sciencewoman
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Dear ScienceWoman,
I am starting a career as a teacher and would very much like to enroll in a masters specializing in teaching high school science. I am wondering if you could help direct me to some grants or incentives that are geared towards encouraging women to pursue graduate teaching degrees…
After my experiences a few weeks ago, and the ensuing discussion, I haven't been able to get the topic of childcare and professional travel out of my head. So here's a reckless proposal on the topic.
For everybody:
1) We need to recognize that to be successful, scientists, engineers, or academics…
Tonight marked another motherhood rite of passage. I'd been dreading this one, but it was truly time for it to happen.
I threw out the remainder of the breast milk in the freezer. It had been there five months and three weeks - dating to the period when Minnow had transitioned to the toddler room…
August Scientiae is here! Yay! Cherish at Faraday's Cage is where you put Schroedinger's Cat has done a phenomenal job of pulling together great posts on the topic of transitions.
Perfect reading for transitioning for work to weekend, me thinks.
Thanks Cherish and all of the Scientiae…
I am an inveterate and unapologetic listener of NPR. I love to feel like I am getting something useful out of being stuck in traffic and I find their reporting to generally be much better and more in-depth than that of the print media. However, this week, All Things Considered's reporting has…
Even though fall classes won't start for a few more weeks, we are already being asked to submit our spring schedules. I'll be teaching two classes, each with labs, that I will have previously taught. It's a little daunting to think about so many hours in the classroom, but the reward will be a…
As Alice has reminded us, the theme for this month's Scientiae is "transitions." Seems like a totally appropriate thing to be contemplating as I gear up for the next academic year. A few months ago, I reflected on my lessons learned as a first year faculty member. I felt like I'd learned a lot but…
At long last, Minnow and I are back on terra firma in Mystery City. Fortunately, our trip home went much more smoothly than our travel to Midwest. Unfortunately, it's looking like I've got a good few days of email-box unclogging, grocery restocking, unpacking (home and field gear), bill paying, etc…
So I attended a pedagogy workshop this week and I brought Minnow along. For those not keeping track, she's now almost 18 months old and still going strong with the nursing (>= 2 x/day, >=2x/night). When I signed up for the workshop, I'd intended her to stay with my mom in Midwest, but in the…
John Tierney had a piece in Tuesday's New York Times on "A new frontier for Title IX: Science." Anyone who's read anything by Tierney before knows to expect anti-woman idiocy, but the Times dignified his piece by putting it not in the opinion section, but in the science section. And that poor…
This week I'm attending a workshop on pedagogy and I'm hearing lots of interesting ideas from people teaching really exciting and innovative courses. They are incorporating service learning, multi-week projects, location-centric courses, and intro courses for particular audiences (say, business…
While some dismiss the Midwest as "flyover states" and locals decry a brain drain that admittedly I am part of, non-human species seem to be arriving in the area in droves. Here's a pictorial tour of some of the exotic species that have recently settled in the area.
The yellow flower in the…
HI everyone,
Sorry for the silence...I expected to be able to get at least one or two blog posts off in the past two weeks, but being away from home, with no childcare, and with the added demands of being a daughter and a sister, on top of the usual roles of mother, wife, scientist, and professor,…
The Science family is somewhere near here...where the hills are steeper, the rocks are flatter, the green is bluer, and the weather is a good 15 degrees F cooler than Mystery City.
Our trip so far has been a bit rocky...It took us 31 hours to accomplish what should have been 8 hours door to door…
For the last two weeks, I have been utterly consumed by logistics. I've come home from a trip to Utopia and a research project there, have been in the field twice locally scouting a project here, and am preparing for field work in Midwest next month. I'm starting to have dreams about losing boxes…
In a few days, I'm leaving Mystery City for a whole month. Wow, that's a long time. It's a trip combining visits to family with a workshop and some field work, and Minnow will be along for the whole incredible journey. Fish will be with us for a week and then he'll return home to care for the…
In a week when others in the blogosphere are discussing TIME magazine's coverage of a pregnancy boom in Gloucester, Massachusetts, there was something else that caught my eye (and my ire). I've sent the following letter to the editors at TIME:
I'm very disappointed in this week's illustration for "…
Katie @ Minor Revisions has decided to take the good job close to her family, rather than the dreamy job many states away. She sounds a little sad about the decision, but I am rejoicing for her.
The lack of a support network in Mystery State is one of the things that has and will continue to make…
All the recent talk about engineers 'round these parts has got me feeling a bit left out. You see, back when I was a girl, my parents encouraged my interest in the natural world. And they encouraged my brother's interest in all things electrical and mechanical. Today, I'm a scientist and he's an…
Noted the other day when Minnow was puzzling. It's a good thing she can't read yet.
The view from a friend's house. If you look closely (or embiggen) there's a snow-capped peak in the background.
Early this morning, Minnow and I returned to Mystery City from a week-long trip to Utopia, land of my former inhabitance.The trip was a fully-integrated mixture of business and pleasure…
Dear Sciencewoman,
I'm currently in the last 6 months of my PhD, and I have an 8 month old. I love research, but I want more time with my child, and I am curious if there is such a thing as a part time post doc. How did you get that kind of position? Did you have to create the position with your…
I've blogged before about my difficulties in getting adequate and unrestricted start-up funds from my university. Where we left the story, I'd been awarded about 2/3 the start-up funds I needed, with an oral promise that I would be "first in line" for money when I arrived. I also had to spend every…
So I meant to have a nice post today addressing Ecogeofemme's challenge of describing how we write papers/proposals, but I haven't actually managed to do any writing today like I was supposed to.
Instead, I am going to point out the at times thoughtful, at times heated discussion going on around…
It's the day after Memorial Day - time to admit that it's summer. Time to resign myself to well-meaning neighbors who ask: "So, are you teaching this summer or do you have it off?" And it's time to let you all know about my summer plans. No, I don't "have it off" this summer, but you already knew…
On a day when I am feeling increasingly dismal about the publication prospects of my current project, my mood was not lightened with the arrival of the table of contents for the current issue of a very high impact journal (say, cell/nature/science). One of the papers was right up my research alley…
I've just come out of a general positive annual review meeting with my departmental chair and it seems like an appropriate time to take stock of the year and think about where I am heading. At the end of my first academic year as a faculty member, I'm way ahead of where I was nine months ago, but I…
With all the hullabaloo over the Intel ISEF, I haven't managed to tell you about my homecoming from my trip without Minnow. When I left the subject last, I was about to go to bed on my night alone in a hotel room. I hadn't freaked out since the airport. In the morning, I gave Fish a quick call…
Sana Raoof, left, 17, of Muttontown, N.Y., Yi-Han Su, 17, center, of Chinese Taipei and Natalie Saranga Omattage, right, 17, of Cleveland, Miss., pose after receiving top honors at the 2008 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Atlanta, Friday, May 16, 2008.
Yesterday, Yi-Han Su…
Breaking news....they've just announced the grand award winners at the Intel International
Science and Engineering Fair. And I'm absolutely thrilled to tears to announce that the top three prize winners are all girls! One more nail in the coffin for those who say that girls can't do science, math,…