Friday, January 31, 2014

AASWomen January 31, 2014

AAS Committee on the Status of Women AAS Committee on the Status of Women
Issue of January 31, 2014
eds. Michele M. Montgomery, Daryl Haggard, Nick Murphy, & Nicolle Zellner

This week's issues:

1. Use of the GRE in Graduate Admissions

2. How to Increase the Numbers of Female Speakers

3. Faculty Search Committee II

4. It's that time of year!

5. Gabriela Gonzalez is the January CSWP Woman Physicist of the Month

6. Women Crystallographers in History

7. Host a Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics

8. APS/IBM Research Internships for Undergraduate Women and Underrepresented Minorities

9. NASA History Program Office Student Internships

10. 2014 BU Summer School in Plasma Processes

11. APS April Meeting Child Care Grants

12. Women's Institute For A Secure Retirement

13. Job Opportunities

14. How to Submit to the AASWomen Newsletter

15. How to Subscribe or Unsubscribe to the AASWomen Newsletter

16. Access to Past Issues of the AASWomen Newsletter


1. Use of the GRE in Graduate Admissions
From: Nancy Morrison [NMorris_at_utnet.utoledo.edu]

On Wednesday, January 8, at the 223rd AAS meeting, was held special session 337, which was organized by Keivan Stassun of the AAS Committee on the Status of Minorities and was entitled, "The Proper Use of GRE Scores and Noncognitive Measures for Enhancing Diversity and Excellence in Astronomy Graduate Programs." Here is what I took away from the session.

* The GRE general and subject tests primarily measure preparation for graduate school, not potential for success as a graduate student or as a scientist. The Educational Testing Service cautions that GRE scores do not predict graduate GPA beyond the first year. In the session, Prof. Casey Miller (Univ. of S. Florida) illustrated this point with some good scatter plots.

* Social scientists have developed objective, research-verified "noncognitive" measures of such personality traits as motivation, initiative, creativity, and persistence, which are much better predictors of success in graduate school for students with a sufficient level of preparation and math ability. Details were presented by Prof. William Sedlacek (Univ. of Maryland).

* Minority and women students have lower mean GRE scores than white males. Yet, programs that give weight to noncognitive measures in admissions, such as the highly successful Fisk-Vanderbilt Bridge Program (presented in Prof. Stassun's absence by Dr. Jillian Bellovary), find that minorities and women are successful at earning the Ph.D. and in their subsequent careers.

* Graduate programs that adopt "hard" cutoffs in GRE scores as criteria for admission or otherwise give excessive weight to the GRE in evaluating applications are rejecting many students who have the potential to succeed.

The three formal presentations in the session, or similar ones, have previously been given at the 2013 APS Physics Bridge Program Conference and can be found on the web site of that conference:

http://www.apsbridgeprogram.org/conferences/summer13/abstracts.cfm

Miller: http://www.apsbridgeprogram.org/conferences/summer13/miller.pdf

Sedlacek: http://www.apsbridgeprogram.org/conferences/summer13/sedlacek.pdf

Stassun/Bellovary: http://www.apsbridgeprogram.org/conferences/summer13/stassun.pdf

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2. How to Increase the Numbers of Female Speakers
From: Michele M. Montgomery [montgomery_at_physics.ucf.edu]

Having at least one woman on the science organizing committee of conferences boosts the number of female speakers. The study focused on 1856 speakers at two annual American Society for Microbiology meetings (2011-2013), 104 all-male convener teams, and 112 teams that had at least one female. When at least one female is on the team, the percentage of female speakers increased from 25% to 43%.

To read more on this study by Casadevall and Handelsman, please see Nature 505, 445 (2014)

http://www.nature.com/naturejobs/science/articles/10.1038/nj7483-445a

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3. Faculty Search Committee II
From: Joan Schmelz via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

Last month’s post on Unconscious Bias focused on the formation and initial job of the faculty search committee. Once the applications are in, however, the committee’s job continues. What typically happens next? (1) search committee picks the ‘best’ candidates; (2) applications sit in a file drawer in chair’s office; (3) faculty are invited to browse through the files; (4) ‘best’ candidates are then invited to campus. This is the easiest, least painful way to go through this process. Efforts may be made to avoid conscious bias and prejudice, but opportunities abound for unconscious bias to dominate the selection.

To read more, please see

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/01/faculty-search-committee-ii.html

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4. It's that time of year!
From: Ed Bertschinger via womeninastronomy.blogspot.com

January means many things to many people. For some readers it's application season (grad school, jobs) or the end of the letter-writing blitz. It's also a time to reflect on the year ahead. For me and my local university colleagues, it is a time to celebrate diversity through our annual campus Summit, an exciting time of hope and shared commitment to advancing our vision of a community where everyone learns, grows, and is respected.

To read more, please see

http://womeninastronomy.blogspot.com/2014/01/its-that-time-of-year.html

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5. Gabriela Gonzalez is the January CSWP Woman Physicist of the Month
From: WIPHYS Posting for Jan 13, 2014

Gabriela Gonzalez, Professor of Physics and Astronomy at Louisiana State University, is currently serving her second term as the Spokesperson for the LIGO Scientific Collaboration. In this position, she oversees the work of over 900 scientists from 86 institutions and 17 countries, representing the Collaboration professionally to the scientific community and to the public.

To learn more, please see

http://www.aps.org/programs/women/scholarships/womanmonth/2014.cfm

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6. Women Crystallographers in History
From: John Mather [john.c.mather_at_nasa.gov]

Georgina Ferry celebrates the egalitarian, collaborative culture that has so far produced two female Nobel prizewinners.

"It takes a very special breed of scientist to do this work ... it is an area of science in which women dominate." So said the professor introducing distinguished British crystallographer Judith Howard in 2004 as she received an honorary degree from the University of Bristol, UK.

To read more, please see

http://www.nature.com/news/history-women-in-crystallography-1.14588?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20140130

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7. Host a Conference for Undergraduate Women in Physics
From: WIPHYS Posting for Jan 23, 2014

Deadline: February 15, 2014

Applications for future host institutions open in January each year for conferences to be hosted over the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend in mid-January of following years. If you are interested in applying to host a conference, please read this information carefully; if you have questions, please direct them to women@aps.org.

To learn more, please see

http://www.aps.org/programs/women/workshops/cuwip-host.cfm

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8. APS/IBM Research Internships for Undergraduate Women and Underrepresented Minorities
From: WIPHYS Posting for Jan 23, 2014

Deadline: February 1, 2014

APS and IBM co-sponsor two undergraduate research internship programs; one for undergraduate women and one for underrepresented minorities. The goals of the programs are to encourage women and underrepresented minority undergraduate students to pursue graduate studies in science and engineering. Both internship programs feature salaried positions at IBM research locations that are typically 10 weeks long and provide an opportunity for interns to work closely with an IBM mentor. The undergraduate women internships are at one of three IBM research locations (San Jose, CA, Austin, TX, or Yorktown Heights, NY). The research internships for underrepresented minorities are at IBM Almaden in San Jose, CA.

Learn more:

* Women's Internships

http://www.aps.org/programs/women/scholarships/ibm/index.cfm

* Underrepresented Minorities Internships

http://researcher.ibm.com/researcher/view_project.php?id=4281

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9. NASA History Program Office Student Internships
From: WIPHYS Posting for Jan 13, 2014

Undergraduate and graduate students of all majors are encouraged to apply for a summer or fall 2014 internship at the NASA History Program Office. Students would answer research questions from NASA personnel, journalists, educators, scholars, students, and others from around the world about the archival materials maintained at the History Program Office.

Applications are due Feb. 4 for summer internships and June 1 for fall internships.

To learn more, please see

http://history.nasa.gov/interncall.htm

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10. 2014 BU Summer School in Plasma Processes
From: Merav Opher [mopher_at_bu.edu]

Applications are invited for the 2014 BU Summer School in Plasma Processes, to be held at the Boston University during July 28-August 1, 2014. The summer school will offer an intensive one-week course in the most challenging plasma processes in space physics.

To learn more, please see

http://people.bu.edu/mopher/PlasmaSummerSchool2014/Welcome.html

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11. APS April Meeting Child Care Grants
From: WIPHYS Posting for Jan 23, 2014

Deadline: January 31, 2014 (APS April Meeting)

Small grants of up to $400 are available to assist meeting attendees who are bringing small children or who incur extra expenses in leaving them at home (i.e., extra daycare or babysitting services).

More information and the online application can be found here

http://www.aps.org/programs/women/workshops/childcare.cfm

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12. Women's Institute For A Secure Retirement
From: Harley Thronson [harley.a.thronson_at_nasa.gov]

This site was recommended by the retirement planning newsletter from Government Executive Magazine.

The non-profit Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement:

https://www.wiserwomen.org/index.php?id=1&page=Home

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13. Job Opportunities

For those interested in increasing excellence and diversity in their organizations, a list of resources and advice is here:

http://www.aas.org/cswa/diversity.html#howtoincrease

* AURA Job Postings: - Telescope and Site Project Scientist, NOAO/LSST, Tucson, AZ - Software Engineer, NSO, Tucson, AZ - Optics Engineer, NOAO, La Serena, Chile - Director, Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) Telescope, La Serena, Chile - ATST Data Center Development Project Manager, NSO, Boulder, CO

To apply for open positions or to see a list of current AURA employment opportunities: http://www.aura-astronomy.org/hr/joblist.asp

* Lecturer Positions at University of Wisconsin – Platteville

http://www.uwplatt.edu/pers/employ/Lec-Physics.htm

* Two Visiting Professor Positions at The College of Wooster

http://wooster.edu/offices/hr/opportunities/faculty/physics-1year

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14. 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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15. 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:

http://support.google.com/groups/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=46606

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16. Access to Past Issues

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

Each annual summary includes an index of topics covered.

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