Friday, July 18, 2014

AASWOMEN Newsletter for July 18, 2014

AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of July 18, 2014
eds: Daryl Haggard, Nicolle Zellner, Meredith Hughes, amp; Elysse Voyer

This week's issues:

1. A Painting is Worth Three Hundred and Eleven Words

2. Elite Male Faculty Employ Fewer Women

3. Career Profiles: Astronomer to Professor at a Small Liberal Arts College

4. STATUS for June 2014

5. Statistical Research from the American Institute of Physics

6. Why Women Should Send More Letters of Recommendation

7. Sloan Research Fellows - Accepting Nominations Until September 15

8. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

10. Access to Past Issues


1. A Painting is Worth Three Hundred and Eleven Words

From: Neil Gehrels via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

Hiring statistics, harassment, bias, glass ceiling, discrimination, .... All important topics to discuss and address to improve our world. But I have a more cheery subject on my mind today, namely art. Scientific American had an on-line article in March on art depicting women in STEM fields. The pages were filled with interesting paintings and discussions of the scientists depicted. See http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-works-of-art-depicting-women-in-science

The author, Maia Weinstock, comments on the importance of art and design in science and technology and morphs STEM into STEAM (science, technology, engineering, art and math). Pictures and paintings of scientists have historically concentrated on male subjects. Since pictures have such an important effect on our perception and memory, it is important to highlight the few works of art that depicted women scientists ... and to create more of them!

Read more at

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/07/a-painting-is-worth-three-hundred-and.html

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2. Elite Male Faculty Employ Fewer Women

From: Ed Bertschinger via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

My title has removed the words "in the Life Sciences" from the title of an article published June 30 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. While I do not have statistics to demonstrate the universality of this conclusion, I do have some relevant experience and connections to the work to share.

In their article, MIT biology graduate student Jason Sheltzer and physics graduate Joan C. Smith showed that senior male professors in biology, especially those who have prestigious awards or are members of the National Academies, train a significantly smaller percentage of female graduate students and postdocs than their female or junior colleagues. The most prestigious labs, led by men and offering many of the best career development opportunities, are the least likely to train women. The data are convincing, and the effect is clear: women are less likely than men to get either the professional development opportunities or the top letters of recommendation from these prestigious labs. It’s no wonder that only 36% of assistant professors in biology are women, even though half of the PhDs in biology go to women.

Read more at

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/07/elite-male-faculty-employ-fewer-women.html

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3. Career Profiles: Astronomer to Professor at a Small Liberal Arts College

From: Laura Trouille via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

The AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Employment Committee have compiled dozens of interviews highlighting the diversity of career trajectories available to astronomers. The interviews share advice and lessons learned from individuals on those paths.

Below is our interview with an astronomer turned Associate Professor of Physics. S/he is the only astronomer in her/his department within a small liberal arts college. In the profile below, s/he discusses the enjoyable aspects as well as the challenges of her/his position. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please leave a comment below.

To read the interview, please see

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/07/career-profiles-astronomer-to-associate.html

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4. STATUS for June 2014

From: Nancy Morrison [nancy.morrison_at_utoledo.edu]

The June, 2014 issue of the CSWA's magazine STATUS has been posted as a 3.1 MB PDF:

http://www.aas.org/cswa/status/Status_2014_Jun.pdf

The tables of contents of this and of past issues are available here: http://www.aas.org/cswa/STATUS_TOC.html

Table of contents:

1 CSWA Survey: Two-Body Careers in Astronomy, Erica Rodgers, Space Science Institute

3 Note from the Editor

12 How Workplace Climate Changes the Knowledge We Generate, Meg Urry, Yale University

16 On Planck's Law, Blackbodies and the Physics of Diversity, Jedidah C. Isler, Syracuse University

19 Math and Verbal Performance of Men and Women Under Competition and Time Pressure, Nancy Morrison, The University of Toledo

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5. Statistical Research from the American Institute of Physics

From: Nicolle Zellner [nzellner_at_albion.edu]

[The message below is from the AIP statistics center and gives guidance on how to sign up for alerts. -Eds]

The Statistical Research Center of the American Institute of Physics provides timely and reliable data on education, employment, and related trends in physics, astronomy and allied fields. You can learn more about our data by visiting our website:

www.aip.org/statistics

In addition, we have a free data alert service, called e-Updates, which can notify you by e-mail when we post new data on topics of interest to you. You can subscribe at

www.aip.org/statistics/e_updates.html

When you subscribe, you will be given the opportunity to indicate your area(s) of interest. We will send you an e-Update only when we post a new report that includes data of interest to you. Even if you sign up for every possible notification, you should receive fewer than twenty e-mail alerts in a year.

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6. Why Women Should Send More Letters of Recommendation

From: WIPHYS Posting for July 15, 2014

The following is from a LinkedIn discussion on why women should send more letters of recommendation.

From one of our Women in Physics readers:

I have observed that when we say in a job or award advertisement to "send 3 letters of reference", women will usually send 3 and men will on average send more than 3. All candidates that have made the shortlists have had one extra letter of reference (occasionally two extra, but rarely).

There is a very clear effect going on: the women are, in general, reading the line "send 3 letters" as a rule/limit and the men are seeing this as a minimum. No matter the reason for this, the bottom line is that we need advise women to consider sending more letters when applying for positions and awards, unless additional letters are explicitly forbidden!

What’s your take on this situation? Join the discussion on our Women in Physics LinkedIn group

http://www.linkedin.com/groups?mostPopular=&gid=3135479

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7. Sloan Research Fellows - Accepting Nominations Until September 15

From: WIPHYS Posting for July 15, 2014

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is now accepting nominations for Sloan Research Fellowships in eight fields: chemistry, computational and evolutionary molecular biology, computer science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, ocean sciences, and physics. These two-year, $50,000 fellowships are awarded annually to 126 early-career faculty in recognition of their distinguished performance and exceptional potential as researchers. Candidates must be nominated by a department head or other senior researcher. For more information, please visit this site:

http://www.sloan.org/sloan-research-fellowships

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8. How to Submit to the AASWOMEN newsletter

To submit an item to the AASWOMEN newsletter, including replies to topics, send email to aaswomen_at_aas.org

All material will be posted unless you tell us otherwise, including your email address.

When submitting a job posting for inclusion in the newsletter, please include a one-line description and a link to the full job posting.

Please remember to replace "_at_" in the e-mail address above.

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9. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWOMEN newsletter

Join AAS Women List by email:

Send email to aaswlist+subscribe_at_aas.org from the address you want to have subscribed. You can leave the subject and message blank if you like.

Be sure to follow the instructions in the confirmation email. (Just reply back to the email list)

To unsubscribe by email:

Send email to aawlist+unsubscribe_at_aas.org from the address you want to have UNsubscribed. You can leave the subject and message blank if you like.

To join or leave AASWomen via web, or change your membership settings:

https://groups.google.com/a/aas.org/group/aaswlist

You will have to create a Google Account if you do not already have one, using https://accounts.google.com/newaccount?hl=en

Google Groups Subscribe Help:

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10. Access to Past Issues

http://www.aas.org/cswa/AASWOMEN.html

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

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