AASWOMEN Newsletter for December 11, 2015

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 11, 2015
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Elysse Voyer, & Heather Flewelling

This week's issues:

1. AAS President's Column: Rethinking the Role of the GRE

2. DPS member Lucy McFadden Elected AAAS Fellow

3. What Will It Take to Achieve Gender Equality in Leadership?

4. Agency Policies on Sexual Harassment Issues in Conduct of Research Awards

5. Scientific groups revisit sexual-harassment policies

6. Astronomy Allies Team Up to Confront Sexual Harassment

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

AAS President's Column: Rethinking the Role of the GRE

This post, by Meg Urry (President of the AAS) was originally posted by the American Astronomical Society.

An Open Letter to Chairs of Departments That Grant Degrees in the Astronomical Sciences:

I am writing about an issue of concern to the American Astronomical Society (AAS), namely, graduate admissions. In January, the AAS Council will discuss and vote on whether to issue a statement on behalf of the Society (appended at the end of this letter) that makes a case for why the Graduate Record Exam (GRE) and the Physics GRE (PGRE) should be optional; or, if they are used, why there should be no fixed cutoff score; and why the demographics of the applicants may need to be taken into account explicitly. I write in advance of that action because the season of graduate admissions is upon us. I hope you will read this letter and draft statement and circulate it to your graduate admissions committee. If you have any comments or concerns, I hope you will send them to me and/or council@aas.org.

AASWOMEN Newsletter for December 04, 2015

AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of December 04, 2015
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Elysse Voyer, & Heather Flewelling

This week's issues:

1. Taking a Mental Health Break from My Dissertation

2. The Discovery Program Series: NEOCam (PI: Amy Mainzer)

3. Gift Giving Guide from STARtorialist creators Emily Rice and Summer Ash

4. Astronomy Leadership: Applications, Interviews and Jobs

5. It's Not Just Marcy, and the Grapevine Won't Save Us

6. Katherine G. Johnson award wins Presidential Medal of Freedom

7. Female Astronomers: Outsiders in Their Field

8. Women in STEM: A Panel Discussion Across Natural Science, Engineering, and Social Science

9. Stem Toys Made For Girls Are The Hot New Trend

10. XX Files: Extraordinary Science - Extraordinary Women

11. Job Opportunities

12. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

13. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

14. Access to Past Issues

Taking a Mental Health Break from My Dissertation

Today's guest post is by Nicole Cabrera Salazar. Nicole is an NSF Graduate Research Fellow at Georgia State University. She plans to pursue a career in science communication/outreach focusing on equity in STEM. 

About a month ago, I got sick with a simple cold. I was in the middle of writing the third chapter of my dissertation and had just taken time off to get over another cold two weeks before. I was also behind on the timeline to defend my thesis next year, and more delays didn’t seem like the best idea. So I did what any other grad student in my position would: I tried to power through.

Ten days later, my cold was still going strong. I was worried because I had been waking up with panic attacks in the middle of the night for no apparent reason, hyperventilating and shaking uncontrollably. Sick, sleep deprived, and anxious, I gave in and went to the doctor. I burst into tears as soon as she came into the room. 

The Discovery Program Series: NEOCam (PI: Amy Mainzer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Managed by JPL)

This post is part of a series discussing the recent NASA Discovery Program mission selections for further refinement.  From the 27 proposals submitted in November of 2014, NASA has selected 5 missions for further refinement in the next year. Part 1 of the series focused on the overview of the Discovery refinement selections and an interview with the Lead Program Scientist for the Discovery Program, Dr. Michael New. Part II focussed on the Psyche Mission (PI: Linda Elkins-Tanton, Arizona State University, Managed by JPL). Part III will focus on the NEOCam Mission (PI: Amy Mainzer, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Managed by JPL).

Mission Overview: NEOCam 

The Near-Earth Object Camera (NEOCam) mission will permit the most comprehensive inventory ever made of our solar system’s small bodies (asteroids and comets) using a space-based infrared survey telescope. NEOCam will detect millions of asteroids, enabling unprecedented understanding of their origins, evolution, and physical properties, and significantly reducing the risk of an unwarned impact on the Earth. NEOCam will detect approximately ten times more near-Earth objects (NEOs) than are known today, making significant progress toward the direction given to NASA by the U.S. Congress to discover more than 90% of near-Earth objects large enough to cause significant regional damage.

Guest Post: Gift Giving Guide from STARtorialist creators Emily Rice and Summer Ash

Today's guest post is by Emily Rice and Summer Ash. Emily and Summer created STARtorialist, the astronomy-fashion blog “where science meets fashion and scientists get fabulous!” in 2013.

Emily Rice is an assistant professor at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York, and a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History. Her research focuses on the atmospheric properties of very low mass stars, brown dwarfs, and directly-imaged exoplanets. You may recognize her from Astronomy on Tap NYC and those parody songs that get stuck in your head.

Summer Ash is the Director of Outreach for Columbia University’s Department of Astronomy. Having been both a rocket scientist and a radio astronomer, she’s now harnessing her powers for science communication. She is the "In-House Astrophysicist" for The Rachel Maddow Show and has written for Scientific American, Slate, and Nautilus Magazine.

As we approach northern hemisphere winter solstice and Earth’s perihelion, we also begin customary exchange of benefaction in many hominin clade cultures.

Translation: it’s winter holiday season, and that means presents! Here at STARtorialist, Summer & I have been curating astronomy-inspired fashion, decor, and more for nearly two years, and the WiA blog has asked us to share some of our favorites with you. The Universe of astrofashion seems to be affected by dark energy so it was a challenge to keep this short.  

Each category below has links directly to the shops mentioned as well as links to explore related tags on STARtorialist. The survey presented here is definitely biased, but you can use tags on each post to search by store (e.g., Old Navy, Modcloth), item (shoes, hat), or subject (Saturn, stars, galaxy, Hubble image). Or you could browse through all 1200+ posts on our archive! We’ll be posting more startorial gift ideas in the coming weeks so make sure to follow us on Tumblr, Twitter, Facebook, or your favorite RSS reader.

Clothes

Starstuff Clothing* might as well be the official uniform of professional astronomers. Since a successful Kickstarter in summer 2014, the company has expanded from three prints to over a dozen, all real images from Hubble, Spitzer, WISE, and VLT. With five different t-shirt fits plus tank tops and dress, that’s 115 options, available in sizes XS-2XL. Explore all of our Starstuff Clothing posts.

Caption: T-shirts from Starstuff clothing

Astronomy Leadership: Applications, Interviews & Jobs

 

 I didn’t get the job. That’s how this post was supposed to start, but a strange thing happened as I was contemplating the future of my career in astronomy (but more on that later). This was supposed to be a post about the job application process, the invitation I received at the beginning that made all the difference, the boost I got from an anonymous blogger talking about why women don’t apply for high level jobs, the virtual shove I got from my husband at a crucial moment, the help, advice, and encouragement I got from other senior women. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Some of you may know that I was a professor at the University of Memphis with expertise in solar coronal spectroscopy. My department was evolving from physics, where the staff had many different specialties, to materials science. Those of us who worked in other sub disciplines were becoming more and more marginalized. I was unhappy with this trend and was looking to get out. My good friend, Pat Knezek, had just taken the job of deputy director of the NSF Astronomy Division. She asked me if I had ever considered a job as an NSF rotator. I started at NSF in September 2013.

Some of you may also know that I was CSWA chair for many years. It was during that tenure that I met Don Kniffen, a CSWA member. Don was there with me when I (with CSWA’s support) decided to blog about my own experience with sexual harassment. I came out as a victim in February 2011. Through my position at NSF Astronomy, I got back in touch with Don after a hiatus of several years. It was at about the same time that Arecibo Observatory ended up back on my radar. I had spent two years there as a grad student – not happy years, mind you – but I didn’t hear much about Arecibo while I was doing solar physics.

In a very real sense, CSWA provided the means and NSF provided the opportunity for the next step in my career. Because their jobs are temporary by definition, NSF rotators are always thinking, “What’s next?” I was no exception, so I was looking out for possibilities when I attended the AAS meeting in Seattle in January 2015 (OMG – that was this year!). It was there that I ran into  Don. After an exchange of pleasantries, he asked me a question that simply had to be a joke – “You’re not interested in the job at Arecibo, are you?” I laughed. Knowing my unhappy history with Arecibo, I’m sure Don was expecting an answer like, “Not just no, but hell no!” It was a surprise to both of us when I answered, “Wait, are you serious?”