A recent study presented at the last AAS meeting shows that 60% of female astronomers suffer from impostor syndrome, the (unjustified) "fear of being exposed by colleagues for a lack of knowledge or ability". In comparison, 47% of male astronomers say they suffer from this. Since these fears could be a factor leading people away from astronomy, it may be one of the many things explaining why so few women make it all the way.
I would be curious to see the results of such a study for mother-astronomers. If it's so easy to doubt oneself in general (even half of our male colleagues do it, apparently!), it's probably worse when you add on top of it all the worries and concerns of juggling babies and research.
Coming back to work after maternity leave is both thrilling and deadly stressful. After being away from work, there's the joy of getting back into it, but also the (self-imposed in my case) pressure of performing extra well to make up for the lost time. I find myself in meetings sometimes, wanting to contribute to the discussion, show that I'm back in business, but blanking out because baby didn't sleep well and I'm tired, or because I worry about x or y baby-related thing.
When this happens I get home afterward, and while I play with the kids, I find myself worrying about work, how I need to do more. Impostor syndrome at work, impostor syndrome at home.
These are bad days, but fortunately it's not always like this. A comment on a previous post expresses very well one of my believes about the work/family duality: if I'm happy at work, it benefits everyone, including my kids. Most of the time I'm able to convince myself that my colleagues are understanding, that I don't need to prove myself all the time, that as long as I do my best I can't ask more of myself; I throw the impostor syndrome out of the window. But it takes a constant effort to not let it creep back, doubting is so easy.
I liked reading the results of this study. Because I recognized myself, and because I now know that it's such a widespread phenomenon. Why didn't I know before? Because we're expected to be tough, and we put on a facade most of the time. But really, that's not helping anyone, actually it's probably doing more harm than good. We need to break this vicious circle! So let's make a first baby step here - if you're reading this and it sounds familiar at all, let us know, because everybody likes to know that they're not alone with their problems and worries. At least I know I do!
Showing posts with label Astronomy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Astronomy. Show all posts
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Amazing Picture of the ISS
Thanks to The Bad Astronomer for posting some amazing pictures of the International Space Station taken by Ralf Vandebergh (from the ground using just a 10 inch telescope, and manual tracking). I just had to share. Mr. Vandenbergh must have an amazingly steady hand, and huge reserved of patience! The one I reproduce above also shows as an inset the Space Shuttle approaching the ISS.
When I was hosting star gazing parties fairly often (as a graduate student) I would enjoy nights when the ISS was going to be visibly passing overhead. (You can find such information for any given location on Heaven's Above). I was always amused to see the many skeptics, some of whom clearly had trouble believing I could know such a thing. We would go out onto the deck just a few minutes before the scheduled pass - usually after much persuading on my part. Then came the waiting, and the doubting (on their part, not mine). Finally the ISS would appear lit up by the Sun as a moving bring spot, arc over the sky and disappear (when it passed into the Earth's shadow). After that I always got a lot more respect.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
Galileoscopes
This year is the International year of Astronomy (IYA2009). The project sponsors a number of cornerstone projects, one of which is close to my heart - She's an Astronomer. Another neat cornerstone project is the Galileoscope. This is a low cost, high quality telescope designed to make astronomy accessible to all. I've been meaning to get one (although a bit turned off by the high shipping cost to Europe, which for one telescope is more than the cost itself!), but I thought I'd write a quick blog post about it as a reminder to get around to doing this.
What prompted the post this morning is that I just noticed Phil Plait (The Bad Astronomer) just wrote a review about his Galileoscopes which arrived this week. He includes a useful link to simpler assembly instructions than are included in the box.
Friday, May 22, 2009
Famous Astronomoms: Venetia Phair
The second entry into my Famous Astronomoms series feels a bit like a cheat, since she's not very famous, and also arguably not really an astronomer. But I check - she was definitely a mom, and I think her story is interesting so I wanted to include it.
You will be forgiven for not knowing who Venetia Phair is, especially as her only contribution to astronomy was made almost 80 years ago under her maiden name of Venetia Burney. Venetia Burney, in March 1930, was an 11 year old Oxford school girl who was the first person to suggest the name "Pluto" for the recently discovered planet. She benefited from making this suggestion to her grandfather, who happened to know an Oxford Professor of Astronomy (Herbert Hall Turner). I'm not surprised that Venetia's grandfather thought her idea brilliant enough to put it in a quick note to Turner which he dropped at his house on the way to the library (my little one's grandfather has already suggested she's a genius), but it is perhaps surprising that Turner also thought the idea good enough to merit telegramming it to the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, and that the staff there (including Clyde Tombaugh - the discoverer of the planet) liked it enough to adopt it.
This picture shows Venetia Burney age 11 around the time she named Pluto.
Venetia got widespread fame at the time for her suggestion, and a prize of £5 from her grandfather (a lot of money in 1930). Even before the recent fuss about the demotion of Pluto from a major planet there was some renewed interest in Mrs. Phair's story, with some BBC press. She also has an asteroid named after her (6235 Burney) and an instrument on board the New Horizons spacecraft (currently enroute to Pluto).
In 2006 the IAU voted to demote Pluto to a dwarf planet (rather than risk having to make perhaps dozens of outer solar system objects planets). Venetia Phair was quoted on this of saying "At my age, I've been largely indifferent to [the debate]; though I suppose I would prefer it to remain a planet", and also commented on the slight irony that interest in Pluto seems to have gotten larger after it was demoted.
Venetia Phair did not become a professional astronomer, but she did go on to work in a STEM field - studying Mathematics at Cambridge University. For a while she worked as a chartered accountant, and then as a teacher of economics and mathematics at a girls school (first in London, later in Sussex). It appears that she continued to work after her marriage in 1947, switching to teaching only in 1950. This would have been relatively unusual in the UK at the time. She only retired as a teacher in the 1980s, which is consistent with her working until past the UK state retirement age of 60 (for women). It is not commented at which point during this her son was born, but clearly she was a working mother for at least part of the time.
Venetia Phair passed away on April 30th this year, age 90. There is a more extensive obituary of her in the Daily Telegraph Science Obituaries. She is survived by her son.
You will be forgiven for not knowing who Venetia Phair is, especially as her only contribution to astronomy was made almost 80 years ago under her maiden name of Venetia Burney. Venetia Burney, in March 1930, was an 11 year old Oxford school girl who was the first person to suggest the name "Pluto" for the recently discovered planet. She benefited from making this suggestion to her grandfather, who happened to know an Oxford Professor of Astronomy (Herbert Hall Turner). I'm not surprised that Venetia's grandfather thought her idea brilliant enough to put it in a quick note to Turner which he dropped at his house on the way to the library (my little one's grandfather has already suggested she's a genius), but it is perhaps surprising that Turner also thought the idea good enough to merit telegramming it to the Lowell Observatory in Arizona, and that the staff there (including Clyde Tombaugh - the discoverer of the planet) liked it enough to adopt it.
This picture shows Venetia Burney age 11 around the time she named Pluto.
Venetia got widespread fame at the time for her suggestion, and a prize of £5 from her grandfather (a lot of money in 1930). Even before the recent fuss about the demotion of Pluto from a major planet there was some renewed interest in Mrs. Phair's story, with some BBC press. She also has an asteroid named after her (6235 Burney) and an instrument on board the New Horizons spacecraft (currently enroute to Pluto).
In 2006 the IAU voted to demote Pluto to a dwarf planet (rather than risk having to make perhaps dozens of outer solar system objects planets). Venetia Phair was quoted on this of saying "At my age, I've been largely indifferent to [the debate]; though I suppose I would prefer it to remain a planet", and also commented on the slight irony that interest in Pluto seems to have gotten larger after it was demoted.
Venetia Phair did not become a professional astronomer, but she did go on to work in a STEM field - studying Mathematics at Cambridge University. For a while she worked as a chartered accountant, and then as a teacher of economics and mathematics at a girls school (first in London, later in Sussex). It appears that she continued to work after her marriage in 1947, switching to teaching only in 1950. This would have been relatively unusual in the UK at the time. She only retired as a teacher in the 1980s, which is consistent with her working until past the UK state retirement age of 60 (for women). It is not commented at which point during this her son was born, but clearly she was a working mother for at least part of the time.
Venetia Phair passed away on April 30th this year, age 90. There is a more extensive obituary of her in the Daily Telegraph Science Obituaries. She is survived by her son.
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
We really do live in a galaxy!
I saw this wonderful time lapse movie over at Bad Astronomy and just had to share.
Spectacular! I'd love to see this, but I'd never have the patience to sit out all night to do so.
Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.
Spectacular! I'd love to see this, but I'd never have the patience to sit out all night to do so.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Why "Lads"?
One of the science blogs I sometimes read is the Physics ArXiv blog (reviewing papers posted in the open access Physics ArXiv which is heavily used by the astronomy community). I like this blog as a way for me, at a low level, to keep up with major developments across physics, and to see what astronomy research catches the eye of a typical physicist.
I was interested to see today a nice review of one of the April Fools Day ArXiv papers about Galaxy Zoo discovering a new class of galaxy cluster. Check out the paper and don't miss the figures.
But why - why, did the author have to end the post reviewing this bit of scientific humour with:
Why?
The paper is "authored" by Marven Pedbost, Trillean Pomalgu and the Galaxy Zoo Team. Quite apart from the many (OK handful of) women on the Galaxy Zoo team itself, Trillian is quite clearly a woman's name.... Has "lads" morphed to be gender non-specific recently?
By the way I liked the Galaxy Zoo April Fools paper, but better still in my opinion was Time Variation of a Fundamental Dimensionless Constant. How come we never noticed that before! ;)
Now that's not so hard is it?
I was interested to see today a nice review of one of the April Fools Day ArXiv papers about Galaxy Zoo discovering a new class of galaxy cluster. Check out the paper and don't miss the figures.
But why - why, did the author have to end the post reviewing this bit of scientific humour with:
"Keep up the good work lads."
Why?
The paper is "authored" by Marven Pedbost, Trillean Pomalgu and the Galaxy Zoo Team. Quite apart from the many (OK handful of) women on the Galaxy Zoo team itself, Trillian is quite clearly a woman's name.... Has "lads" morphed to be gender non-specific recently?
By the way I liked the Galaxy Zoo April Fools paper, but better still in my opinion was Time Variation of a Fundamental Dimensionless Constant. How come we never noticed that before! ;)
Now that's not so hard is it?
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
Famous Astronomoms: Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin
I read about Ada Lovelace Day on Thesis with Children on March 25th. Ada Lovaelcae Day is March 24th. It's a day when bloggers are asked to blog about women in technology who have inspired them. So I missed it by over a week, but better late than never....
I decided anyway to take a different twist on it - so here is my first article in what might turn into a series on famous women astronomers who also happen to be mothers.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin is famous for the work she did in the early 1920s at the Harvard College Observatory on the classification of stellar spectra. For her PhD research under Harlow Shapley she used ionization theory to re-order the then alphabetical (based on the strength of the Halpha line) stellar classifications into the famous OBAFGKM which orders star types by temperature. Incidentally she also proved that the Sun was mostly made of hydrogen.
She was born in the UK on May 10th 1900, the daughter of a London Barrister. However her father died when she was only 4 years old, so her mother raised her (and her two siblings) alone. She won a scholarship to attend Cambridge University (Newnam College) in 1919, reading Natural Sciences. During her time in Cambridge a lecture given by Eddington (on his 1919 expedition to Africa to test the gravitational deflection of light by observing stars near the Sun during a solar eclipse) inspired her to study Astronomy further. At the time Cambridge admitted women, but would not grant them degrees, so doctoral studies for her in England seemed out of the question. However things were opening up more in the US, and she had attended a lecture by Dr. Harlow Shapley (the Director of the Harvard College Observatory) in 1922. She wrote to Dr. Shapley asking if it would be possible to study under him at Harvard (under the advice of Eddington). The Harvard College Observatory had just started a graduate program in astronomy, and even had a special fellowship to encourage women to study. Then then Miss Payne became the second student to win this fellowship and travelled to the US in 1923. She was the first person to be granted a PhD. in astronomy from Harvard (in 1925) - although this was because the Physics department refused to grant a PhD to a woman so the Department of Astronomy was created to get around this!
She met her husband Sergei Gaposhkin while on holiday in Europe in 1932. He was a Russian Astronomer in Nazi Germany and having a very difficult time, so to help him out she found him a position at Harvard. They were married less than 2 years later in 1934. They had 3 children together, Edward, Katherine and Peter. Dr. Payne-Gaposhkin continued to study astronomy her whole life, remaining at Harvard. She was a technical assistant to Shapley from 1927-1938, and became frustrated at her low pay and status at the university. Shapley persuaded them to give her the title of "astronomer" in 1938, but it wasn't until 1956 (when Dr. Payne-Gaposhkin was 56 years old) that further intervention from the Observatory Director (then Donald Menzel) persuaded Harvard to make her a full-professor, and in fact the first female professor of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Payne-Gaposhkin was a trail blazer for women in astronomy, and only incidentally was also a mother (although presumably that's not how her children saw it!). I researched this article only online, but I'm now inspired to try to read her autobiography - The Dyer's Hand to learn more of the details, in particular about her life after having her children. Her career progression was incredibly slow and frustrating, even after her seminal early work - without which she clearly would not have been able to stay in Astronomy at all. She wrote in her auto-biography "I simply went on plodding, rewarded by the beauty of the scenery towards an unexpected goal."
I decided anyway to take a different twist on it - so here is my first article in what might turn into a series on famous women astronomers who also happen to be mothers.
Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin (1900-1979)
Cecilia Payne-Gaposhkin is famous for the work she did in the early 1920s at the Harvard College Observatory on the classification of stellar spectra. For her PhD research under Harlow Shapley she used ionization theory to re-order the then alphabetical (based on the strength of the Halpha line) stellar classifications into the famous OBAFGKM which orders star types by temperature. Incidentally she also proved that the Sun was mostly made of hydrogen.
She was born in the UK on May 10th 1900, the daughter of a London Barrister. However her father died when she was only 4 years old, so her mother raised her (and her two siblings) alone. She won a scholarship to attend Cambridge University (Newnam College) in 1919, reading Natural Sciences. During her time in Cambridge a lecture given by Eddington (on his 1919 expedition to Africa to test the gravitational deflection of light by observing stars near the Sun during a solar eclipse) inspired her to study Astronomy further. At the time Cambridge admitted women, but would not grant them degrees, so doctoral studies for her in England seemed out of the question. However things were opening up more in the US, and she had attended a lecture by Dr. Harlow Shapley (the Director of the Harvard College Observatory) in 1922. She wrote to Dr. Shapley asking if it would be possible to study under him at Harvard (under the advice of Eddington). The Harvard College Observatory had just started a graduate program in astronomy, and even had a special fellowship to encourage women to study. Then then Miss Payne became the second student to win this fellowship and travelled to the US in 1923. She was the first person to be granted a PhD. in astronomy from Harvard (in 1925) - although this was because the Physics department refused to grant a PhD to a woman so the Department of Astronomy was created to get around this!
She met her husband Sergei Gaposhkin while on holiday in Europe in 1932. He was a Russian Astronomer in Nazi Germany and having a very difficult time, so to help him out she found him a position at Harvard. They were married less than 2 years later in 1934. They had 3 children together, Edward, Katherine and Peter. Dr. Payne-Gaposhkin continued to study astronomy her whole life, remaining at Harvard. She was a technical assistant to Shapley from 1927-1938, and became frustrated at her low pay and status at the university. Shapley persuaded them to give her the title of "astronomer" in 1938, but it wasn't until 1956 (when Dr. Payne-Gaposhkin was 56 years old) that further intervention from the Observatory Director (then Donald Menzel) persuaded Harvard to make her a full-professor, and in fact the first female professor of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Sciences.
Dr. Payne-Gaposhkin was a trail blazer for women in astronomy, and only incidentally was also a mother (although presumably that's not how her children saw it!). I researched this article only online, but I'm now inspired to try to read her autobiography - The Dyer's Hand to learn more of the details, in particular about her life after having her children. Her career progression was incredibly slow and frustrating, even after her seminal early work - without which she clearly would not have been able to stay in Astronomy at all. She wrote in her auto-biography "I simply went on plodding, rewarded by the beauty of the scenery towards an unexpected goal."
Friday, February 13, 2009
Sorry - did I just break your mental image?
Last night I gave a talk to a local Astronomical Society. I haven't done this too much before, preferring to spend my outreach time talking to school kids in general. However the Astronomical Society asked (well they asked my boss, and he passed it off to me) so I said yes.
In general it was actually an OK evening. I'm a fairly comfortable speaker, especially when I'm sure I know the subject better than my audience (it's only those department colloquia which make me nervous now), and they all seemed to enjoy it. I got a lot of very relevant questions which I enjoyed answering. However the audience was depressingly homogeneous (in the old white guy sense)... I'm pretty sure I broke most of those people's mental images of an Astronomer. I think that's a good thing.... but it surprises me. This is an Astronomy Society which invites professional Astronomers to come and give talks once a month. Can they really have never invited a young female astronomer before?
Still, dealing with their frank disbelief that I was the speaker (and even more disbelief that I will be the speaker at a large national amateur astronomy meeting in April - a fact I couldn't persuade them to believe!) gives me a amusing anecdote to write about here!
In general it was actually an OK evening. I'm a fairly comfortable speaker, especially when I'm sure I know the subject better than my audience (it's only those department colloquia which make me nervous now), and they all seemed to enjoy it. I got a lot of very relevant questions which I enjoyed answering. However the audience was depressingly homogeneous (in the old white guy sense)... I'm pretty sure I broke most of those people's mental images of an Astronomer. I think that's a good thing.... but it surprises me. This is an Astronomy Society which invites professional Astronomers to come and give talks once a month. Can they really have never invited a young female astronomer before?
Still, dealing with their frank disbelief that I was the speaker (and even more disbelief that I will be the speaker at a large national amateur astronomy meeting in April - a fact I couldn't persuade them to believe!) gives me a amusing anecdote to write about here!
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Bonjour!
It's my pleasure to join Astronomum in contributing to this blog - and I thank her for the kind introduction she wrote! Over the years I have been involved in many outreach programs, especially some dedicated to encourage girls to consider scientific careers, but lately if you ask me how the status of women in science will be improved, my view has changed slightly. I still believe that these education programs are important and can make a difference, but more and more I think that the best thing I can do "for the cause" is work hard, and be a succesfull astronomom. In all modesty, I hope that I can be a positive role model and show by the way I manage to both be a decent mother and scientist that this is a path that every woman could consider for herself, if she chooses to. If my stories here can help or encourage anyone, or even just entertain, then this would be a small step in the right direction (and for my own benefit, this will give me the chance to vent some of the frustrations encountered along this road, because let's be honest, it's not always a smooth ride!)
So you already know the basics about me. I'm a postdoc in astronomy with a 3.5 year old son (let's call him Chatton - i.e. "Kitten" in french, one of my many nicknames for him). Boyfriend is also a scientist, so as so many other women out there I'm juggling career and family life, with the infamous "two-body" academic problem looming over me. I will write again soon - I have four years worth of "astronomom" stories to share, after all! But now it's time to get back to work. I'm trying to catch up after a week that reminded me of the challenges of wearing both the mom and the scientist hat: as Boyfriend was at a conference and Chatton on "fall break" from kindergarden, I experienced both being a single mother and a stay-at-home mom, with a couple of papers to write and the application deadlines of this year's job hunting season on the horizon... but more on all of that soon!
So you already know the basics about me. I'm a postdoc in astronomy with a 3.5 year old son (let's call him Chatton - i.e. "Kitten" in french, one of my many nicknames for him). Boyfriend is also a scientist, so as so many other women out there I'm juggling career and family life, with the infamous "two-body" academic problem looming over me. I will write again soon - I have four years worth of "astronomom" stories to share, after all! But now it's time to get back to work. I'm trying to catch up after a week that reminded me of the challenges of wearing both the mom and the scientist hat: as Boyfriend was at a conference and Chatton on "fall break" from kindergarden, I experienced both being a single mother and a stay-at-home mom, with a couple of papers to write and the application deadlines of this year's job hunting season on the horizon... but more on all of that soon!
Thursday, July 24, 2008
An Unusual Astronomy Picture of the Day
One of my favorite astronomy sites is APOD (Astronomy Picture of the Day). There you can see a new astronomy picture every day (they didn't mess around with the name), usually something which relates to ongoing missions, or recent news stories in astronomy. Yesterday's APOD was quite unusual. I'm still trying to figure out why it counted as an "astronomy picture", being neither about astronomy, or a picture, but I liked it so much that I wanted to link to it and post it here. So here's the link with the full description: APOD for July 23rd. And below is the "picture", entitled "Happy People Dancing on Planet Earth". Neat stuff.
PS. I want to figure out how to put an APOD sidebar into my blog - like there is in the AAS Public Policy Blog. Can anyone help? I thought it would be easy, but I'm stuck!
PS. I want to figure out how to put an APOD sidebar into my blog - like there is in the AAS Public Policy Blog. Can anyone help? I thought it would be easy, but I'm stuck!
Friday, May 2, 2008
Beautiful Saturn
One of the things which initially attracted me to Astronomy was the beauty of astronomical images. Astronomy is almost unique among the sciences in that it produces images which can be appreciated both for their science as well as for pure aesthetic pleasure. A prime example of this duality has recently opened at the American Museum of Natural History in NYC. It's an exhibit of images of Saturn from the Cassini-Huygens mission.
Quoted in the Cornell Daily Chronicle, Elizabeth Bilson (retired administrative director of the Cornell Astronomy Department) says of the image which inspired her to suggest the exhibition, "it glowed". She put forward the idea to members of the Cassini-Huygens team at Cornell who then worked together to select other images to be included in the exhibition which includes about 100 images in total.
And what a beautiful sight it truly is. This image was taken when Cassini-Huygens passed into the shadow Saturn allowing it to be shown spectacularly back-lit by the Sun. This image could never have been taken from Earth and is only available to us thanks to the dedication of astronomers, planetary scientists and engineers who worked on the Cassini-Huygens mission.
Thanks for indulging me, and what a delight is has been to write a post about Astronomy. Finally the job season is over and I hope for more of this to come. I chose "Astronomom" as a name (instead of some generic science mom title) not only because I thought it sounded cool but also because I actually wanted to talk about Astronomy as well as the challenges of being a scientist and a mother. After all I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't love the subject!
Quoted in the Cornell Daily Chronicle, Elizabeth Bilson (retired administrative director of the Cornell Astronomy Department) says of the image which inspired her to suggest the exhibition, "it glowed". She put forward the idea to members of the Cassini-Huygens team at Cornell who then worked together to select other images to be included in the exhibition which includes about 100 images in total.
And what a beautiful sight it truly is. This image was taken when Cassini-Huygens passed into the shadow Saturn allowing it to be shown spectacularly back-lit by the Sun. This image could never have been taken from Earth and is only available to us thanks to the dedication of astronomers, planetary scientists and engineers who worked on the Cassini-Huygens mission.
Thanks for indulging me, and what a delight is has been to write a post about Astronomy. Finally the job season is over and I hope for more of this to come. I chose "Astronomom" as a name (instead of some generic science mom title) not only because I thought it sounded cool but also because I actually wanted to talk about Astronomy as well as the challenges of being a scientist and a mother. After all I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't love the subject!
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