skookumchick | February 14, 2008Guess who we've been invited to have dinner with on Tuesday night? Think super famous American scientist who the administration tried to muzzle...
The answer below the fold... tee hee!
It's James Hansen! Yeah, that James Hansen, the top scientist at NASA who the Bush II administration tried to silence on global warming, but who then went and called the New York Times instead!! OMG!!!
A snippet from the New York Times article from January of 2006:
The fresh efforts to quiet him, Dr. Hansen said, began in a series of calls after a lecture he gave on Dec. 6 at the annual meeting of the…
skookumchick | February 14, 2008We've met, we've gotten educated, we've gotten married, and almost all in two different cities. Now I've quit my job so I can finish my dissertation, and we live together, what a concept.
Okay, year together, blah blah blah. Gardening, working, eating locally, helping each other, all good things. I'm not kidding when I say it was a relief that we still liked each other - I had heard all these horror stories (okay, maybe 2) of academics who lived apart for 25 years, retire and live together and then get divorced because they had never had to live together before.
Anyway, there are no…
skookumchick | February 13, 2008Has anyone else noticed a preponderance of Macs populating coffeeshops? The one I am in has 6 Macs out of 7 computers at the moment - and my school is full of engineers who supposedly only use Windoze machines! Is it just that Mac people are cool and hang out at coffeeshops, or that they lack offices and need somewhere to work? Or is it only in coffeeshops in close proximity to universities?
Me? I'm here for the Internets. Oh yeah, and the coffee. And the giant valentine cookies.
sciencewoman | February 13, 2008As long as we're rolling out great new things this week on this soon-to-be-renamed(?) blog, here's another one.
Wouldn't it be cool if a bunch of us read the same book at the same time and then got together virtually to discuss it? Rather than one of us reading a good book and reviewing it, and the rest of us thinking "hmmm, maybe I should read that book someday," all of us could read the book and share our thoughts on it. Specifically, I'm thinking of the sort of books that speak to the experiences of women in STEM fields.
I think a book club would be really cool, and I say we should do it…
skookumchick | February 13, 2008My husband and I will have been "together" for 10 years this July. Of those 10 years, we have lived about 3.5 in the same city. It's a hard gig.
We met when I was an undergrad and Steve was a grad student (scandalous!) over the summer when I was home from college, working in a water chemistry lab. He made goofy jokes about the carbon analyzer and wore Wallace and Gromit t-shirts, and our first date was to go see Mulan (no kidding. We now consider Disney to be bscs=blood-sucking corporate scum, an opinion we recognize we can only hold for now because we don't have kids who love them yet…
skookumchick | February 12, 2008ScienceWoman and I are looking for punny and descriptive names for our new collaborative blog effort. Got any ideas?
So far, these are our lame attempts:
Scientist and Engineers ... and Women, too
Science/Engineering Women
Staying afloat
this is what a scientist/engineer looks like (blatantly stolen from YellowIbis)
Balance Beam (sort of like Sharon Traweek's Beamtimes and Lifetimes)
A blog of our own
Women at Work
"WOES woes," where WOES="Women of Engineering and Science" (very depressing)
Perhaps something "wise" related, where wise=women in science and engineering?
See? They all really…
sciencewoman | February 11, 2008Minnow and I are really good at the breast-feeding thing. It makes her happy and gives her nutrition. It makes me happy and gives me cuddle time. We like breast-feeding and don't intend to wean anytime soon.
BUT...
Minnow has now transitioned to the toddler room at daycare. And in the toddler room at daycare, they don't serve bottles on demand. They serve milk from a cup at meals.
It was a rough week for both of us.
We've been trying to introduce cow's milk from a cup for the past two weeks. Our goal is to get Minnow drinking cow's milk by day and mommy's milk by night. But each time the…
skookumchick | February 11, 2008I'm still trying to figure out this blogging publicly thing, and am writing a bigger post about it for later in the week. In the meantime, here are a couple of great-sounding conference coming up, and you still have time to get your abstracts in!
Engineering, Social Justice and Peace: Grounded in community, engaged in praxis
Smith College, Northampton, MA
April 4-6 2008
Abstracts due Feb 15 (Saturday!!)
Papers are solicited that address the conference theme, including but not limited to the following questions:
What is engineering? Social justice?
For whom and towards what do engineers work…
skookumchick | February 9, 2008I had been agonizing over what would be my first "substantive" post for this new venue. My husband (who will be properly introduced in another post) suggested I make a list of a bunch I'd like to write so I have fodder for the fire when I feel otherwise tapped out.
Ah, me of little faith. I made such a list, verily I did. But instead of drawing from the well of better-intentioned ideas, I will blog about what I'd like to see in conference papers while I'm still all hot under the reviewing collar.
One of my professional societies is ASEE - the American Society of Engineering Education. It…
skookumchick | February 9, 2008Hello? - ello - ello - lo... Wow, this is a big sandbox. Can I come play?
My name is Alice. As in Wonderland. I'm a newbie faculty member in the super-cool School of Engineering Education at Purdue University. I've also been blogging 2 months shy of 2 years, but pseudonymously - that's the first time I've publicly blogged my name and job. It's true, blogging under your own name does sort of make you feel like you're naked in a crowd. At least, until I get used to it. ;-)
I'm an engineer. But a comparatively weird engineer: a feminist, radical, social justice-y engineer. In my…
sciencewoman | February 9, 2008It is my great pleasure to announce that "On Being a Scientist and a Woman" has a co-blogger debuting today. Alice Pawley is a first-year faculty member in engineering education at Purdue University, and she'll bring a wonderful new dimension to the stories on the blog. Alice and I "met" on the 'net and she has a great writing voice and both a scholarly and personal perspective on women in STEM fields.
It probably surprises some of you that such a personal blog would decide to have a co-blogger. But my purpose in sharing my personal stories has always been foremost to start a conversation…
sciencewoman | February 7, 2008I should say up front that I work in a fairly family-friendly department. They were fantastic when I interviewed (Minnow was just 1 month old) and my colleagues have occasionally asked after her development. I brought her to class once last semester and nobody said anything negative.
And there's a couple of really committed Dads in the department.
Generally, that's great. I'd love see all dads actively involved in their kids lives, and I'd prefer to work with colleagues who understand that there is life outside of science.
But what's not so great is when I see those colleagues getting cut…
sciencewoman | February 6, 2008I've got a lot of posts gestating in my head, but right now my fingers are busy grading papers and writing lectures. But I promise you that I will get a decent post out later this week.
And to keep you checking back...I promise that soon, very soon, there's going to be a big exciting announcement in this space. I think you'll be very excited. I am.
sciencewoman | February 5, 2008Bitch PhD pretty well sums up how I feel about today's primary choices.
To those of you who live in states that have primaries or caucuses today, please go out and make your voice heard.
Even if you're not quite sure who to vote for.
sciencewoman | February 4, 2008I'm swamped (and last night's early bedtime did not help matters. I've got lectures to write, papers to grade, and exam to write (then grade), a lab to prepare...oh yeah, and some service obligations and the ever-elusive research time.
Fortunately, there are lots of wonderful things on the internets these days for y'all to read. Here are some notable ones:
The February Scientiae carnival is up at Fairer Science. Pat has done a fabulous job compiling all of the amazing stories that were submitted.
An awesome blog by a woman scientist has been enlisted by the Sb overlords. Please welcome Green…
sciencewoman | February 3, 2008The pregame show: Minnow decides to forgo her usual 2-3 hours of naptime in favor of 2 <30-minute power naps. Bets are taken as to what time Minnow will crash (i.e, irretrievably collapse into a sobbing heap).
10 minutes before kick-off: We're racing to finish dinner because the crash seems imminent.
Kickoff: Minnow is making laps around the living room, pulling CDs off the shelf, climbing in and out of my lap, laughing hilariously for no particular reason. Behavior is increasingly manic.
5:01 remaining in first quarter (~6:50 pm). Giants score a field goal. We decide to get Minnow into…
sciencewoman | January 30, 2008In my upper level course this semester, I am really trying to interject personality into the lectures and discussions. By personality, I don't (just) mean humor and compassion. What I also mean is that I am trying to convey that our subject matter is an area of active research, done by (gasp!) real people.
I started the term by giving the "old white guy tour," summarizing the historical development of the field and some of the key figures that have contributed. I called it the "old white guy tour" which at least got a smile from one or two of my students. I wanted to acknowledge that I was…
sciencewoman | January 30, 2008Thinkstart (Joshua Potter) was the winner of the last Where on Google Earth challenge, finding my fossil forest in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, comes this installment of the game.
Joshua says:
As this was only my second try at WoGE, I'm not very versed with
technique or trends/standards of the past 105, so I hope my offering
isn't too easy, or obvious.
Also, I can't figure out how to get the scale to show up, so please
let me know if you have any tips. Although, for this one I don't
think it matters much. Let me know if there are any problems with the
image...
As always, some words about…
sciencewoman | January 30, 2008A reader recently sent me this email:
I have a question that perhaps you and your readers can help with. I'm currently at a cross-road in my academic career. A year ago I started a Master's program in one of the "ologies" with potential to switch over to the Ph.D if things progressed well over the first year. Well, I've had a very successful and enjoyable first year, so I was thrilled to learn that I could join the 'fast-track' for the Ph.D. Needless to say, this was my goal, since my dream job is to work at a small college/university where I can focus most of my time on teaching. But I've…