skookumchick | 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 for a defense, and two proposal defenses coming up, on top of wanting to garden, blog, camp, visit family, and watch Little Dorrit.
However, I have realized one thing: that, with busyness at work comes a sneaky pseudo-justification to drive to work. I think I don't have the 25 minutes to walk from my…
skookumchick | April 10, 2009Do 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 the deadline) but the application process isn't difficult and I know they're still taking applications. Only restriction: you currently need to be working at a US university (I think).
US-Europe Workshop for Research on Gender and Diversity
in Engineering Education
Announcement and Call for…
sciencewoman | April 10, 2009ScienceWoman notes: Last week I gave away a couple of books to readers who enthusiastically promised to review the books. The books were mailed on Friday and I've already gotten the first review back. Talk about enthusiasm! Here's a review from Courtney of Courtney's Blog.
What Are You Optimistic About is one of Edge.org's "celebration of the ideas of the third culture" (for further information, read C.P. Snow's classic, The Two Cultures). There is an introduction by the famed scientist/philosopher Dennett, who says, "It can't all be true, but we need to test them."
Fig. 1. Courtney's…
sciencewoman | April 9, 2009Alice and I are both big photo buffs, and science and nature provide endless inspiration for so many artists and photographers. So we're pretty jazzed that Scienceblogs has decided to highlight some outstanding science photo-bloggers on a new blog, with the inspired name, Photo Synthesis. They'll have a monthly rotating crew of photographers, and this month will feature Alex Wild and his outstanding insect photos. Go check it out.
skookumchick | 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.
sciencewoman | April 9, 2009My students tell me that there are only 20 days of class left this semester. I've been too busy to count. Unfortunately, it's been too-busy-with-things-that-don't-make-a-compelling-tenure-case. But, maybe, just maybe, I can salvage this mess of a semester by learning some lessons for how now to conduct future semesters. So in RBOC-fashion here's what I've discovered.
Loading up my teaching on Mondays and Wednesdays did not actually produce "free" days for research. First Tuesday got filled up with student meetings and class prep for my marathon Wednesdays. Then Thursday got filled up with…
sciencewoman | April 7, 2009After staying with us for about a month, ScienceGrandma is now on the plane flight back to her home. Last night was our first night without her. Below the fold, a few reflections on living with three generations under one roof.
I am happy to be returning to the master bedroom and bath, which we had given up because of accessibility issues. For the duration of her visit, we'd moved a guest bed into my home office and I'd cleared off some bookshelves for clothes. Two adults and a toddler in a single tiny bathroom gets a bit crowded, especially because of needing to keep everything out of a…
skookumchick | April 6, 2009I 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 breakfast every so often, but these seem to have disappeared, for some very good reasons that I'm not going to get in to here.
The point is that I need some help, I've been asking senior faculty for help, and nothing continues to happen.
Okay then. So in November, I started working on my own…
skookumchick | April 3, 2009So 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 publications that Purdue puts out for similar purposes.
However. This seems to be actually a pretty cool thing: Purdue Engineering has a magazine called Engineering Impact, where, while we could make jokes about making bombs hit their target better, they are instead using impact to point out engineers…
sciencewoman | April 3, 2009This is not a belated April Fool's joke, though I'll admit to having sat on this since Wednesday so that my readers wouldn't think I was making this up. Here is the correspondence I found in my email account on Wednesday morning:
Hi!
I've been reading your blog now for the past 18 months- and love it. Thanks so much for sharing!
I'd just like to say how much it really helped me, as I'm at the same stage as you. Last July, I went from being a post-doc to a faculty member. Your comments about applying for jobs, how the process worked were of great assistance... And it's great reading how you…
skookumchick | April 2, 2009The 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 serve as backup and I will pass the message along. ;-)
Thanks, Candid Engineer, for compiling a great list of posts to come back too when one is feeling down.
sciencewoman | April 2, 2009
Today's free book is "Hollywood Science: Movies, Science, and the End of the World" by Sydney Perkowitz. (If you click over the Amazon page linked above, you'll see a review by scibling Brian Switek of Laelaps.)
Remember: To claim the book, be the first commenter to earnestly affirm that you will read and review the book in less than 6 months. Then send me your snail mail address via my science (dot) woman account on google's mail service.
skookumchick | April 1, 2009Update 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, commenters (not me) have pointed out the similarity with Scientiae, the blog carnival of stories of/by women in STEM. GrrlScientist has said she'd consider changing the name if a better idea came up, but other offerings are rather slim. Any of you out there have any good ideas? Please share…
sciencewoman | April 1, 2009Today's free book is "Einstein for Beginners" a comic style introduction to Einstein's life and work by Joseph Schwartz and Michael McGuiness
To claim the book, be the first commenter to assiduously affirm that you will read and review the book in less than 6 months and then send me your snail mail address to science dot woman @ google's mail service.
skookumchick | April 1, 2009I 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 2008 it seemed a little early to me. However, I think it went off fairly well, and I thought I would share with you some of the details below the fold.
The site visit was 1 day; the NSF program officers flew in to town the night before, and flew out again by 7 pm the next day.
The structure of…
skookumchick | March 31, 2009In 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 STEM fields.
I confess I was rather gobsmacked, verklempt, overwhelmed by the letter. I've scanned it to my computer so I can keep a copy of it, and put the paper copy in my "good things" file that currently remains rather thin. I wrote it up a bit in my P&T file (that was due at the beginning…
sciencewoman | March 31, 2009I'm very busy this week, with visitors to our department, a stack of grading, and the usual drive to do more research and be a better mommy. Alice isn't in any better shape. I was wondering how I was going to write anything for the blog. And I was also contemplating a bookshelf full of books I'll never have time to read. A ha! I'll give the books to better homes via my blog...now that's effective multi-tasking.
Three times this week, I'll be giving away a book from my shelf to the first reader who promises to read the book in a timely fashion (<6 months) and report back with a review on…
skookumchick | March 30, 2009This 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 and Call for Applicants
Applications are due April 13, 2009!
US Participants are sought for a 1-2 day workshop on gender research in engineering education to be held this summer in Delft, The Netherlands. Tentative dates are June 29, 30, or July 4. Participants will actively engage in developing an…
skookumchick | March 30, 2009Look 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 makers concerned with gender issues in and of science and technology. The phrase gender, science and technology intends to encompass a wide definition of these disciplines both in terms of methodological enquiry as well as subjects of research.
Our aim is to help foster and provide a focus…
skookumchick | March 30, 2009Ever since Erin and Hig walked through the village near our summer cabin in British Columbia, I've been reading their blog about walking from Seattle to the Aleutian Islands. Once they made it to their destination, over a year from when they started, they set up a yurt and started writing up a book -- as well as having a kid. (If you want a glimpse of what it's like to take babies on 3 hr snowshoe hikes, including diaper changes, read Katmai's blog.)
Well it turns out they're in eyeshot of Mt. Redoubt and have some incredible photos of the eruption, particularly with lightning at night.…