sciencewoman
Posts by this author
May 12, 2009
Alice and I are teaming up to host the June edition of Scientiae, the carnival by, for, and about women in science, engineering, technology, and math. As is the norm for the monthly Scientiae carnival, I get to choose a theme to help inspire and unite you all to write posts, though submissions on…
May 10, 2009
Minnow and I have been visiting with Brother this weekend, and we went out to dinner at a deli and salad place. Brother got the all-you-can-eat salad bar, I ordered a Ciabatta Garden, and Minnow wanted the cheese pizza. Our food had just arrived when Minnow announced, "I need to go potty. I'm pee-…
May 7, 2009
Remember Bill Nye the Science Guy, that television popularizer of science for kids? Maybe it's time to give him an update and a facelift. That's the goal of Susan the Scientist, a project of Dr. Susan Reslewic, who is launching a new blog, myspace, and youtube presence to (in her words):
teach '…
May 5, 2009
Alice is right, I have been locked in grading jail. For my amusement, and for the sake of posting something, here's a look at how I've been doing my hard time:
Number of intro-level papers graded: 72
Number of intro-level papers to go: 0 (WooHoo!)
Number of multiple choice questions ready to go in…
April 29, 2009
Let me now sing the praises of NASA's Earth Observatory, a phenomenal web-based public education resource that is celebrating its 10th birthday today. Every day for the past decade, NASA has been uploading spectacular remote sensing images and astronaut photographs and accompanying them with…
April 28, 2009
This being the last week of class, it seems appropriate to reflect a bit more on the semester just finishing. Bluntly, this has been an awful semester for me in terms of things that count toward reappointment, tenure, and (nonexistent) merit raises. If you don't want to hear me whine a little about…
April 25, 2009
ScienceGrandma pointed me to this recent article in the Wall Street Journal. It's titled "So You Want to Be a Professor?" but I think it should have been called "The Perils of a Ph.D."
The article begins by citing some examples of graduate schools that are reducing admissions of PhD applicants…
April 22, 2009
Alice and I have been talking about the big and small ways that universities could act to improve the environment, but Earth Day is also about making personal changes to lessen your environmental impact.
So it's fitting that Mike Dunford has issued us an Earth Day challenge:
I'd like you to take a…
April 21, 2009
Like many other public universities around the country, Mystery U has been hit hard by the economic hard times. Most of this year, we heard ominous rumblings that (at some point) there would be a budget reversion, i.e., we'd have to send some portion of our budget back to the state coffers. But all…
April 18, 2009
Hi there. Long time, no see. I've been busy doing work, having fun, and remembering to celebrate the good things in my life. Here's what's been happening in the past week:
Monday: I got to see a beautiful new place.
Tuesday: My flights home proceeded smoothly.
Wednesday: My daughter woke me up by…
April 10, 2009
ScienceWoman 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…
April 9, 2009
Alice 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…
April 9, 2009
My 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…
April 7, 2009
After 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…
April 3, 2009
This 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…
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…
April 1, 2009
Today'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…
March 31, 2009
I'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…
March 26, 2009
Mary Ann Mason has a column in this week's Chronicle of Higher Education describing the importance of role models and mentors for women graduate students. Though Zuska recently wrote a provocative post that argued that "the problem of motherhood" might be a red herring for those interested in…
March 25, 2009
There's a crafty meme going around the blogosphere and lovely academic blogger phd me is going to be sending me a craft of her making. In order to be deserving of her crafty goodness, I've promised to make crafts for 5 others. If you'd like to get something from me (probably photo-oriented), be one…
March 24, 2009
It's Women's History Month, and the Diversity in Science Carnival has asked us to profile women scientists. I spend a lot of time thing about the things that affect the lives of today's young women scientists, but I also know that we are preceded by some incredibly strong and brave women who faced…
March 24, 2009
Yesterday Sheril Kirschenbaum and Chris Mooney of the Intersection announced that they were leaving Scienceblogs in favor of new digs at Discover. Unfortunately, commenters on other blogs around those parts have been behaving badly on posts welcoming the new bloggers. It appears that it doesn't…
March 20, 2009
The Smithsonian Institution has made available on Flickr an amazing set of photographs of early women scientists and engineers.The pictures include women who worked at the Smithsonian and images from the Science Service Archives now housed at the Smithsonian. Some of these women scientists are well…
March 20, 2009
Let me start by saying that I love my upper-level undergraduate students. They are engaged, enthusiastic, willing to try anything, hard-working, and asking great questions. I have near perfect attendance in my class, and when a student misses class, I usually hear a pretty legitimate excuse, often…
March 19, 2009
Two recent announcements caught my eye and I thought they might be of interest to some of you. Plus, I'm always pleased to see universities taking seriously the issues career development and training future faculty.
Opportunity 1: Washington State University Summer Doctoral Fellows Program…
March 17, 2009
A semi-coherent point-by-point reply to the nearly incoherent, yet overwhelmingly disturbing, musings of Greg Laden on the subject of women scientists in the field. SIWOTI alert.
If you don't understand why many of us get so riled up by Greg Laden here's a snippet that should help explain things:
"…
March 16, 2009
For several months, Minnow has thought that Mommy's computer exists mainly to let her look at pictures and videos of herself. But now she knows it can also access Elmo at any time of day. It was rainy here this weekend, and we must have watched this clip at least 37 times.
Sometimes we mixed it up…
March 15, 2009
Thumbing a nose at Bobby Jindal, we enthusiastically welcome ScienceBlogs newest addition, Eruptions, written by Erik Klemetti. Erik is a post-doc in igneous petrology, which means he studies how the rocks under volcanoes work. Near daily ]posts on Eruptions profile volcanoes in the news,…
March 15, 2009
The theme for this month's Scientiae carnival asks us to talk about a challenging point in our lives and describe how we overcame the adversity. Did we have help along the way, and are we better scientists for having been through the trial by fire? Truthfully, I'd have to say that the last two…