Lisa May, NASA Program Executive

Lisa May, NASA Program Executive

Ever wonder how NASA space missions are selected, and then how they get from an idea to a spacecraft? Lisa May gave this fantastic interview about it. She is the program executive for MAVEN, the Mars Atmosphere and Volatile Evolution mission, in NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD). In her spare time, she acts as the female voice of NASA’s ScienceCasts.

Are you a talker?

Most of you who have met me won’t believe me, but I’m an introvert, and shy about speaking in public. Some years ago, I started making an effort to try to speak up more in professional contexts. Basically, I got tired of asking the person next to me a question after a talk, and then seeing someone else get up and ask the speaker the same question, and everyone in the room nodding and saying, ah, astute question. Or making a note to mention an issue to a manager after a meeting, and then someone else saying it during the meeting, and everyone saying, ah, they’re on the ball. It looked to me like people who spoke up (with good, relevant, useful content to say) got a lot of credit. What could go wrong, right?

So I’m dismayed to read this article (I’m actually linking a blog post that talks about the article, but the link to the original research is there too). Basically, women appear to be penalized for voicing their opinions, where men are rewarded. Remember we’re speaking in generalities here. I still am glad I made an effort to be more comfortable speaking up, and I have definitely noticed a reward from it in my professional life. Though, I have had the exact experience in the cartoon more than once, in a professional context, too. What about you? Do you speak up or try to work behind the scenes? Which tactic has been more effective for you?

Opportunities for Middle Schoolers and Mentors

NASA G.I.R.L.S. Virtual Mentoring Program

Women@NASA has created a virtual mentoring project that offers a one-of-a-kind experience to middle school girls across the country. Once accepted into the G.I.R.L.S. (Giving Initiative and Relevance to Learning Science) 5-week program, participants will be mentored by Women@NASA using Skype or Google Chat, and complete online lessons to learn what it takes to change the world through STEM fields. Applications are due June 15, 2012.

NSF: Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring

The National Science Foundation is now accepting nominations for the 2013 PAESMEM Awards. This program seeks to identify outstanding individual mentoring efforts or organizational programs designed to enhance the participation and retention of individuals who might not otherwise have considered or had access to opportunities in STEM fields. The awardees serve as exemplars to their colleagues and are leaders in the national effort to develop more fully the nation’s human resources in STEM. Nominations are due June 6, 2012.

AAAS Mentor Awards Nominations

The American Association for the Advancement of Science is seeking nominations for its 2012 Mentor Awards: the Lifetime Mentor Award and the Mentor Award. The awards honor individuals who have demonstrated extraordinary leadership to increase the participation of underrepresented groups in the science and engineering PhD workforce. Questions can be directed to Gerard Boulin, and the deadline is July 31, 2012.

• Thanks to AWIS (the Association for Women in Science) for bringing these opportunities to my attention in their newsletter, the Washington Wire.

Congress to start marking budget Tuesday April 17th – send faxes now!

Hopefully everyone has heard about the potential budget cuts to planetary sciences in NASA (as much as 20%!).  If you haven’t sent an e-mail or fax yet, now is the time!

Please note this update from the DPS:

FAXES CAN BE SENT BY ANYONE, BUT MOST WILL ONLY TAKE EMAILS FROM CONSTITUENTS – PLEASE SEE IF YOUR REPRESENTATIVE OR SENATOR IS ON THIS LIST AND GO TO THEIR WEBSITE AND SEND AN EMAIL FROM THERE.

To save some copying and pasting, I put up letter templates (.doc) with the contact information for the 13 key congress members on the appropriations committee (as sent out by the DPS) already filled in.  I also put the suggested e-mail from the DPS in the letter, so you can customize, print and fax!   Signed, personalized faxes count, by far, the most.  Letters are good as well, but take up to 4-6 weeks to actually reach the congress person because of security.

There are several websites with information and online forms for sending e-mails, and finding your representatives information.  There are also several groups and advocacy activities to check out:

• Planetary Society
• SETI
• Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS) in the American Astronomical Society (AAS)
• American Geophysical Union (AGU) – Planetary Sciences Section
• Young Scientists for Planetary Exploration (facebook group)
• NASA Graduate Student Petition (facebook group)
• National Planetary Exploration Car Wash & Bake Sale (advocacy campaign)

If I missed something on the list above let me know and I will add it!

~Kelsi

Planetary Science Subcommittee Vacancies

The Planetary Science Division will consider nominations and self-nominations to serve on the Planetary Science Subcommittee (PSS) for a term of approximately three years. The PSS generally meets three times a year prior to the NASA Advisory Council Science committee meetings. The Planetary Science Division is committed to selecting members to serve on the PSS advisory committee based on their expertise, knowledge, and contribution to the broad field of planetary science.  As such, established researchers are encouraged to apply. 

Please send nominations by April 30, 2012, to Sarah.K.Noble@nasa.gov.

Fighting back against “Imposter Syndrome”

I recently stumbled across a couple of really interesting articles about imposter syndrome (the feeling that you are not good enough or smart enough and that at some point everyone is going to figure that out and kick you off the island), which I thought I’d share.  Imposter Syndrome is very common among scientists, particularly female scientists (I know I struggle with it), and knowing other people feel the same way helps, but maybe there is more we can do to help each other.

The first article Could imposter syndrome learn from sports? is by a post-doc with an interesting hypothesis that imposter syndrome is so prevalent in science because scientists in general are afraid to show weakness, we tend to hide our failures from colleagues and students.  As a consequence, it appears that everyone around you is always succeeding and you are the only one that keeps failing.  She has a good point:

And while these tales of achievement and shining sources of confidence may be inspiring, they are also intimidating. They make us think we can never live up to what the successful among us have done. That we will never be enough. From where we sit, it looks like these people never saw failure in their lives. Oh, we know intellectually that it must be there. But we never, ever see it.

That article lead me to another article Impostors, Underdogs, and the Status of Science. That author was inspired by the first and expands on her hypothesis to posit that the root of this tendency to hide failure stems from the general narrative that is told about scientists in the press, in literature, and in popular culture is “a story of the inevitable triumph of genius” which is in stark contrast to the typical sports biographies that highlight how the underdog rose to success after years of sweat, tears, and hard work. 

The notable thing about this is that the stories we tell about sports are fundamentally inclusive while the stories we tell about science are exclusive. In both cases, we’re talking about people who do things that are completely beyond the reach of the average person, but when we tell those stories about athletes, they’re cast in a way that makes them seem different from ordinary people only in a quantitative sense– they’re a little taller, a little quicker, a little more disciplined. The framing invites the reader to imagine themselves at the center– “If I’d only been a few inches taller, that could’ve been me,” or “If I’d been able to spend a little more time working on my swing…”

 

The standard stories about scientists, on the other hand, are exclusive. They tend to emphasize the difference between the reader and the subject. Even as children, great scientists are often portrayed as qualitatively different, as people whose brains just work in a fundamentally different way. They either breeze through their education, or battle with administrative structures that are too confining for their genius. The framing encourages the reader to step back and gape in amazement at the subject.

This is why when I tell people what I do, often the first reaction I get is “Boy, you must be really smart.” not “Boy, you must work really hard.”  The myth of the genius scientist is a lot to live up too.  Not only is it okay (and inevitable) to fail, it is noble and inspiring to pick yourself up and try again.  Maybe we could all try to be a little better about sharing both our successes and failures?

Thanks to everyone who turned out for the 5th annual Women in Planetary Science event at LPSC this year – now named the Susan Niebur Women’s Networking Event! Huge thanks to Faith Vilas for coordinating the event this year. I thought the food was great (thank you to Jim Green for the catering) and the panel was stimulating. I’m sorry we didn’t have enough time for all your questions. If you had lingering questions that you didn’t get to ask, please post them here and I’ll direct the panelists to them.

We’ll have an event next year, though we don’t yet know what it will look like. I got a ton of really good suggestions from all of you – thanks! If you have others, please send them my way. Also if you weren’t there but want to help take on a responsibility for the blog (interview someone? regular posting?) or mailing list, contact Kelsi Singer (her contact is on the right). And big thanks to Emily Lakdawalla for agreeing to help with blog administration. We may need to migrate the mailing list but hopefully the blog will stay put.

Along with me and Kelsi, Vicky Hamilton, Sarah Noble, and Jen Piatek have agreed to coalesce into a steering group for the blog, FB page, mailing list, and LPSC Niebur event. We plan to rotate folks on and off yearly (probably around LPSC) to keep continuity as people’s lives and responsibilities change. This should not be taken as exclusivity – everyone (EVERYONE!) is encouraged to contribute blog posts and comments. If you want a one-time post, please send it to any of us and we can post it with your byline.

An idea we’ve repeatedly kicked around at these events is to form a bridge between us and the DPS/AAS Committee for on the Status of Women, which is a more formal organization that I recommend you check out. Huge thanks to Diana Blaney, who just rotated off the DPS Committee, for agreeing to facilitate this link.

It was great to see many of you last week! Keep up the good work.