skookumchick
Posts by this author
June 1, 2009
For the past few years, I have been horrified by Nicholas Kristof's posts about violence against children in various crisis zones around the globe - and I have been captivated by his stories of choosing to engage as a human being with such distress and pain rather than a so-called "impartial" or "…
May 27, 2009
I just spent 2 hours writing a blog post for you that I completely can't post. My husband says it is really not about being a chicken but deciding what battles to fight. And this post would name names and describe how upset I am about something, and, as mentioned, my president reads this blog.…
May 26, 2009
Isis and Sheril are having a discussion about some of Sheril's email. She recently got a question from a reader, who queries:
Hi Sheril,
I read with interest your article on 'women and science' in the Discover website. Can I ask, from your perspective, what you think of this study suggesting that…
May 24, 2009
Now that the semester is over, I have no excuse not to do a lot of home-maintenance-y things, like:
installing a rainbarrel in my backyard
installing a dual-flush mechanism on our upstairs toilet
setting up the other dehumidifier in the basement (we had one in each house when we had 2 houses, and…
May 23, 2009
Okay, so I finally updated our family blog with what has been going on behind the scenes here at Chez Nous, and I will share some of it with you, through the power of copy and paste and with only a modicum of overlap. Voila, I present to you my last two weeks (only some of which is work-related)!…
May 20, 2009
Okay. As mentioned, I've been smacked down. I think I'm so deeply tired that it is going to take weeks to recover. I have to have some tough conversations with people over the next few days, not the least of which with my students, and I lack the energy to do so. But I also did a Good Thing: I…
May 15, 2009
I feel hung down, brung down, hung up, and all kinds o' mean nasty ugly things, and the last thing I've been feeling like doing is spending more time on my computer, let alone blogging. But this video, produced for SMU's engineering program tweeted by the NAE and listed on the iFoundry blog is…
May 9, 2009
Quick update from RL: ScienceWoman is dealing with some intense stuff in the real world, and while she may or may not blog about it, might benefit from some shout-outs of encouragement from any readers so inclined. Go ahead, I'll wait...
[good vibes being sent to SW ...... NOW!]
I have 3 posts in…
May 4, 2009
ScienceWoman and I are either approaching or inhabiting grading jail, I think. I'm working on grading 30 teams' first-year design projects where teams of 4 had to design a procedure to calculate the energy footprint of a building/system on campus (related to this post). On Friday, we summed up…
April 29, 2009
It has been a horrible week at work. Horrible. Actually, it started in the middle of last week. Suffice it to say I have had many behind-the-door conversations, real sturm und drang, and I find it completely unbloggable. Just no idea where to start. So until I figure that out, let me share the…
April 24, 2009
There's an article on the New York Times Online about Allannah Thomas, founder of Helicon, a non-profit that helps low-income women learn math skills they need for better jobs. Thomas's courses are called "math boot camp" because of their focus on fundamental skills, and she works with women to…
April 22, 2009
Today for me consisted of one PhD defense (I was on the committee; it was successfully defended, congrats Dr. Ken!), a meeting about ADVANCE, 2 hrs of class, another PhD meeting that I'm on the committee of, and then a bunch of following up with folks. So it's been pretty packed, as usual. (…
April 20, 2009
Blogger Feministx popped over the other day to visit and leave a comment on SW's "goody goody" post. I hadn't read Feministx before, but she claims she "started my blog with the intention of focusing on feminist concerns, but lately I have taken to writing about the biological basis of human…
April 20, 2009
I've noticed that a certain grimness has entered my colleagues' and my attitude over the last week or so. It's a "there is only (X) days/weeks left, we just have to finish" attitude, similar to what I anticipate marathon runners experience around about 24 miles or so. A just keep going, don't…
April 17, 2009
I don't have time to read blogs anymore. And yet, I still have over 211 RSS subscriptions in my Google Reader. To assuage my guilt at having many times the "1000+" posts I haven't read, I thought I would share some cool sites I've come across. Somehow it makes me feel better. Details below the…
April 17, 2009
It was 3 years ago today that I started blogging. I started with a pseudonymous blog, at the edge of the internet, as a lonely graduate student, trying to navigate my dissertation, a long-distance relationship, and unsure future career prospects. My blog, with my pseudonym, is still out there…
April 16, 2009
Katharine Haxton over at Endless Possibilities 2.0 on the Nature Network is stepping into another Scientiae hosting breech (yikes!) and will be hosting the May Scientiae, to be posted May 1. She's suggested "A Snapshot" as the theme -- a blog timecapsule for yourself, marking May 2009. Get your…
April 16, 2009
OMG, my sister-in-law is going into labor! How exciting!!
That is all for now. More as things develop, as it were.
April 16, 2009
It's maybe hard for some of us to believe, but it has been 2 years since the Virginia Tech massacre. Day of Remembrance activities in Blacksburg include a candlelight vigil, a memorial run, and an open house in the renovated Norris Hall.
It's amazing for me to think about how we are two years on…
April 15, 2009
ScienceWoman has shared some thoughts with us about how her spring semester has gone; I'm still in the throes and can't reflect yet. Student end-of-semester projects, a journal paper to submit, a conference paper to submit, reviews for a conference to conduct, a dissertation to read to prepare…
April 10, 2009
Do you do research on gender and engineering or engineering education? Do you want to talk with cool European researchers about your and their research? Want to fly to Europe for free? Consider applying for the opportunity below the fold -- there are only a couple days left to apply (April 13 is…
April 9, 2009
Our department turned 5 today. We celebrated it in song. Humorous verse, of course. ;-)
This photo was taken by a graduate student in our department. Some of my photos below the fold.
April 6, 2009
I like many, many things about my department. But I am a little frustrated about the lack of formal-ish mentoring present. It's a little awkward -- we had a couple of regular opportunities, like monthly lunches with the department head, or the senior faculty chatting with the junior faculty at a…
April 3, 2009
So every university has some kind of publication it uses to connect with alumni to say, "Look at all this cool stuff we're doing, don't you want to give us money in memory of the cool stuff we did when you were here?" My alma mater keeps sending me such publications; I'm starting to find the…
April 2, 2009
The lovely Candid Engineer has posted a marvelous carnival titled "We Rise Up"! about overcoming challenges for your April reading pleasure. W00T! And someone needs to get organized and follow up on whoever said they might be interested in hosting May... let me know if you would be willing to…
April 1, 2009
Update April 7: GrrlScientist has decided to change the name to "Scientia Pro Publica," science for the people. Thanks to folks who shared ideas with her!!
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GrrlScientist has decided to revive the Tangled Bank carnival under a new name: Scientia. While a very apt name indeed…
April 1, 2009
I mentioned that one of the things I've been doing for the last little while is preparing for ADVANCE-Purdue's first-year site visit, which we had on Friday March 27. This is the first year NSF has been doing first year site visits for ADVANCE, and considering we've only been funded since October…
March 31, 2009
In early February, I received a letter from my university president. A hand-signed letter, addressed to me. In it, she reported how she had been reading this blog and my personal work website. (!) She was very complimentary of this blog, and SW and my contributions to engaging more women in…
March 30, 2009
This announcement just in: the organization of a US-Europe workshop on research on gender in engineering education. More information below the fold; applications are due April 13, in just over 2 weeks!
US-Europe Workshop for Research on Gender and Diversity
in Engineering Education
Announcement…
March 30, 2009
Look look, a new journal on gender, science and technology! See the inaugural call for papers below the fold.
The International Journal of Gender, Science and Technology is an independent, peer reviewed, open access journal that welcomes contributions from practitioners, researchers and policy…