Greetings!
Our annual AWIS membership renewal cycle ends June 30, 2009. Renew your membership by June 20th and you can join one of our pre-recorded career teleseminars -- for free. Plus, get a special member discount on our new mentoring handbook, "Getting the Most out of Your Mentoring Relationships: A Handbook for Women in STEM."Your membership is important to us as it allows us to continue to advocate on your behalf for gender equity and improved workplace practices.Just click here to renew your membership now.
Best regards,
Janet
P.S. Not an AWIS member? Click here to join today and tap into all of our great benefits!
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| Education |
U.S. Students Lagging in Life Sciences
According to a new report by BIO, Battelle and the Biotechnology Institute, the U.S. bioscience industry could face a shortage of qualified workers as many middle- and high-school students perform poorly and show less interest in life sciences courses. The report suggests several ways to boost the country's competitiveness, including integrating biotechnology into states' science standards and paying more attention to the professional development of teachers.
Who cares about science
Gender of Instructors May Affect Success of Female Students
A new study reports that the gender gap in course grades and STEM majors is eradicated when high performing female students' introductory math and science classes are taught by female professors. Three economists examine a unique dataset of college students who have been randomly assigned to professors over a wide variety of mandatory standardized courses. The results suggest that while professor gender has little impact on male students, it has a powerful effect on female students' performance in math and science classes, their likelihood of taking future math and science courses, and their likelihood of graduating with a STEM degree.
Sex matters
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| Government |
US Energy Secretary Calls on Scientists to Help Review Energy Applications
Steven Chu, secretary of the US Department of Energy, urged scientists to volunteer to review new energy projects to assure the wise investments that will help create jobs, improve energy efficiency, support advanced US vehicles, and more. Chu stated the need for three or four hundred quality reviewers in various programs during the next six months to evaluate applications for funding. Chu cited President Obama's national goal of devoting more than 3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP) to help boost public and private R&D, surpassing the level reached at the height of the space race in 1964.
Read more and access a video of the comments
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| International |
EU Releases New Data on Women in STEMThe European Union pre-released summary findings for She Figures 2009. The report shows that women in scientific research remain a minority, accounting for 30% of researchers in the EU in 2006. The largest nation in the lower half of the distribution, Deutschland, is quite a bit below the EU-27 average with just 24% of women amongst its univerresearchers.She figures 2009 |
| Careers |
Men Needed to Secure Gender Equity
A new report from Catalyst, Engaging Men in Gender Initiatives: What
Change Agents Need to Know, looks at some of the hurdles keeping men
from supporting gender initiatives in the work place and what factors
made men more likely to support such initiatives.
Download the report here
Best Places to Work in the Federal Government
Strong leadership makes for a good workplace, more so even than the level of pay and benefits, a survey of federal workers finds. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission is the best federal workplace and the Transportation Department is among the worst, the study determined. "The challenge is for government managers to do a better job of communicating," said John Palguta, vice president for policy at the Partnership for Public Service, the nonprofit that sponsored the poll.
Who's the boss
Childless Women Face Workplace Discrimination Too
Professional women who opt not to have children often are "vilified at work" as supervisors view them as less than human, according to research by Dr. Caroline Gatrell of the Lancaster University Management School in the U.K. Gatrell says many supervisors view these women as "cold, odd and somehow emotionally deficient in an almost dangerous way that leads to them being excluded from promotions that would place them in charge of others."
Damned if you do, damned if you don't
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| Science and Health |
Women's Learning Ability Stifles During Menopause
Over 2,000 women between the ages of 45-57 were studied for four years on their aptness to process information. Cognition was measured at each stage during the four stages to menopause. The first three stages showed no decline but women during the fourth, late perimenopause, processed information slower. However, post menopausal women returned to premenopausal levels of cognition.
Memory put on pause
Gene Gives Clues to Why Autism More Common in Boys
Families with two sons but no daughters affected by autism showed correlation with the presence of a variant of the gene CACNA1G. Researchers are unsure if this variant directly contributes to the occurrences of autism, but note that this pattern is an important find. Girls are four times less likely to have signs of autism; accordingly the variant is not as often found in girls
CACNA1G on chromosome 17
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| Lifestyle |
Need a Job? Head East
Boston
continues to be the top region in the field of life sciences, followed
by Greater Philadelphia and San Francisco, according to a report
released by the Milken Institute at the BIO international conference.
The report also noted that the life sciences sector could withstand the
economic recession and is expected to benefit from government policies
and stimulus programs.
Boston leads the pack
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| AWIS News and Events |
AWIS
Seattle Chapter
Improving
Work-Life Satisfaction for Women in Science
Date:
Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Time:
6:00 PM - 8:30 PM
Location:
UW South Lake Union Building
First
Floor Auditorium
815
Mercer Street
Seattle, WA 98109
Event
information: http://www.seattleawis.org/events.htm
The program flyer for this Special Event is available on the Seattle AWIS website. Invite friends, family and co-workers to the meeting. Everyone is
welcome! Not yet a member? Check out the membership
link on our website about the benefits of joining.
AWIS
Central New Jersey Chapter
Student
Workshop on "Work-Life Balance"
Date:
June 8, 2009
Time: 5 to 8 pm
Location: RUTCOR
Modular Building Lounge,
Rutgers, The State
University of New Jersey
640 Bartholomew Road, Room 120
Piscataway,
New Jersey 08854
Contact: Space is limited please register with AWIS
http://www.princetonol.com/groups/awis-cjc
Panelists: Deborah
Carr, Gretchen Chapman, Jennifer Gibbs, and Ning Zhan
The
evening will also feature Marissa Koz of Academic Affairs
and Jennifer Manuola, the Douglass Child Care Center Administrator
WiSEM website http://sciencewomen.rutgers.edu/
AWIS
East Bay Chapter
June
Networking Social
Date:
Tuesday, June 09, 2009
Time:
6:30 PM - 8:00 PM
Location:
Jupiter Bar
2181
Shattluck Ave.
Berkeley, CA
Cost: Free (cash bar)
Please
join us at Berkeley's popular microbrew pub, Jupiter, for an informal gathering
of AWIS members and friends! Everyone is welcome, including non-scientists and
men. If you are not an AWIS member yet, please join us!
More information: www.jupiterbeer.com/jupiter/info.htm
AWIS
Bethesda Chapter
Susan
Lindquist, Ph.D., Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, Howard Hughes
Medical Institute, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, will talk about
the "Perspectives
from the NIH Pittman lecturer"
Date: Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Time:
8:30 AM - 10:00 AM
Location:
Visitor Center
National
Library of Medicine (Bldg 38A)
NIH
Campus
Bethesda, MD
Come at 8:30 for breakfast and networking. The presentation will be from 9:00
to 10:00 am
See: http://www.nih.gov/about/visitorsecurity.htm
for visitor information. EVERYONE IS WELCOME!
AWIS
San Francisco Chapter
Chapter
Meeting
Date:
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
Time:
6:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location: Genentech Building 83, Room 1B
611
Gateway Blvd.
San
Francisco, CA
The San Francisco Chapter meets the second
Wednesday of each month for either a social networking or a speaker meeting.
The next meeting is June 10th at Genentech.
Information for all up and coming events are on their website: www.sfawis.com
AWIS
National Board Meeting
Dates:
Friday, June 12, 2009 - Sunday, June 14, 2009
Location:
Westin Alexandria
400
Courthouse Square
Alexandria, VA 22314-5700
The
National Board of AWIS meets three times per year. Budget and other
business of the board is conducted at the June meeting.
AWIS
Massachusetts Chapter
Choosing
A Lab
Date: Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Time:
5:30 PM - 8:30 PM
Location: Harvard
School of Dental Medicine
190
Longwood Avenue
Boston, MA
Featured speakers:
Joanne Kamens, PhD - Director of Discovery, RXi Pharmaceuticals, Worcester, MA
Sharotka Simon, PhD - Post-doctoral fellow, Brandeis University, MA
Register at: http://www.acteva.com/booking.cfm?bevaid=182421
Please
join MASS-AWIS and GWIS for a discussion on choosing a graduate and
post-doctoral lab. Choosing the right research lab can be one of the most
important decisions of a scientist's professional life. Come to learn about the
simple rules for selecting the perfect lab and how to get what you want (and
need) from Graduate School once you join a lab. Feel free to bring questions
for the Q&A session after the presentations.
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Opportunities |
Briefing of NEW National Academies Report
Gender Differences at Critical Transitions in the Careers of Science, Engineering, and Mathematics Faculty
Date: Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Time: 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM
Location: 100 Keck Center, National Academies
500 Fifth Street, NW
Washington, DC 20001
RSVP: please contact Jacqueline Martin at
jmartin@nas.edu or 202-334-1628
Key Points:
· It is a Congressionally Mandated Report on Career Differences between Male and Female Faculty in Six Disciplines - biology, chemistry, civil engineering, electrical engineering, mathematics, and physics.
· The findings are from Survey Data collected in 2004-2005 from Faculty and Departments on Critical Transitions for Tenure-Track and Tenured Faculty including hiring, promotion, tenure and institutional resource allocation.
· The report provides a Snapshot of the Status of Female Faculty at Top Research Universities and clarifies to what extent male and female faculty have similar experiences and opportunities.
Speakers:Ralph J. Cicerone, President, National Academy of Sciences
Claude Canizares, Co-Chair, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Sally Shaywitz, Co-Chair, Yale University School of Medicine
Call for Nominations: 8th Annual Janet L Norwood Award For Outstanding Achievement By A Woman In The Statistical Sciences
The Section on Statistical Genetics and the Department of Biostatistics
in the School of Public Health, University of Alabama at Birmingham
(UAB) are pleased to request nominations for the Eighth Annual Janet L.
Norwood Award for Outstanding Achievement by a Woman in the Statistical
Sciences. The award will be conferred on Wed 9/16/2009. The award
recipient will be invited to deliver a lecture at the UAB award
ceremony, and will receive all expenses paid to deliver this lecture, a
plaque, and a $5,000 prize.
Eligible individuals are women who have completed their terminal
degree, have made outstanding contributions to the statistical
sciences, and, if selected, are willing to deliver a lecture at the
award ceremony. For additional details about the award, please feel
invited to visit our website at
http://www.soph.uab.edu/ssg/norwoodaward/aboutaward.
To nominate a candidate, send a full curriculum vitae accompanied
by a letter of not more than two pages in length describing the nature
of the candidate's contributions. Contributions may be in the area of
development and evaluation of statistical methods, teaching of
statistics, application of statistics, or any other activity that can
arguably be said to have advanced the field of statistical science.
Self-nominations are acceptable.
Please send nominations to:
David B. Allison, Ph.D.
Professor & Head Section on Statistical Genetics
Department of Biostatistics, RPHB 327 University of Alabama at Birmingham
1665 University Boulevard
Birmingham, Alabama 35294-0022
Phone: (205) 975-9169
Fax: (205) 975-2541
Email: dallison@uab.edu
Deadline for receipt of nominations is Mon 6/29/2009. Electronic
submissions of nominations are accepted and encouraged. The winner will
be announced by Fri 7/3/2009.
Town Hall Meeting for the ADVANCE Program at JAM09
Event: Town Hall Meeting: Inside the Double
Bind with keynote speaker
is Dr. Cheryl Leggon of Georgia Tech
Date: Monday, June 8, 2009
Time: 1:00PM to 4:00PM.
Registration: Free for sessions only (no
meals). The link for online registration is:
Inside the Practice Circle
A Conversation Sponsored by the AAAS Capacity Center
Date: Tuesday, June 16,
Time: 8-9:30 AM
Location: AAAS
2nd Floor, Revelle Room
1200 New York Avenue, NW (at H Street)
RSVP: Sabira Mohamed, smohamed@aaas.org, by June 12.
A "practice circle" is an informal gathering, in a salon setting, to probe issues of student learning and faculty experience in the university. The overarching theme is how to improve STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) program practices: How do we design and execute programs that change culture and support student success in STEM? How do various stakeholders participate in adapting promising practices to local constraints? The practice circle creates an opportunity for such informal exchange preceded by a public interview with a skilled practitioner.
Attendees will be invited to pose questions after the interviewer and guest interact in the circle. A light breakfast will be available prior to the conversation.
"Science Teaching as a Profession:Why It Isn't. How It Could Be" A Conversation with Sheila Tobias Noted Author and Science Education Consultant
Sheila Tobias has made an art and a science of being a curriculum outsider. Trained in history, literature and politics, she began to wonder why otherwise able students have specific "disabilities" in college math and the physical sciences. Out of her inquiry have come seven book, including: Overcoming Math Anxiety; Succeed with Math; Breaking the Science Barrier: They're Not Dumb, They're Different; Revitalizing Undergraduate Science: Why Some Things Work and Most Don't. This conversation will focus on the environment in which secondary science teachers have to work-the topic of her latest book-published on line in May 2009, which can be accessed at www.rescorp.org (click on the link for "Science Teaching as a Profession").
Dr. Shirley M. Malcom, Head, Education and Human Resources Programs at AAAS, will interview Ms. Tobias in an intimate setting. The conversation will be hosted by Dr. Daryl E. Chubin, Director, AAAS Capacity Center. For more information, go to www.aaascapacity.org.
AAAS now seeking nominations for the 2009 AAAS Mentor Awards
All nominations are due by Friday, July 31st, 2009.
The two categories of the AAAS Mentor Awards, the Lifetime Mentor Award and the Mentor Award, both honor individuals who during their careers demonstrate extraordinary leadership to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in the science and engineering PhD workforce. These groups include: women of all racial or ethnic groups; African American, Native American, and Hispanic men; and people with disabilities.
The recipient of the 2008 AAA.S Mentor Award is Sylvia T. Bozeman, Professor of Mathematics and Director of the Center for Scientific Applications of Mathematics (CSAM) at Spelman College. Dr. Bozeman has been honored for helping to increase the number of African American women with PhDs in mathematics. Since 1985, a total of approximately 20 Spelman mathematics graduates have received doctoral degrees in mathematics and mathematics education and about half of those students chose to go to graduate school as a result of Sylvia's encouragement and mentorship. In addition, she co-founded the Enhancing Diversity in Graduate Education (EDGE) Program, a joint Spelman and Bryn Mawr College program, which is designed to improve retention rates in mathematics graduate programs. Between 1998 and 2005, 14 of the EDGE participants have earned PhDs, including 5 who are African American. Bozeman has help to change the culture of the mathematics department at Spelman and has contributed to increasing the number of women with doctoral degrees in mathematics. To learn more about Dr. Bozeman, please visit our website: http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/awards/mentor/mentor2008.shtml
The recipient of the 2008 AAAS Lifetime Mentor Award is Percy A. Pierre, Vice President Emeritus & Emeritus Professor of Electrical & Computer Engineering for the 2008 Lifetime Mentor Award. Dr. Pierre has been honored for his life long work in helping to create national programs that led to increased productions of minority engineering PhDs, including the National Action Council for Minority Engineers (NACME) and the doctoral in engineering program at Howard University. In 1998, as Professor of Engineering at Michigan State University, he started the Sloan Engineering Program to support the recruitment and retention of minority doctoral students. Through this program alone, he has mentored 27 African American and Hispanic American doctoral graduates in engineering. To learn more about Dr. Pierre, please visit: http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/awards/mentor/lifetime2008.shtml
For more information on these awards please visit the website at: http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/awards/mentor/index.shtml.
If you have any questions please feel free to contact Jessica Kunkler at jkunkler@aaas.org or by phone at (202) 326-6671.
The Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) Postdoctoral Fellowship Program
This program is open to U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents and offers a competitive stipend as well as insurance, relocation, and travel allowances. This program offers one to three year postdoctoral fellowships designed to increase the involvement of scientists and engineers from academia and industry to scientific and technical areas of interest and relevance to the Navy. This program has a rolling admission.
Go to: http://www.asee.org/resources/nrl/ for detailed program information.
The Naval Research Enterprise Intern Program (NREIP) NREIP is a ten week summer research opportunity for undergraduate Juniors & Seniors, and Graduate students, under the guidance of a mentor, at a participating Navy Laboratory. The stipend amounts for the program are $5,500 for undergraduate students and $6,500 for graduate students. U.S. citizenship required; Permanent residents accepted at certain labs.
Go to: http://www.asee.org/nreip for application deadlines and detailed program information.
Humboldt Research Fellowship
The Humboldt Research Fellowship enables highly-qualified scientists and scholars of all nationalities and all disciplines to carry out research projects for extended periods of time in cooperation with academic hosts at research institutions in Germany. Fellowships are awarded on the basis of academic achievement, the quality and feasibility of the proposed research and the applicant's publications.
Fellowships for Postdoctoral Researchers are for postdoctoral scientists and scholars who have completed a doctoral degree within four years prior to the application submission date are eligible. This fellowship allows for a stay of 6-24 months in Germany and provides a monthly stipend of 2,250 EUR. Click here for application materials and detailed information.
Fellowships for Experienced Researchers are for scientists and scholars who have completed a doctoral degree within twelve years prior to the application submission date are eligible.
This fellowship allows for a stay of 6-18 months in Germany which may be divided into a maximum of three visits of at least three months each and provides a monthly stipend of 2,450 EUR. Click here for application materials and detailed information.
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SPOTLIGHT on AWIS FELLOWS
Jo Handelsman, PhD
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Dr. Jo Handelsman, named an AWIS Fellow in February 2009, recieved the Carski Foundation Distinguished Undergraduate Teaching Award. This award, which has been supported by the Carski Foundation since 1968, honors an educator for outstanding teaching of microbiology to undergraduate students.
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| NEW MENTORING RESOURCE |
 ALL NEW!
Getting the Most out of Your Mentoring Relationships: A Handbook for Women in STEM
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Provides a quick yet structured guide to mentoring
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Includes a handy resource guide for quick reference
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Is the most comprehensive handbook catered to women in science, technology, engineering and mathematics
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Support AWIS
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Help other women in science! Donate to AWIS for its programs and/or to the Educational Foundation for its fellowships.
Your tax-deductible donation to AWIS supports the wide-ranging advocacy
and career development activities of the National Office and the
Executive Board.
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Learn more
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