Job announcement: E/PO, DC area

Interested in sharing your knowledge of planetary science with others?

Consider a career in planetary science education and public outreach. SSAI is seeking an individual to work closely with scientists, the NASA educational community, formal and informal educators, parents, children, and the general public to develop, carry out, and lead education and public outreach programs and projects pertaining to NASA planetary and Earth science missions and programs. To learn more or to apply, please visit the following link: http://tinyurl.com/yfa9cer

Submitted by Lora Bleacher. Feel free to contact Lora by email or phone (301-286-2009) to find out more about the position.

A new voice for graduate students

We are excited today to announce a new contributor to the Women in Planetary Science Blog, Kelsi. Kelsi is going to help us increase the relevance of this blog to graduate students and postdocs as we continue to roll out features relevant for early-, mid-, and late-career planetary scientists. Kelsi has been active on the “Students” page for quite some time now, and we’ve had the pleasure of meeting her at the annual Women’s Networking Breakfast at LPSC.

Welcome, Kelsi!

(More) Women on a Mission

In my last post, I showed you numbers, and told you that the number of female planetary scientists on missions is low.

Now I want to turn that around, and introduce you to some of the amazing women doing work on planetary science missions, not because they are women, but because they are incredibly impressive and leaders in the field.

I’ve recently received a grant from NASA to expand our work here on the blog, to bring graduate and undergraduate women more into the fold, and to bring your questions about scientific preparation, mission work, and career path to the real experts … practicing scientists.

Over the next 12 months, there will be opportunities to participate in discussion groups, draft questions, and review my questions before interviews with prominent planetary scientists. Graduate students will also be invited to sit in on interviews with mission leaders, project scientists, and co-investigators, both here in the Washington, D.C. area and at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference.

Interested? Join the WPS-Mentoring email list and stay tuned … I’ll post details there by the end of the week.

Women on a Mission

Recently, I took a look at the demographics of the PIs, Project Scientists, Co-Is, and Participating Scientists selected by NASA to implement a mission in the Discovery Program.  The Discovery missions, if you don’t already know, are NASA’s least complex planetary science missions and can be characterized as relatively low in cost (less than $425M), straightforward in development (less than 35 months from the beginning of implementation to launch), and without constraint of a particular management structure imposed by NASA.  I knew that there had been only one woman selected as mission PI in the program’s 17 year history, but I expected to find more women in the Deputy PI, Project Scientist, Deputy Project Scientist, and Co-I roles.  I also thought that I’d find a large percentage (30%?) of women in the Participating Scientist Programs.

Boy, was I wrong!

What I found was this:  ONE female Principal Investigator, ONE female Deputy Principal Investigator, and ONE female Project Scientist in this class of low-cost planetary science missions.  That’s a grand total of three, out of 23 people to fill these positions in the last 17 years.  (Note: since the study was completed this summer, another woman has been named a Deputy Project Scientist.)

But surely there would be more in the Co-I and Participating Scientist roles, right?

Actually, not so much.  The study showed that women made up just over 10% of the Co-Is, and 12% of the Participating Scientists.

What?

I was really surprised by this.  So I stepped back to look at the field as a whole.  Surely there would be more women on the other missions, right?  And this was a fluke?

Nope.  Over the last 30 years, only 2.6% of mission or instrument PIs (where there was no single mission PI) have been women.  10% of Deputy PIs have been women (that’s one), 7.2% of the Co-Is have been women, and 8.6% of Participating Scientists have been women.  Only in the category of Project Scientist/Deputy Project Scientist has the proportion of women exceeded 10%.

But women in our field now make up more than 10% of the population, at nearly all levels, up to age 65, and significantly more in the under-55 category.  Yes, the number varies over time, but there’s a great technique that you can use to study the progression of a given demographic group over time.  It’s called cohort analysis, and the AIP uses it in their studies of the field.

I won’t spoil the ending, or make this post into a full-fledged paper, but you can read more if you’re interested in a new journal article coming out today in Space Policy.

Here’s a look at the raw data I collected for the article.

planetaryscienceteams

Education and Employment Statistics

Looking for accurate,up-to-the-minute statistics on women in science and engineering?  Check out these sites, from the American Institute of Physics and the National Science Foundation.  They’re excellent places to start.

AIP:  http://www.aip.org/statistics

NSF:  http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/

For statistics and information about women in astronomy, check out the AAS Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy, its STATUS publications, and historical position papers such as the Baltimore Charter (1992) and the Pasadena Recommendations (2003).

CSWA: http://www.aas.org/cswa/

Did you find what you needed?  If not, why not?

What information do YOU wish we had on women in planetary science?