Goodbye, Susan

Hi everyone, I’m deeply sorry to post here that the founder and leader of the Women in Planetary Science blog, Susan Niebur, passed away on February 6, 2012 after a lifetime of love, crusades, and strength. You may not have known she was battling inflammatory breast cancer for 5 years. You may not have known because, during that time, Susan set up this blog, set up the women’s breakfast at LPSC, and worked with so many of us to post information, interview our colleagues, and collect our images on Pinterest. As well as publishing papers, keeping up her own blog  (Toddler Planet), and working as an advocate for women with breast cancer. Several touching tributes to Susan can be found here and here.

Nobody wants what Susan founded to fall apart and lots of people are working to ensure it doesn’t. There will be a Women in Planetary Science event at LPSC – it will be Wednesday evening rather than a breakfast. The details will be posted here when they get finalized. Several of the blog contributors are working together to make sure the blog keeps going, and that the 51 Women in Science series not only gets finished, but expands. We’ll be discussing that at LPSC as well. We hope that if you have an interest in contributing, curating, organizing, etc. that you join us, comment here, or send email.

Susan’s family asks that you please consider furthering Susan’s legacy through a contribution to the Inflammatory Breast Cancer Research Foundation – or please choose to make a difference somewhere, anywhere, to anyone.