenever possible.  And maybe it is because my first remote observing experiences were with the well-tested interface at IRTF, but once I got a taste of observing without travel, I was hooked.

During my postdoc at Caltech, I used the remote observing facility to observe with the Keck telescope, and delighted in the fact that I could put my toddler to bed, kiss him good night, drive to the office, work all night and come home to sleep during the day.  Comparing this routine with one that adds two days of travel and being completely away from my family, the work-life friendliness of remote observing becomes completely apparent.

I have since written entire papers based on remotely obtained data, from Keck and IRTF.  More recently I have been using WIYN’s remote observing capabilities to do my science at Yale.  And last night I used a new, quite complicated (on paper) instrument on WIYN for the first time.  The first half of the night was for my science, after that my observing partner and I handed the reigns to the next team.  I drove home, within 30 minutes was asleep in my own bed, and am now back in the office ready to go for another half-night.

I cannot express enough how wonderful that feels.

(I will leave for another post some tips on how to maximize good rest during a remote observing run, especially with children.)

The IRTF offers an ideal model to follow.  Anyone with an approved observing program can observe remotely, from anywhere.  The last time I observed with IRTF, I did it from the comfort of my own home.   The data were beautiful and it might have been the best observing run I ever had!
Observatories, astronomy departments, listen up:  If you want to maximize productivity from your facilities, be accessible to more people, and level the playing field for astronomers with different work-life situations and (I didn’t even mention) funding situations, invest in remote observing.

Astronomy vs. Data Science

In response to my last post about the transition from Astronomer to Data Scientist many readers wanted to know the pros and cons of academia versus tech. Below I outline a few of the major differences between these career paths. Obviously, there is a lot of variety in individual companies, institutions, and experiences -- so please understand that the below is simply my (somewhat biased) perspective.

AASWomen for January 25, 2013

AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy
Issue of January 25, 2013
eds. Caroline Simpson, Michele Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, and Nick Murphy

This week's issues:

1. CSWA Special Session at the AAS: Family Leave Policies

2. Reports from the Recent Conferences for Undergraduate Women in

Physics

3. Encouraging (And Keeping) Women In Physics

4. New data from AIP on Number of Women earning Physics Bachelor’s

5. Women's History Month 2013: "Celebrating Women in Science,

Technology, Engineering and Mathematics."

6. L'Oreal USA Launches For Girls In Science

7. APS/IBM Research Internships for Undergraduate Women

8. APS Meetings Child Care Grants

9. NASA Internship, Fellowship and Scholarship Opportunities

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

Report from SCUWP

As I finished writing this blog I noticed a nicely written one just posted by Ed Bertschinger on a similar topic.  So here is a report on the Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics, but from the Southeast conference as compared to Ed's Northeast conference:

My wife, Ellen Williams, attended an interesting conference last week to help undergraduate women in physics and related fields get started in their careers.  It was part of a program called Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics cosponsored by AAS CSWA and APS CSWP, which has simultaneous regional conferences in six regions of the United States.  She attended the one in Florida in the southeast sector, hence SCUWP.

The conference goal from their web site is to "help undergraduate women continue in physics by providing them with the opportunity to experience a professional conference, information about graduate school and professions in physics, and access to other women in physics of all ages with whom they can share experiences, advice, and ideas."  They have talks by professionals, student talks and panel discussions on various topics.

Ellen gave a talk on her experiences as a physics professor at U Maryland and Chief Scientist at BP.  She then participated in panels on the Status of Women in Physics and Careers in Physics.  These conferences are held on the same dates in all the regions, and all the conferences participate in a plenary talk broadcast to all the sites at the same time.  This year the talk was by Margaret Murnane from U. Colorado JILA on "Why Diverse Teams will Meet the Science and Engineering Challenges of the 21st Century".

The energy level of a room filled with over a hundred aspiring young women scientists was multiplied times six in the plenary session as the audiences all saw each other and participated in a rousing cross-continental cheer of enthusiasm at the end.  

Conferences for Undergraduate Women in Physics

This weekend, nearly 1000 undergraduate women in physics gathered in 6 locations around the country for meetings to encourage and support young women advancing in physics (we were told that 987 undergraduate women were attending).  The AAS/CSWA was a co-sponsor, along with the APS CSWP, which provided superb organizational and logistic support to the conferences -- see the APS conference website.  I attended the Northeast Conference at Cornell; CSWA member Michelle Montgomery was a faculty lead for the Southeast Conference at the University of Central Florida, and Meg Urry was a speaker at the Colorado School of Mines.  They and others will agree that this was an inspiring event for everyone who attended.

To put the numbers in context: each year about 6300 physics bachelors degrees are awarded, about 1300 of which go to women.  Most of the student attendees were sophomores through seniors.  About 1/4 of all the women in the US who will earn bachelors degrees in the next three years attended the conferences!  Congratulations to all of the organizers and to the national organizing committee for this impressive outcome.

In addition to having a common format, the conferences held a single plenary session with Margaret Murnane in Colorado; her talk and the Q&A from all sites were webcast.  Dr. Murnane talked about her career path and how she had resolved the two-body problem; she gave great advice including the importance of persistence.  The plenary session also showed attendees just how large the numbers were as the cameras switched from school to school during the Q&A session.  There is strength in numbers!

This was my fifth NCUWP conference, and the best one yet.  Students from small and large colleges, from Maryland to Montreal and from Ohio to New Hampshire shared their enthusiasm and energy with each other and with the handful of faculty in attendance.  I was inspired by the student research presentations, by the realization of many students that their dreams of a career in physics are achievable following the examples set by many before them, and most of all by the one-on-one conversations with students.  To any faculty member who has struggled with the difficulties of increasing the numbers of women in physics, I say go -- next year apply as a recruiter or panelist.  It will be an inspiring, energizing way to begin your year.

CSWA Special Session at the AAS: Family Leave Policies

At the 221st AAS meeting at Long Beach, CA, the CSWA sponsored a special session entitled, "Family Leave Policies and Childcare for Graduate Students and Postdocs." The principal organizers were CSWA members Dave Charbonneau and Laura Trouille.

Slides from the presentations by Dave Charbonneau, Natalie Gosnell, Bob Mathieu, Edward Ajhar, and Charles Beichman are now posted as PDFs at http://www.aas.org/cswa/jan13.html.

Charbonneau's presentation included a report of preliminary results from the CSWA's national survey of department chairs on this topic. Gosnell and Mathieu reported on implementation of a forward-looking policy at UW-Madison. Ajhar reported on the NSF's work-life balance initiative, and Beichman described NASA's fellowship programs and their parental leave policies. Laura Trouille briefly presented preliminary results from the postdoc family leave survey. These results are also posted at the website listed above.

If you couldn't attend the session, take a look at the slides for a snapshot of the current state of this issue, which is critical for 21st century careers in astronomy.

If you'd like to voice your support for improving family leave policies for our community, please consider signing http://faculty.wcas.northwestern.edu/aaron-geller/petition. As of this post, the petition has over 1100 signatures. 

AASWomen for January 18, 2013

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of January 18, 2013
eds. Caroline Simpson, Michele Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, and Nick Murphy

This week's issues:

1. Follow-up: Are STEM Programs Working??

2. Women in Astronomy Blog: Recent posts

3. So Many Exoplanets... So Few Women Scientists

4. Presentations from CSWA Special Session on Parental Leave Policies Available

5. Top Picks for Riveting Reads on Women and Science

6. Dartbeat: Another Response to the "Science: It's a Girl Thing" video

7. APS Speakers List Featuring Women and Minorities

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