skookumchick | January 17, 2009So the day is getting on, and the bloggers are congregating around the plugs because their laptops are running out of juice, and I need to confess I've been taking notes all the time but I need to digest the notes more, and the wireless is flaky. So liveblogging is occurring offline, to be uploaded sometime in the near future. Be secure in the knowledge that we are typing for you, and are hoping to share very soon. :-) B4N.
sciencewoman | January 17, 2009Gender and science session - Alice, Zuska, and Abel
Non-chronological note-taking from a great session.
What is an ally? How do you become an ally?
You can be an ally for any oppressed group. (http://partnersinchange.umich.edu/page1_2.html)
Be an ally all the time, not just in front of the person to whom you are allied. (Zuska)
There is point of no return. A crystallizing experience, that crosses a threshold, where they can't go back to not caring. But you can't tell (from looking or listening) who has crossed the threshold and whether you can count on them all the time. (Janet)
Being an…
skookumchick | January 17, 2009So ScienceWoman and I will be sharing live-blogging duties today, at least until our batteries give out. We're both starting at the Open Access publishing session, although I was also intrigued by Peggy Kolm's session about science fiction on science blogs. I'll have to catch up with her later.
Also, please note: this is liveblogging. There may be grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, unfinished sentences. But it's hot off the press. I'll try to come back and clean things up afterwards. FYI.
I wanted to go to the open access talk because my department is talking about publication needs…
skookumchick | January 17, 2009OMG I am at ScienceOnline! In (also cold) RTP! And I've now met ScienceWoman! And let me say she is as lovely in person as she is online. And I've met a whole bunch of other folks, but am still trying to sort out the politics of pseudonymity. Hopefully I'll get to post some official blogger photos later. But in the meantime, both SW's and my sessions are this morning. Wish us luck! :-)
sciencewoman | January 16, 2009
I'm sitting at the edge of the auditorium at the Sigma Xi Center, comfortably sandwiched between Scicurious and Christina Pikas. I'm listening to Rebecca Skloot describe how a creative writing class assignment to write about a place and her response about the freezer in the Colorado State University Veterinary School morgue launched her on a career in science writing. Now, she's introducing the main topic of her talk (as well as the topic of her new book) "The immortal life of Henrietta Lacks" And we're getting to hear world-premiere excerpts from the book to be published next year.
Skloot's…
skookumchick | January 15, 2009A friend of mine posted this article to his Facebook page, and I thought it well worth pointing your attention to it. Researchers at University of California, Berkley surveyed over 8,000 doctoral students from the UC System about their career, family and life plans. Unsurprisingly perhaps, they found that "major research universities may be losing some of the most talented tenure-track academics before they even arrive. In the eyes of many doctoral students, the academic fast track has a bad reputation--one of unrelenting work hours that allow little or no room for a satisfying family life…
skookumchick | January 14, 2009I just got an email from Marlene Zuk, who gave an awesome talk at last year's Inclusive Science conference that I liveblogged. She has a great postdoc opportunity that those of you who have STEM backgrounds and who study ways to improve diversity in STEM should really apply for. More below the fold...
UCR Chancellor's Postdoctoral Fellowship for Cultivating Diversity in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics
Criteria: Promising potential tenure-track applicants with no more than three years postdoctoral university experience
Award: $40,000 for 2009-2010 academic year, plus benefits and…
skookumchick | January 13, 2009So, we may have mentioned we're going to ScienceOnline 2009, which starts on Friday; ScienceWoman and I have our respective sessions on Saturday with our respective co-facilitators.
I've been snowed under with the start of classes, some papers due, some abstracts due, a meeting last week, and, of course, this upcoming event. But I'm getting a little caught up (even if this is a scrambled post), and saw discussion of being a blogging ally at a couple of places of note:
In particular, Samia blogged about how others could be good allies within her post about race and science blogging (before…
sciencewoman | January 12, 2009It feels like forever since I wrote a blog post (although the new Movable Type platform informs me that it's been less than a week). In that time, I've found myself a bit snowed in by the start of a new semester and my mom's successful(?) ankle replacement surgery. It will probably be a few more days before I dig myself out a bit, but when I do, I have a couple of posts already gestating. I promise to bring you the results of my "time off between semesters" poll, and my thoughts on Mama, Ph.D.. Plus, I'm sure that Alice and I will both share some reflections from the ScienceOnline conference…
skookumchick | January 8, 2009In case you haven't heard, Scienceblogs is upgrading to a new system over the weekend. So posting and commenting will be out of commission from 1 PM EST Friday until further notice (yikes!).
But that's okay, because SW and I are both offline a lot this weekend - I'll be driving through real snow from Detroit, after having the chance to rifle through the Society of Women Engineers archives on their dime. Any requests for what I should look up?
In the meantime, enjoy reading some cool non-Sb blogs, and have a fab weekend.
sciencewoman | January 6, 2009 Despite being the keeper of a very well organized blogroll, I was surprisingly flummoxed by a request from a friend of a friend of a friend. She's decided to go to graduate school in an environmental science field, but she's unsure whether to go for a M.S. first or straight to a Ph.D. Specifically, she wondered whether I knew of any blogs by women environmental scientists who might have written about their decision making process, choosing a graduate school, etc.
My first thought was Karina at Ruminations of an Aspiring Ecologist (and not just because she's showing off some Sciencewomen…
skookumchick | January 6, 2009Hear ye, hear ye, an official congratulations to Science Woman whose awesome post "A reckless proposal, or 'Scientists are people too, and it's time we started treating them that way'"has been included in Open Lab 2008. W00T! If you haven't already, go read her post, and give her some comment love, will you?
Rock on, SW!
sciencewoman | January 5, 2009Like many others in the blogosphere, I've adopted the profgrrrrl model of defining a theme for each year rather than a list of resolutions. In 2008, my theme was "Seeking Strategies for Survival, Sanity, and Success." As I said a few weeks ago, the survival part was achieved, but beyond that, I'm not so sure.
This year I'm going to take a slightly different tack on the same general idea, and I'm not moving from my spot in the alphabet. My theme for 2009 is Sustainability. As in, I'm going to focus on trying to live my life that is sustainable in the long run for my body, my mental health,…
skookumchick | January 4, 2009As I've mentioned, I'm co-organizing a session on gender and science blogging, with a particular focus on how we can be allies, as well as on the intersection of gender, race and class in blogging.
The official conversation has been a little slow, but while I've been distracted, others have been writing interesting posts, with even more interesting comment threads and responses. I'm hoping bringing it up again will keep the conversation going and might prompt ideas for the ScienceOnline session.
In my last post, ecogeofemme askedhow ally was defined in this context. On one hand, as Lab…
skookumchick | January 3, 2009I've been spending the past week or two trying to get my groove on with respect to work. I scared myself quite badly with how overwhelmed I got at the end of last semester, and how quickly. I vowed to myself not to let myself get sucked into such unhealthy patterns, and then beat myself up over and over because of how often I tell myself not to get sucked in, and then how I get totally sucked in again.
However. It is a new year. So I have another chance to start over. And am apparently trying to do so publicly, as what else would a blogger do? Besides, I don't want to give anyone the…
skookumchick | January 3, 2009A couple of weeks ago, the Donors Choose people very nicely sent me 2 t-shirts to thank us for participating in the Scienceblogs Donors Choose challenge. I confess that I have more t-shirts than I need already, and the Sciencewomen Challenge is still live with two remaining projects. So... I'll send them to the first two Sciencewomen readers who donate $5 or more to either the remaining projects listed here. Email me your donation receipt and your preference of the two shirts below, and I'll let you know if you're the lucky winner!
Both shirts are men's L, and both were designed by blogger…
sciencewoman | January 2, 2009There's a cool new blog on the Sb block, Culture Dish, written by Rebecca Skloot, author of the forth-coming "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks." As Skloot's sidebar says: "[The book] tells the story of HeLa -- the first immortal human cell line ever grown in culture (pictured in the blog's banner) -- the woman those cells came from, and the family she left behind. " The blog already has an awesome post up about all kinds of service animals, as well as a link to a terrifying, saddening, and frustrating account of dog packs mauling other dogs and people in New York City. Though Culture…
sciencewoman | January 1, 2009Happy New Year everyone!
I just read a fantastic post by Pat at Fairer Science, where she quotes from writings by mill girls in 19th century New England. The ideas put forward by the young woman who wrote the essay are eerily prescient of the sentiments I expressed 170 years later.
I also wanted to point towards Janet's thoughtful revolutionary post respond to a few comments from the "my revolution looks like this" post of a few days ago.
From dave:
As far as household responsibilities... if my hypothetical future wife is also working full-time, I rather hope she'll force me to pick up my…
skookumchick | January 1, 2009Acmegirl has posted the first Scientiae for 2009 here. Enjoy your New Year's Day even more by giving it a read. Thanks, acmegirl!
skookumchick | December 31, 2008I'm finding the thing I need the most is a break from my computer. A break from emails saying I should do things, a break from my overflowing calendar, a break from long-overdue papers. So I'm doing other things instead. Like reading. And cleaning up the house. And putting away Christmas gifts and spoils from a quick trip to IKEA. Okay, and a little time on Facebook, because everyone else is too.
I know I should write an update post about Christmas and my family's party and such, perhaps even a year-end post although I haven't been here at Scienceblogs for a whole year yet, and…