COMMITTEE ON THE STATUS OF MINORITIES IN ASTRONOMY J ANUARY 2004 SPECTRUM

A report on underrepresented minorities in astronomy INSIDE THIS ISSUE: So… What About 1 So… What About Diversity? Diversity? by Marcel Agueros Professional Organi- 1 zations of Minorities Led by a team of graduate students, the University of in Physical Sciences Washington Astronomy Department has developed a The Accountability 4 departmental plan for more effectively engaging diver- Side of Diversity sity issues through enhanced coordination of effort and improved leveraging of available resources. What’s in a Name? 6 Marcel Agueros describes how they went about it and Astronomy Faculty 9 what they learned along the way. Diversity Survey: Preliminary Results

A Small First Step 10 he meeting was over. For nearly an hour the graduate students and the graduate program ad- Ph.D. Productivity of 12 visor had intensively discussed a number of Historically Black T Colleges pressing departmental issues. We were wrapping up Marcel Agueros is a when a question was casually dropped on the table: 4th-year astronomy SASS: Cultivating the 14 “What about diversity?” graduate student at the Next Generation of University of Washing- Astronomers What seemed like a simple enough question to ask ton. His dissertation NASA Space Science 16 turned out to be a very difficult question to answer. That research is on X-ray Diversity Initiatives meeting took place about a year ago, and we are still selected stars from the working our way to a good answer. However, with the RASS and SDSS Sur- Meet Dara Norman at 17 help of some friends—the Graduate Opportunities and veys under the direc- CTIO Minority Achievement Program and ADVANCE here at tion of Scott Anderson. Meet Bryan Mendez 18 the UW, and the AAS Committee on the Status of Mi- at UC Berkeley Space norities in Astronomy (CSMA), in particular—we have taken some major steps. Sciences Lab After a year’s worth of collaborative effort, the fruit of our labors is a de- Meet Laura Lopez at 21 MIT partmental diversity plan, “To Feed, To Fix: Diversity and the Astronomy Pipe- line at the University of Washington.” (Continued on page 2) HIGHLIGHTS:

· Learn about efforts at the Professional Organizations Serving University of Washington to articulate a depart- Minorities in the Physical Sciences mental diversity action by Laura Lopez, Undergraduate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology plan.

n recent years, professional or- Americans, Hispanic-Americans, and · Adopt strategies for in- ganizations and committees have Native Americans in science. creasing accountability been established to serve histori- In conjunction with the CSMA in diversity outcomes at I colleges and universities. cally underrepresented minorities in Special Session “Professional Socie- the physical sciences. These groups ties of Minority Scientists”, this arti- · Learn about NASA’s have a common purpose: they aim to cle presents background on the initia- efforts to engage minority increase participation and to enhance colleges and universities. the experiences of African- (Continued on page 3) P AGE 2 J ANUARY 2004

So… What About Diversity? (cont’d)

(Continued from page 1) in training graduate students—a topic at the heart of The plan outlines some of the ways in which another presentation, by Johnnella Butler, an Asso- our department can use existing resources to recruit ciate Dean and the Associate Vice Provost of the and to retain talented women and minority students UW’s Graduate School. Dean Butler focused on the into astronomy at the K-12, undergraduate, and distinction between advising and mentoring, and graduate levels, and we hope it will serve as a guide generally outlined methods for creating a depart- to departmental efforts in coming years. And, per- mental culture that benefits all students and faculty. haps just as importantly, struggling with the ques- Finally, with the support of the ADVANCE tion has made all of us aware of the role we can program, we were able to invite the CSMA’s play in opening our field to underrepresented scien- Keivan Stassun to the UW for a week to both give a tists. science colloquium and to work with us, through When the question was asked, the situation some intense brainstorming sessions, to outline within our department was not critical. In recent what eventually became “To Feed, To Fix.” years we have been extremely successful (in rela- These discussions also had some unforeseen tive terms) both at attracting and at graduating outcomes. One of the most remarkable was the de- women PhDs. We have also had several minority cision that the new graduate student orientation, graduate students pass through the department over held every September, should the years, more than many include a diversity training other comparable programs. workshop. In addition, many students “These discussions also had The ADVANCE program and faculty are involved in helped us once again, and we outreach activities, such as unforeseen outcomes. One was invited two professional media- Project AstroBio, that excite the decision that the graduate tors from the National Coali- K-12 students about science. tion Building Institute to host 2 In short, we have been “doing student orientation should two-hour group discussions. our part.” Feedback from the 20 or so The question was asked include a diversity training graduate students who partici- because we realized that too pated indicates that the work- often efforts within the de- workshop.” shops were a success (I, for partment to reach out to, say, one, thought they were incredi- young women, were depend- bly powerful), and we are exploring ways to make ent on one or two individuals and therefore waxed the workshops a regular feature of the orientation. and waned. There was clearly an absence of an So, today, “What about diversity?” As a depart- overall strategy to link together these different ef- ment, we are now working to complete the plan, in forts, and we felt it was time to articulate a depart- particular by adding a section about the recruitment mental approach. and retention of faculty. We have also pinpointed Soon after that meeting a year ago we initiated some actions we can take immediately. For exam- a series of informal discussions, sometimes inter- ple, we plan to attend the annual meeting of the nal, sometimes with outsiders, around the topic of National Society of Black Physicists this February diversity. and to begin connecting with faculty and students at One guest, Maresi Nerad of the UW’s Center Minority Serving Institutions. There is still obvi- for Research and Innovation in Graduate Educa- ously much to be done, but I think we’re all much tion, presented statistics that highlighted the still clearer about how we’re going to go about it. small numbers of PhDs awarded to women and mi- norities in the sciences, and discussed some of the For a copy of “To Feed, To Fix: Diversity and the reasons for this problem. She also showed results Astronomy Pipeline at the University of Washing- from her research, based on interviews with PhD ton,” visit the CSMA website at: recipients, on what makes departments successful www.vanderbilt.edu/csma SPECTRUM P AGE 3

Professional Organizations Serving Minorities (cont’d)

(Continued from page 1) NSBP undertakes many initiatives to encourage tives and programs of organizations serving minori- and support African-American students. These ac- ties in physics, astronomy, and the space sciences. tivities include an undergraduate scholarship pro- gram funded through the Lawrence Livermore Na- National Society of Black Physicists tional Laboratory and an annual outstanding gradu- The National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) is ate student dissertation award. Additionally, the the largest organization devoted to the promotion NSBP began the successful Science Ambassador and professional enhancement of African-American Program. This initiative brings black professionals physicists. Founded in 1977 at Morgan State Uni- to local schools to give technical lectures as a versity, NSBP is a strong force that increases the means to encourage pursuit of careers in science, opportunities, representation, and visibility of black technology, and engineering. physics students and professional physicists. Pending the approval of the AAS Council, NSBP and AAS will, beginning this year, jointly offer a new undergraduate scholarship program for students interested in astronomy, astrophysics, and SPECTRUM space science.

The largest annual event of the NSBP is the Edited by Keivan G. Stassun national conference. This meeting provides a Vanderbilt University mechanism for African-American physicists to net- [email protected] work, to discuss current scientific developments, and to support undergraduate and graduate stu- Published by dents. The meeting includes scientific sessions in The American Astronomical Society all areas of physics as well as professional develop- 2000 Florida Avenue, NW, Suite 400 ment presentations to guide students. Washington, DC 20009 This year, the NSBP annual conference will be © 2004 AAS All rights reserved. held jointly with the National Society of Hispanic Physicists in Washington, D.C. This meeting will SPECTRUM is produced at bring together over 500 African-American and His- Vanderbilt University panic-American students and professionals. In addi- Department of Physics & Astronomy tion to the usual sessions, the NSBP will convene a VU Station B 1807 symposium on the future of the scientific work- Nashville, TN 37235 force. Invited speakers include representatives from government, academia, advocacy groups, and pri- Copyrights for contributed or reproduced material vate corporations. Topics discussed will span a may rest with the author. These articles reflect the wide range of issues, from hiring and career selec- opinions of the authors, which are not necessarily tion behavior to reliance on foreign scientists in the those of the editor, Vanderbilt University, or the AAS. SPECTRUM is published for the personal use American science and engineering workforce.

of AAS members. Society for the Advancement of Chicanos The SPECTRUM newsletter is distributed to AAS and Native Americans in Science members at the January and June meetings and sent Founded in 1973, the Society for the Advancement to home institutions of subscribers during the week of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science of the meeting. Contributed articles are encouraged. (SACNAS) serves to encourage Latino and Native American students to pursue higher education in For more information on subscribing to the sciences as preparation for research and teach- SPECTRUM, submitting articles, or obtaining back issues, please visit the CSMA website: ing careers. http://www.vanderbilt.edu/csma Headquartered in Santa Cruz, California, the (Continued on page 11) P AGE 4 J ANUARY 2004

The Accountability Side of Diversity by Estela Mara Bensimon, Donald Polkinghorne, Georgia Bauman, University of Southern California Reprinted with permission from the Summer 2003 issue of Diversity Digest, a publication of the Association of American Colleges and Universities

Even though individuals are likely to agree that inequities in educational outcomes that we devel- equity is a desirable value, equity is not some- oped in partnership with fourteen urban colleges in Southern California and with the support of The thing that is spoken about in relation to educa- James Irvine Foundation. tional outcomes for students. Institutions of higher education most often do not produce Diversity Scorecard Project annual reports on measures of equity nor do The Diversity Scorecard was developed as a re- they have equity-oriented benchmarks. An in- sponse to the fact that the “diversity agenda” has stitution’s success (or failure) in reducing edu- been primarily about access to predominantly white cational inequities that severely restrict oppor- institutions. Yet in California, as in many other tunity and upward mobility for students of states, urban colleges, private and public, two- and color is not used as a measure of institutional four-year, have served as the main entry point into effectiveness, nor are institutions ranked or higher education for students of color. For institu- graded on the basis of equity in educational tions like California State University at Los Ange- outcomes. les, Whittier College, and Los Angeles City Col- lege—all institutions that are part of our project—

the challenge is not how to become more diverse. ith the exception of historically black institutions and tribal colleges, intra- The challenge for these colleges is how to W institutional stratification based on race translate diversity in the student body into equity in and ethnicity is a reality within most higher educa- educational outcomes. The core principle of the tion institutions, regardless of whether they are pre- Diversity Scorecard is that evidence (i.e., factual dominantly white, open-access, or classified as His- data) about the state of equity in educational out- panic Serving Institutions. However, the specifici- comes for African Americans and Latinos can have ties of this intra-institutional stratification are a powerful effect on increasing the recognition by largely invisible because equity in educational out- faculty members, administrators, counselors, and comes does not constitute a metric of institutional others about the existence of inequities as well as performance that is continuously tracked. their motivation to resolve them. That is, in order to bring about institutional change, individuals have to For example, institutions do not monitor see, on their own, as clearly as possible, the magni- whether minority students are earning GPA’s that tude of inequities, rather than having researchers, will enable them to go on to graduate school. The like us, tell them that they exist. tracking of some measures of institutional perform- To start the project, we invited the presidents of ance is a taken-for-granted routine, e.g., the average 1 SAT scores of each freshman class. If an institu- the fourteen colleges to appoint a team of individu- tion’s leadership were to be asked what percentage als to work with us on the development of their in- of African-American or Latino students graduate stitution’s scorecard. The task of each team was to with a 3.5 GPA, most would need to run the num- examine data disaggregated by race and ethnicity bers before being able to answer. Institutions are that would reflect educational outcomes in four not in the habit of tracking whether the educational general areas: access, retention, excellence, and outcomes for African-American and Latino stu- institutional receptivity. dents, such as GPA, are improving or declining. As Each team decided what types of data they an institutional researcher pointed out to us, “When would examine, and, based on their analyses, each people ask me for data, they do not ask me about team identified unequal outcomes for particular the high GPA minority students.” groups of students. The next step was to create the In this article we describe the Diversity Score- actual scorecard, which entailed selecting goals, card project, a process of developing awareness of (Continued on page 5) SPECTRUM P AGE 5

(Continued from page 4) This is the first time that I’m aware of that any- measures, and benchmarks where unequal out- one is looking at this problem by ethnicity and to comes had been uncovered in each of the four gen- this level of detail. [Now that it has been disaggre- eral areas. The last step was presenting the com- gated] we can look more deeply and systematically pleted scorecard in a report to the president. at remediation rather than just the split between Initially, some of the participants were skepti- English and math. This is central on everyone’s cal about the project. However, after two years, the mind. We can really raise conversation around this. majority of participants feel that the process has been fruitful. One participant shared: Scorecard Measures At first I was very skeptical about this project. Thus, through simply disaggregating existing data However I have found the approaches to data very on basic indicators of student outcomes, our partner useful. This push to look at data is spilling over to institutions have been able to locate very specifi- other areas such as curricular issues. Doing this cally the most critical gaps in the academic per- project I’ve found many ways of thinking about formance of African American and Latino students. data. The combined effort of the institutions resulted in the development of fifty-eight fine-grained meas- Breaking data down by race and ethnicity has ures (available at www.usc.edu/dept/education/ provided many “aha” moments. Upon seeing reme- CUE/projects/ds/diversityscorecard.html). The fol- diation rates disaggregated by race and ethnicity a member of one institution said: (Continued on page 8) P AGE 6 J ANUARY 2004

What’s in a Name? By Kendra Hamilton—Reprinted with permission from the June 19, 2003 issue of Black Issues in Higher Education, www.blackissues.com Study shows that workplace discrimination be- have to send out at least 10 résumés to receive a gins long before the job seeker shows up for an single contact from a potential employer. A Black interview. candidate, meanwhile, would have to send out 15— and this in a “soft” economy with a relatively low hinking of naming your child Keisha or Ai- rate of new job creation. sha? How about Rasheed or Tremayne? Af- The most intriguing—and troubling—aspect of T rican American parents across the nation the study was that the discrimination effect held may have to think again, as a recent study has even for candidates with stronger credentials: those shown that workplace discrimination begins long who had gone to better schools, or won awards, or before the job seeker shows up for an interview. had fewer résumé “gaps,” periods of at least six Indeed, it seems to be in play from the moment months without employment. the résumé hits the human resource manager’s “We really thought a higher quality résumé desk. would help the African American candidate—that Dr. Marianne Bertrand, a professor of econom- the employer would put less weight on the names,” ics at the University of Chicago, and Dr. Sendhil Bertrand says. Mullainathan, MacArthur-winning associate profes- And indeed, improving the résumé quality sor of economics at the Mas- helped candidates with White- sachusetts Institute of Tech- sounding names significantly— nology, have made a signifi- “Among 5000 résumés, those their chances of receiving a call- cant contribution to the re- back rose 30 percent. But for search literature with their with ‘white-sounding’ names candidates with Black-sounding new study, “Are Emily and names, “we found none of that. Brendan More Employable were 50% more likely than If anything, we found the oppo- than Lakisha and Jamal? A site,” Bertrand says. Field Experiment on Labor those with ‘black-sounding’ “It was very counterintuitive,” Market Discrimination.” she adds. “One imagined em- With names chosen from names to receive a callback.” ployers looking at the names and birth records in Chicago and kind of screening at that stage, Boston, the researchers not going any further, not even crafted sets of résumés—some of higher quality, reading the résumé. People in HR (human re- some of lower—labeled them with either “White- sources) call that a ‘deselection process,’ where you sounding” or “Black-sounding” names and sent see a pile of résumés that you have to get through nearly 5,000 of them out in response to 1,300 jobs and do a kind of rapid screen” in order to separate advertised in the Chicago and Boston papers. the wheat from the chaff. The response from colleagues as they designed “That’s exactly how we used to do it,” notes their deceptively simple study was, “‘Oh, yes, Kimberly Wilson, who held a human resources po- you’ll find a discrimination effect, a reverse dis- sition in a mid-sized social policy research firm in crimination effect,’” Bertrand says. the Washington, D.C., area. It was Wilson’s job to Instead, they found that résumés with “White- cull the stack of résumés—“perhaps around 300” sounding” names—like Jay, Brad, Carrie and Kris- for every position, she says—down to about 20 that ten—were 50 percent more likely than those with would then be brought before a committee. “Black-sounding” names to receive a callback. The “And every time, the committee would be more results were striking, holding both for jobs at the critical of résumés with Black-sounding or foreign- lower end of the spectrum—cashier and mailroom sounding names. ‘Oh, yes, she did a research in- clerk positions—and for those at the executive level. Put another way, a White job seeker would (Continued on page 7) SPECTRUM P AGE 7

(Continued from page 6) pected ways. The gap between Whites and Blacks ternship, but it wasn’t in health and that’s what for the highest occupational category, the manage- we’re really looking for,’ ” Wilson says. When the rial and executive category, was the lowest meas- names didn’t provide a clue to race, the committee ured: 33 percent. The highest racial gap was seen in members would often zero in on other data— the rung below the top level—administrative super- professional organizations, for example. visors, who saw a racial gap of 64 percent. And “ ‘Oh, he belonged to the Hispanic fellowship near the bottom of the ladder, secretaries had the group in college,” she adds, explaining, “I don’t second highest racial gap in callbacks. even think it was conscious, certainly not in most The extent of the discrimination is “remarkably cases.” uniform” across all occupations and industries. Nei- Conscious or not, the MIT-UChicago study ther federal contractors—bound by affirmative ac- demonstrates that employers actively discriminate tion rules—nor companies who call themselves among job candidates on the basis of race. And at- “Equal Opportunity Employers” discriminate less tempts by African Americans to improve their than any others, suggesting that the designation chances with more education and more skills don’t may be more or less meaningless. The only excep- appear to help at all. tions were companies located in Black neighbor- hoods in Chicago—these discriminated less than In addition, the study showed that adjusting for other firms. gender greatly increased the discrimination effect. There was a difference of 3.35 percentage points— Placed in the national context—the fact that or 50 percent—between the African Americans are twice as likely to be unem- callback rates for all Whites ployed as White Americans and (10.1 percent) and all Blacks that, when employed, they earn (6.7 percent). But the callback 25 percent less—the study rate for the lowest scoring “The extent of the seems both an explanation and a Black female name, Aisha reiteration of very bad tidings. (2.2 percent) was 6.1 percent- discrimination is remarkably It was certainly greeted as such age points below that of the uniform across all in Boston and Chicago when the lowest scoring White female results were released earlier this name, Emily (8.3 percent) occupations and industries.” year. They sparked a blizzard of and 11.4 percentage points newspaper coverage, not to below that of the highest mention spirited discussions on scoring White female name. radio call-in shows. Indeed, five of the nine Black female names— Bertrand says she has been virtually inundated Aisha, Keisha, Tamika, Lakisha and Tanisha— with phone calls and e-mails—particularly, from scored lower than the lowest scoring White female “people who in their own lives are carrying out the name. By contrast, the racial gap between male experiment,” she explains. “I’ve heard from people names was not nearly so pronounced. The lowest who were African American and had a very distinct scoring White and Black male names—Neil and African American name who changed the name on Rasheed—were only 3.6 percentage points apart. their résumés to a less race-salient name, dumbed Applicants who lived in “better” neighbor- down their education and did much better…. hoods—“Whiter,” more educated, higher income— “Of course, that was not our point.” received more callbacks than those who did not. Though many media accounts have seized on But again, Whites benefited so much more than the name-changing aspect as a possible solution, Blacks, it was not clear that Blacks benefited at all, Bertrand is quite clear that “it seems like an easy suggesting that, despite a widespread societal belief way out. The burden should be on the companies, in the stigmatizing effect of a “ghetto” address, a not on the person looking for a job. And to give up good address doesn’t help African Americans over- your name—when names are such an important come discrimination either. part of personal identity?—No.” The racial gap in callbacks varied greatly by occupation and industry, but not necessarily in ex- (Continued on page 8) P AGE 8 J ANUARY 2004

The Accountability Side of Diversity (cont’d)

(Continued from page 5) conscious of the state of educational outcomes for lowing provides one example from each of the four historically underserved students and will enable perspectives. them to act purposefully. Our partners suspected • Access Perspective that there were problems, but many relied heavily on anecdotal data, both to describe the problem Example: The percentage of African Americans and and, in some cases, to justify why it is practically Latino students who succeed in “gateway” courses. unsolvable. With very few exceptions, most institu- Gateway courses are those courses that serve as tions in the project lacked a disciplined and evi- points of entry for particular majors (e.g., particular dence-based approach to understanding educational math courses serve as pre-requisites for engineering outcomes and the dimensions and the extent of the and business majors). equity gap. • Retention Perspective We are continuing our work with the fourteen Example: The percentage of target group students Diversity Scorecard institutions and have two over- who complete courses in which they enroll within a arching goals. First, we hope to raise awareness at term. each institution more broadly around the issues • Excellence Perspective identified on each team’s scorecard in order bring Example: The average grade point average of La- about change. Second, we will work to institution- tino and African-American students, by college/ alize the use of data disaggregated by race and eth- major at the point of graduation. nicity so it becomes a routine practice and dispari- • Institutional Receptivity Perspective ties in outcomes by race and ethnicity become more readily recognized. Of course, we also hope that Example: The percentage of African- American, our partners will continue to analyze and discuss Latino, and Asian-American faculty in each col- institutional data in a way that will continue to lege/department compared with the percentage of bring about new awareness. students from these ethnic/racial groups in each 1The fourteen Diversity Scorecard project institutions college/department (i.e., the percentage of African- include: California State University Los Angeles, Cali- American faculty in the College of Arts and Sci- fornia State University-Dominguez Hills, California ences compared to the percentage of African- State University-Fullerton, Los Angeles City College, American students in that college). Los Angeles Valley College, Cerritos College, Santa We believe that the disaggregation of data on Monica College, Riverside Community College, Whittier educational outcomes by race and ethnicity and the College, University of Redlands, University of La Verne, determination of equity standards are evidence- Occidental College, Loyola Marymount University, and based practices that will make individuals more Mount St. Mary’s College. Questions may be directed to [email protected].

What’s in a Name? (cont’d) ons as possible to add to our arsenals—and one of (Continued from page 7) the most respected weapons is still higher educa- Nor should the study’s findings deter African tion.” American job seekers who want to sharpen their skills, says Dr. William Harvey, vice president of Bertrand adds that she is quite encouraged by the American Council on Education and director of the fact that “there’s been a huge amount of inter- ACE’s Office of Minorities in Higher Education. est, much more than we expected, from people in training and resource management.” She hopes in “Unfortunately, there’s nothing in the study the future “to use the study as a training device, to that contradicts what we already anecdotally know kind of illustrate to the HR people that these kinds to be true of the experience of African Americans of biases might be at play, whether they’re con- in the job market. There’s nothing surprising here,” scious or subconscious,” adding, “What we’re hear- he says. “This should not deter those of us being ing from the people in HR who have contacted us is discriminated against from getting as many weap- that they want to de-bias the selection process, too.” SPECTRUM P AGE 9

Astronomy Faculty Diversity Survey: Preliminary Results by Laura Lopez, Undergraduate, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

his Fall, Professor Donna Nelson of the Uni- omy faculty are female, roughly double the 6.6% versity of Oklahoma and I conducted a sur- female faculty representation in physics. 91% of all T vey on the demographics of faculty in U.S. astronomy professors are Caucasian, and 80% are departments which grant PhDs in astronomy and/or Caucasian males. 1.3% of all astronomy professors astrophysics. This survey is similar in nature to the are black, 1.3% are Hispanic, 6.5% are Asian, and others conducted by Professor Nelson in various 0% are Native American. science and engineering fields (the Nelson Surveys These numbers are comparable to those of are available online at: physics faculty except for the Asian faculty repre- http://cheminfo.chem.ou.edu/faculty/djn/diversity/ sentation: Asian astronomy faculty representation is top50.html). approximately half of that for physics faculty (6.5% Under the auspices of the Massachusetts Insti- in astronomy versus 11.2% in physics). tute of Technology, we polled all 53 departments As we receive the final eight responses, these offering the PhD degree in astronomy or astrophys- numbers may shift slightly. However, we do not ics to obtain disaggregated data by race/ethnicity, anticipate much change as the response rate is a gender, and rank of all tenure-track and tenured statistically significant sample. The full results, dis- professors. This method enables us to assess the aggregated by race/ethnicity, gender, and rank for status of groups typically overlooked by other stud- each department will be published in the June issue ies (such as minority females). of SPECTRUM. Presently, 45 of the 53 departments have re- We gratefully acknowledge the support of the sponded (an eighty-five percent reply rate). Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, and Preliminary results indicate 12.9% of all astron- the National Science Foundation.

Physics-Astronomy Faculty Representation Comparison: Preliminary Physics (%) Astronomy (%) All Female 6.6 12.9 Caucasian 86.3 91.0 Caucasian Male 81.2 80.0 Black 0.6 1.3 Hispanic 1.9 1.3 Asian 11.2 6.5 Native American 0.5 0.0

P AGE 10 J ANUARY 2004

A Small First Step by Jesús Pando, Phillip Cervantes, Ruth Howes Reprinted with permission from the American Physical Society’s Forum on Education newsletter www.aps.org/units/fed/newsletters/summer2003/index.html ven with the slight upturn in enrollment of supportive environments for majors. the last two years, undergraduate physics However, even among these thriving depart- E enrollments have dropped 20% during the ments, none was successful in attracting majors past decade. Physics departments have offset a from under-represented groups. Perhaps the nurtur- similar decline in US students entering graduate ing environments that attract majors to these phys- school by recruiting foreign students who now ics departments are nurturing primarily to those make up more than half of all entering grad stu- students that have historically populated physics. It dents in physics. may be that these environments are necessary to In many physics departments, the low number retain these students, but it is clear from the SPIN- of graduate students has forced them to rely more UP results that they are not sufficient to attract mi- on undergraduate teaching assistants while at the norities to the discipline. same time faculty lines are not being replaced as Under these circumstances, it is in the interest faculty retire. In light of these developments, it is of physics departments to create a culture to which perhaps time for physicists to consider changing the talented minority students will be attracted. A criti- way we conduct business in cal component of such a culture is order to attract new people and physics faculty who work at at- new ideas to the field. tracting and retaining physics ma- Ironically, just at the time “To facilitate the hiring of jors from underrepresented the physics departments most faculty that can affect groups. need students, historically un- These faculty members need not der-represented groups that cultural change, we themselves be from under- form a large and increasing represented groups, but they pool of students are not being propose two simple and should have an understanding of drawn to the field. Only 5% the unique issues minority stu- and 3% of Bachelor’s degrees definite actions…” dents face. For example, the very earned in the year 2000 went to great importance of the family in US citizens who are African- Hispanic-American culture may Americans and Hispanics, respectively. At the cause students from that culture to appear less than graduate level, the numbers are even more disap- dedicated to physics than their majority colleagues. pointing. In 2000, only 17 Ph.D.s (3%) in physics Similarly, African-American students may feel were granted to African-Americans and 14 to His- pressure from their peers to pursue academic areas panic-Americans. These proportions are well below such as law or medicine with a direct relationship those that characterize the general population of to their home communities. U.S. college students. Clearly, it is enlightened All physics departments need at least one fac- self-interest for physics departments to discover ulty member who is familiar with these cultures and how to increase the numbers of Hispanic-American can educate other faculty members as well as act as and African-American students who major in phys- an advisor and mentor to minority students. De- ics. partments with no faculty of color probably face a Recently, the National Task Force on Under- harder time trying to achieve this than those depart- graduate Physics completed SPIN-UP (Strategic ments that do have faculty from under-represented Programs for Innovation in Undergraduate Phys- groups. These efforts take substantial time and ef- ics). SPIN-UP surveyed all bachelor degree grant- fort and should be recognized as a meritorious part ing physics departments in the country and did of faculty work. Departments must take responsi- twenty-one site visits to “thriving” (primarily in bility for recruiting and hiring faculty able and will- terms of majors) physics departments. These de- ing to fill this role. partments proved excellent models for building (Continued on page 11) SPECTRUM P AGE 11

(Continued from page 10) efforts must be recognized as attributes toward ten- Typically, physics departments seek new fac- ure and promotion. ulty by forming a search committee charged with Physics has historically thrived in times when finding the best candidate for the position based on new ideas clash with established ones. It is our be- a set of perceived objective criteria. The reality is lief that physics can also thrive on the kinds of that setting these criteria is frequently highly politi- creative ideas that are generated at the interface of cal so that 1) the criteria are not actually objective, diverse cultures. (S.J. Gates, Physics and Society, and 2) the criteria strongly reflect the makeup of 25, July 1996) the existing department. The SPIN-UP site visits Furthermore, we live in an age of global com- found that departments tend to recruit individuals petition, and the United States must cultivate the like those already in the department. If new faculty scientific talent of all its citizens if it is to remain members continue to be hired in this way, the his- competitive. When all of this is combined with the torically under-represented groups in physics will decreasing enrollments in physics departments, it remain so because the culture of physics will not becomes essential for physics departments to diver- have changed. sify by hiring faculty who can attract and retain To facilitate the hiring of faculty that can affect students from underrepresented groups. We cannot cultural change, we propose two simple and defi- emphasize enough that this imperative is no longer nite actions: based solely on ethical reasons, as was affirmative First, the criteria for any new hire in a physics action, but also on the pragmatic realities that phys- department should include a phrase like: “The can- ics departments must face in order to thrive. didate should have a demonstrated ability and com- Jesus Pando is Assistant Professor of Physics mitment to the success of students of diverse back- in the Department of Physics, DePaul University. grounds.” Philip Cervantes is Assistant Professor of Physics Second, when a new faculty member has been in the Department of Physics, Colorado College. hired, the criteria on which the new department Ruth Howes is George and Frances Ball Distin- member is evaluated must include similar language. guished Professor Emerita Of Physics and Astron- Efforts to increase diversity require time that can omy in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, only be taken from research and teaching. These Ball State University.

Professional Organizations Serving Minorities in the Physical Sciences (cont’d)

(Continued from page 3) field. SACNAS also holds K-12 Teacher Work- SACNAS Board of Directors comprises scientists, shops to support teacher professional development. teachers, and students across the United States. To SACNAS directs other efforts to improve K-12 improve and to expand opportunities available for education as well. The SACNAS Biography Project minorities in the scientific workforce, SACNAS highlights the contributions of Native American emphasizes the improvement of pre-college science and Chicano scientists, mathematicians, and engi- education and the mentorship of undergraduate and neers. Intended as middle- and high-school class graduate students. material, this initiative discusses the accomplish- The largest SACNAS event is the SACNAS ments of these individuals so “the students... see Annual National Conference. This meeting receives themselves reflected in the lives that are presented financial support from numerous federal agencies, here”. Another effort, the SACNAS Teacher- including the National Institutes of Health, the Na- Scientist Partnerships Initiative, facilitates commu- tional Science Foundation, and the Department of nication between minority-serving K-12 educators Energy. The conference focuses on scientific pres- and research scientists via an E-mentoring program. entations, career guidance, graduate school applica- Each year, SACNAS recognizes an outstanding tion advising, and advice on choosing a scientific (Continued on page 20) P AGE 12 J ANUARY 2004

Two Historically Black Colleges Show Greater Ph.D. Productivity Than 95% of All Colleges and Universities Reprinted with permission from the Winter 2001/2002 issue of Journal of Blacks in Higher Education

Several historically black colleges and univer- tionwide between a bachelor’s degree and a doctor- sities produce a greater percentage of gradu- ate for those who have earned a Ph.D. is eight ates who go on to earn doctoral degrees than years. Black students who earn a doctoral degree do many of the nation’s highest-ranked col- usually take a bit longer to earn a Ph.D. than do leges and universities. But when we look at white students. By comparing the number of doc- toral degrees earned by graduates of a given institu- Ph.D. productivity in the sciences, black col- tion to the total number of bachelor’s degrees leges do not fare as well. Overall, among the awarded by that institution, we arrived at a ratio for black colleges, Fisk University is the leader in doctoral productivity. Ph.D. productivity. CalTech is, by a large margin, the predomi- nantly white university with the greatest doctoral wo historically black colleges—Fisk Uni- productivity among its graduates. Nearly 38 percent versity (Nashville, TN) and Spelman Col- of all CalTech graduates go on to earn a doctoral T lege (Atlanta, GA)—send a greater percent- degree. Harvey Mudd College in Claremont, Cali- age of their graduates on the path to the completion fornia, ranks second. More than 22 percent of all of a doctoral degree than more than 95% of all pre- graduates of Harvey Mudd College go on to earn a dominantly white four-year colleges and universi- doctorate. Princeton University has the highest ties. Ph.D. productivity among the Ivy League colleges. In fact, Fisk and Spelman have a greater per- During the 1978 to 1987 period, Princeton awarded centage of graduates who go on to earn doctorates bachelor’s degrees to 10,775 students. Of these, than do elite institutions such as Dartmouth Col- 1,329, or 12.3 percent, went on to earn a doctoral lege, Emory, the University of Michigan, Wake degree within the ensuing eight-year period. Forest, Middlebury, Colgate, Colby, UCLA, Tufts, Among the high-ranking liberal arts colleges, Hamilton, Vanderbilt, Wesleyan, the University of Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania ranked sec- Virginia, and the University of Notre Dame. ond to Harvey Mudd College. More than 19 percent This journal has obtained statistics that enable of all Swarthmore College graduates go on to earn our editors to rank black colleges and universities a doctorate. according to the percentage of a particular college’s Spelman College ranks first among the nation’s graduates who go on to earn a doctorate. Obvi- black colleges in Ph.D. productivity. During the ously, these particular statistics tend to show 1978 to 1987 period, 2,463 black women earned whether or not a particular college or university is bachelor’s degrees at Spelman. Of these, 157, or producing a high percentage of graduates who have 6.37 percent, went on to earn a doctoral degree. the desire and ability to pursue graduate study at This places Spelman in 80th place nationally in the highest level. The figures show too whether a Ph.D. productivity. This puts Spelman among the given college or university is doing a good job in top 6 percent of colleges and universities nationally providing its graduates with the skills and prepara- in Ph.D. productivity. tion necessary to succeed in graduate school. Following directly behind Spelman in 81st In compiling these data we looked at the total place nationally is Fisk University. Some 6.28 per- number of graduates produced by a college or uni- cent of all Fisk graduates go on to earn a doctorate. versity in the 10-year period 1978 to 1987. We then Both Spelman and Fisk have higher Ph.D. produc- examined how many of these graduates earned a tivity than Dartmouth College, the University of Ph.D. in the period between 1986 and 1995, or Michigan, Wake Forest University, Colby College, eight years after the doctoral students earned their Vanderbilt University, Tufts University, and Emory bachelor’s degrees. This eight-year doctoral win- University. dow was chosen because the median lag time na- (Continued on page 13) SPECTRUM P AGE 13

(Continued from page 12) States. In fact, there are only 10 black schools in In somewhat of a surprise, Tougaloo College in the top half of the national rankings. Twelve of the Mississippi ranks third among black colleges and black colleges did not produce a single graduate universities in Ph.D. productivity. Of the college’s who went on to earn a Ph.D. in the sciences or 1,055 graduates during the 1978 to 1987 period, 58 mathematics during the 1986 to 1995 period. Tougaloo graduates, or 5.5 percent, went on to earn Before proceeding further, let’s review the a doctorate. Other black colleges finishing in the ranking procedures. As we did before in the doc- top 10 percent of colleges and universities nation- toral productivity rankings for all disciplines, we ally in Ph.D. productivity are Bennett College of examined the total number of graduates at a given North Carolina and Knoxville College in Tennes- college or university in the 1978 to 1987 period. see. Both of these schools have more than 5 percent We then looked at how many doctorates were of their graduates go on to earn a Ph.D. earned by graduates of these schools in the sciences Further down on the list is Howard University. and mathematics during the ensuing eight years Ranking 259th nationally, 375 of Howard’s 10,461 after they completed their bachelor’s degrees. Di- graduates earned a Ph.D. This is a rate of 3.58%. In viding the doctoral degrees by the bachelor’s de- the 1978 to 1987 period, Arkansas Baptist College grees, we come out with a Ph.D. productivity ratio. and Selma University did not produce a single As was the case with doctoral degrees in gen- graduate who went on to earn a doctoral degree. eral, CalTech had the highest Ph.D. productivity Readers may be surprised to see the relatively ratio in the nation when we restricted the analysis strong rankings in doctoral productivity achieved to Ph.D.s earned in the sciences and mathematics. by some of the nation’s his- Nearly 23 percent of all bache- torically black colleges and lor’s degree recipients at Cal- universities. But one must “Among the nation’s Tech go on to earn a Ph.D. in remember that in these rank- the sciences. Harvey Mudd Col- ings all categories of doctoral historically black colleges and lege again ranks second. Of the degrees are included. Thus, a 1,074 graduates of Harvey black college that produces universities, Fisk University Mudd College in the 1978 to many graduates who go on to 1987 period, 185, or 17.2 per- earn doctorates in education has the highest ranking in PhD cent, went on to earn doctorates will achieve a high rank. And in the sciences. Reed College, it must be remembered too productivity in the sciences.” Carleton College, and the Uni- that more than two fifths of all versity of Chicago also placed doctorates awarded to African in the top five nationally in Americans are in the field of education. Ph.D. productivity in the sciences and mathematics. Similarly, a small black college with a religious Princeton University ranked highest in this affiliation may produce a large number of graduates measure among the Ivy League schools. Many of who go on to earn a doctorate of divinity. This may the nation’s high-ranking liberal arts colleges fared explain the relatively high doctoral productivity very well in scientific Ph.D. productivity. Swarth- rating of colleges such as the predominantly black more, Haverford, Grinnell, Pomona, Bryn Mawr, Allen University in South Carolina, which is affili- and Oberlin all finished among the top 25 nation- ated with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. ally in Ph.D. productivity in the sciences. Among the nation’s historically black colleges Ph.D. Productivity in the Sciences and and universities, Fisk University has the highest Mathematics ranking in Ph.D. productivity in the sciences and The picture changes for the black colleges and uni- mathematics. Of Fisk’s 1,482 bachelor’s degree versities when we examine Ph.D. productivity for recipients in the 1978 to 1987 period, 21, or 1.42 graduates who go on to earn doctorates in the sci- percent, went on to earn a Ph.D. in the sciences or ences and mathematics. In this ranking, most black in mathematics. Fisk is the only black college or colleges and universities are far down on the list of university at which more than 1 percent of its all four-year colleges and universities in the United (Continued on page 15) P AGE 14 J ANUARY 2004

The NASA Saturday Academy for Space Science: Cultivating the Next Generation of Astronomers by Dara Norman and Vivian Hoette

e have seen in this newsletter and else- tations by active scientists on issues and careers where the dismal statistics on the num- related to the module theme and/or their own re- W bers of minority students who receive search interests. doctorate degrees in Physics and Astronomy each In the highly successful first year of the pro- year. Furthermore, many of us look around our own gram, students studied themes as diverse as optics, universities and labs and recognize the lack of di- expansion of the universe, solar phenomena, and versity. So the question remains, how do we en- the exploration of Mars. Astronomers and Space courage the younger generation of minority stu- Scientists join students as guest speakers last year dents to consider careers in physics, astronomy and and are looking forward to this years sessions. Dara space science? Norman (CTIO) explained how images of galaxies This is the very goal of the NASA Saturday taken with 4m telescopes in Chile can be used to Academy for Space Science (SASS, www.csu.edu/ study gravitational lensing. Jim Swietzer of the sass) at Chicago State University, a program that DePaul NASA Center, modeled time since the Big began in September of 2002, with a plan to con- Bang with a history of the Universe scaled on add- tinue through spring of 2006. SASS is open to ing machine tape. Bernhard Beck-Winchatz sophomores, juniors and graduating seniors of Chi- (DePaul NASA Center) set the tone of exploration cago Public Schools (CPS) who are interested in with his talk on NASA missions which was pre- exploring the fields of space science and technol- sented at the orientation. Al Harper, Univ. of Chi- ogy. The broad objectives of the program are to cago and P.I. of the High-resolution Airborne increase student’s knowledge, interest and abilities Wideband Camera (HAWC) infrared imaging cam- in science and in scientific careers, to enhance stu- era for the Stratopsheric Observatory for Infrared dent’s oral and written communication skills, and to Astronomy (SOFIA), described the adventures of develop their collaborative learning skills. his career doing astronomy from an airplane; he These objectives are being accomplished by worked with students as they learned by doing labs having students participate in a series of structured to investigate light, visible and invisible using Ac- learning modules that re NASA themes for science tive Astronomy, classroom activities developed by education. Each module has a number of common the SOFIA EPO team. elements which include: hands-on physics labora- Students are highly self-motivated to attend. tory activities; an integrated mathematical compo- During the first year of the program nearly half nent; a field trip or other enriching activity; presen- completed at least 15 of the 16 Saturday classes. The participants seemed to enjoy the activities and other methods employed in the program to enable them to learn new concepts and skills. Early in last year’s program Elizabeth, who is now a senior at South Shore High School, explained, “The program has been really great and I’ve learned a lot of things that I didn’t know just from the two sections I’ve participated in. So, I’m guessing that by the end of this program I should be an Einstein!” Students use real data from the Yerkes Rooftop Telescope (a 10 inch Meade) and other data pro- vided through Hands-On Universe (www.handsonuniverse.org) to complete labs and projects. Of one of these lab sessions, another stu-

(Continued on page 15) SPECTRUM P AGE 15

(Continued from page 14) dent commented that this was “My first time look- ing at outer space [pictures]... I had never dreamed that I would actually be seeing these beautiful im- ages up close and personal on a computer. This im- age was something that I had only seen in science books and science fiction movies: This experience is great and I will continue to enjoy it!” Over the final five weeks of the SASS Year One, students worked in school teams to build 7 telescopes. They drilled, sanded, painted, used power screw drivers, measured focal lengths of their mirrors, planned where to put everything in the telescope tubes, and finally learned to collimate their scopes. This year, they are venturing out to Univ. of Chicagos Yerkes Observatory in Williams the program. Who knows, maybe one of these new Bay, Wisconsin, to use their telescopes on skies possibilities will be a PhD in Physics or Astron- where the Milky Way is visible! (This is certainly omy. not the case within the city of Chicago.) While at For more information about participating as a Yerkes they will work with Andy Puckett, Univ. of contributor, please email [email protected] or Chicago, to build a scale model of the Solar System [email protected]. For an application for the pro- that will help them to know in which direction to gram, go to www.csu.edu/sass or write to: point their telescopes in order to observe solar sys- NASA - CSU Saturday Academy for Space Science tem objects in the night sky. Williams Science Center The hope is that SASS will open the minds of Chicago State University participating students to ideas and experiences that 9500 S. King Dr. they may have not thought possible before entering Chicago, IL

PhD Productivity of Historically Black Colleges (cont’d)

(Continued from page 13) rankings, places third among the black colleges. graduates go on to earn a Ph.D. in the sciences. Eighteen of Spelman’s 2,463 graduates earned a Fisk ranks 128th in the nation among four-year col- Ph.D. in the sciences during the 1986 to 1995 pe- leges and universities in Ph.D. productivity in the riod. Spelman ranks 320th nationally among all sciences. This puts Fisk in the top 10 percent of four-year colleges and universities in Ph.D. produc- colleges and universities nationally in this measure tivity in the sciences. This places Spelman directly of academic success. Fisk has a higher Ph.D. pro- ahead of the University of Rhode Island but behind ductivity ranking in the sciences than that of Vassar such schools as Rockford College, Adams State College, Emory University, Tufts University, the College, and Baker University, institutions gener- University of Notre Dame, Vanderbilt University, ally considered among the nation’s third- or fourth- and Pennsylvania State University. tier academic institutions. Next in the rankings among the black colleges Other black colleges ranking among the top 50 is Lincoln University. Lincoln places 244th in the percent of four-year colleges and universities in national ranking as 0.9% of its graduates go on to Ph.D. productivity in the sciences are Tougaloo earn a Ph.D. in the sciences. As a measure of its College, Tuskegee University, Howard University, high ranking, Lincoln University ranks just ahead Morehouse College, Talladega College, Bennett of Purdue in Ph.D. productivity in the sciences. College, and Xavier University. When we examined Ph.D. productivity in the JBHE, 200 W. 57th Street, 15th Floor, New sciences and mathematics, Spelman College, which York, NY 10019; 212-399-1084; [email protected]. ranked first in the overall doctoral productivity P AGE 16 J ANUARY 2004

NASA Space Science Diversity Initiatives by Jeffrey D. Rosendhal and Philip J. Sakimoto, Space Science Education and Public Outreach Program, NASA Headquarters

he NASA space science missions currently tion and Public Outreach Annual Report at envisioned span the next several decades, http://ossim.hq.nasa.gov/ossepo/. T during which time substantial turnover in After a competitive solicitation conducted dur- the scientific workforce and changes in the Na- ing 2003, a second round of MUCERPI awards was tion’s demographics will occur. To prepare for this announced at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus future, the NASA Office of Space Science (OSS) is and Congressional Black Caucus meetings in Sep- conducting a targeted effort to engage underrepre- tember 2003. These 16 awards were made to eight sented minorities in space science activities. Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU), five Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI), Minority Universities two Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCU), and The first thrust in this effort is the NASA Minority one Minority-Predominant Institution (MPI): University and College Education and Research · Alabama A&M University [HBCU], Dr. Arjun Partnership Initiative (MUCERPI) in Space Sci- Tan ence. This grants program, carried out in collabora- tion with the NASA Office of Education, offers · California State University at Los Angeles minority universities opportunities to develop aca- [HSI], Dr. Charles W. Liu demic and/or research capabilities in space science. · California State University at San Bernadino The hallmark of this program—and perhaps the [HSI], Dr. Susan Lederer most important key to its success—is that OSS · Fisk University [HBCU], Dr. Arnold Burger plays an active role in providing guidance and in · Hampton University [HBCU], Dr. Patrick engaging the community of OSS-sponsored re- McCormick searchers to serve as active partners in collabora- tions with the minority institutions involved in the · Medgar Evers College [MPI], Dr. Leon P. program. Johnson The first set of MUCERPI grants were awarded · Norfolk State University [HBCU], Dr. Carlos to fifteen minority universities 3 years ago. These W. Salgado grantees have recently reported a remarkable set of · North Carolina A&T St. Univ. [HBCU], Dr. success stories. They are engaged in research col- Abebe Kebede laborations with 10 NASA space science missions · Salish Kootenai College [TCU], Dr. Timothy S. or suborbital projects and in nearly 50 working Olson partnerships with major space science research · South Carolina State University [HBCU], Dr. groups. In academic programs, they have estab- Donald K. Walter lished on their campuses 25 new or redirected space · Southern University, Baton Rouge [HBCU], science faculty positions, 12 new or revised space Dr. J. Gregory Stacy science degree programs for which nearly 100 stu- dents have signed up, and 68 new or revised space · Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute science courses with a total enrollment to date of [TCU], Mr. Kirby Gchachu nearly 1,800 students. They are also engaged in a · Univ. of the District of Columbia [HBCU], Dr. wide variety of teacher training, precollege out- Abiose O. Adebayo reach, and public outreach programs. · University of Houston–Downtown [HSI], Dr. These successes clearly demonstrate that vi- Penny Morris-Smith brant academic and research programs in astron- · University of Puerto Rico at Mayagüez [HSI], omy and space science can be built at minority in- Mr. Rafael Fernandez stitutions provided that sponsoring Agencies offer · University of Texas at El Paso [HSI], Dr. serious opportunities to do so. Further information Ramon E. Lopez on these projects may be found in the OSS Educa- (Continued on page 22) SPECTRUM P AGE 17

Meet Dara Norman at CTIO by Keivan Guadalupe Stassun

Dara Norman is completing her tenure as an sion. “But I was afraid this NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral meant I would miss my sen- Fellow at CTIO in Chile. I met up with Dara ior year and the prom!” on a recent observing run at CTIO and asked Dara continued to be her about her personal background and her involved in sports through development as an astronomer. her undergraduate years at MIT as a member of both ara was born near Memphis, Tennessee, on the Women’s Crew and the naval base where both of her parents Rugby Teams. These activities would peak years D were stationed. “Yes, there is a naval base later when she ran (“and completed!”) the New in land-locked Tennessee!” Her family relocated York City Marathon. twice until moving to the South Side of Chicago One of the most important lessons Dara learned when she was six, where Dara considers herself to in college is the importance of good mentors. She have grown up. explains with an anecdote: “In a summer prepara- Dara remembers being interested in space from tory program for minority freshmen students enter- a young age, and this interest was encouraged by ing MIT, we had physics lab classes and I paired up her mother. “She would allow us to be late for with a friend to be lab partners since she and I were school in order to watch early morning Space Shut- both interested in being physics majors. But we tle launches.” But when she announced in her 4th were told by the professor that we should instead grade class that she wanted to be an astronaut, she pair up with boys since ‘they know more physics.’ was told by her male classmates that “girls can’t be Eventually, I ended up with a very good adviser, astronauts.” This, says Dara, was the beginning of Dr. James Elliot, whom I credit with encouraging her resolve to pursue her interest in space. me to continue on in science. Thanks, Jim.” One of the things that Dara enjoyed about Graduating after 4 “grueling” years, Dara says growing up in Chicago was the access to cultural she was not ready to commit to graduate school events and museums. When she was young, the despite an offer from her mentor to stay on in his Museum of Science and Industry on Chicago’s lab. So he helped her find a position as user assis- South Side was free to the public. “It was a short tant and public affairs officer for the Goddard High bus ride away. It was great that I was able to de- Resolution Spectrograph Team for the soon-to-be- cide, on my own, to go to a place of learning.” launched Hubble Space Telescope. “Besides reduc- Dara attended Kenwood Academy, one of Chi- ing and archiving HST data, and working with a cago’s public high schools. With interests in both great group of astronomers, this position allowed sports and academics, she was on the swim team me to go to local schools to give talks about astron- for 4 years and on the math team for 3 years. While omy, participate in press conferences, and help pre- Dara says that physics was not well taught at her pare scientific material for press releases.” She school, the resources available at the University of worked with the team for 3 years, leaving just be- Chicago played an important part in her continuing fore COSTAR was scheduled to be installed. interest in science. “Every other year, the Univer- Now Dara felt ready to begin graduate study, at sity hosted open house days. In the astrophysics lab the University of Washington. It was at this time was the first time I got to see liquid nitrogen evapo- that Dara began to develop the model for her pro- rate as it spilled out onto the floor!” fessional career that she maintains to this day. In In her junior year Dara was accepted into the addition to research and teaching Dara became ac- summer pre-college program at Carnegie Mellon tively involved in outreach. “I volunteered to give University to take college-level classes in calculus planetarium shows for student groups, lead science and physics. She performed well enough to be one day lectures at local schools. I even presented an of two students invited to apply for early admis- astronomy slide show at a local jazz festival.” (Continued on page 18) P AGE 18 J ANUARY 2004

Meet Dara Norman at CTIO (cont’d)

(Continued from page 17) proposal as well as on the strength of the proposed At about the time she started looking for a the- outreach/education project. sis topic and adviser, Chris Impey (University of Dara’s proposed research included a continua- Arizona) visited Seattle for a year-long sabbatical. tion of the study of quasar magnification bias using Being very interested in education, Chris taught the data from the Deep Lens Survey (DLS), one of the introductory astronomy class that first semester and NOAO Survey Projects headed by Tony Tyson of Dara was one of his TAs. She began working on a Bell Labs. “A primary goal of the DLS is to map project with Chris that would turn into her disserta- out regions of dark matter over-densities in 7 four- tion topic, Magnification Biasing of Quasars. degree square fields.” “Magnification bias arises because of weak Dara explains that an advantage of DLS for gravitational lensing. Gravitational lensing changes measuring magnification bias is that galaxies do not the solid angle of a source but conserves its surface need to be used as a proxy for mass in this case. brightness. Faint background objects (QSOs in this “The distribution of mass is measured directly us- case) are brightened into a magnitude limited sam- ing weak-lensing shear measurement techniques. ple while their number density is diluted because of However there are very few quasars already known geometrical effects. A statistical association of in the survey area, so my work has focused on us- high-z QSOs and low-z galaxies suggests that some ing near-IR photometry to search for quasars in the bright QSOs may be beacons signaling the loca- DLS. This type of near-IR survey has been made tions of matter concentrations in the local universe. possible recently by new wide-field IR detectors.” The strength of this correlation is quantified by the At CTIO, the ISPI instrument began regular use angular two-point correlation function between on the Blanco 4m in September 2002, and since QSOs and foreground galaxies. It has been shown Dara plans to use this instrument to continue her that the shape and amplitude of the correlation research, she has become part of the ISPI instru- function is significantly different for different ment team, helping with instrument engineering, choices of cosmological parameters.” characterization, and user assistance. After completing her PhD, Dara took a post- Dara’s outreach/education work has matured as doctoral position at the State University of New well, becoming ever more multifaceted, including York working on—of all things—cool stars with education projects both in Chile and in the US. In Fred Walter and Michal Simon. “Again, I was 2001, Dara, Malcom Smith, and David Orellana lucky to find myself with very good mentors.” This began a new collaboration with NOAO Tucson de- experience gave Dara the opportunity to learn new signed to create a dialog among teachers interested skills and new wavelengths, including the near-IR, in expanding astronomy education. The collabora- which would prove valuable later on. She also con- tion has supported a series of video-linked work- tinued her outreach, including an invited lecture at shops, dubbed “Astro-Chile”, between Spanish- the American Museum of Natural History. speaking educators in Tucson and La Serena. The While Dara found scientific life at SUNY re- project has had 3 successful workshops involving warding, personal reasons would take her to Chile. discussions of astronomical teaching methods, crea- Personal reasons? “My fine husband (who is also a tion of Spanish language materials, and examples fine astronomer!),” she explains with a broad smile. of hands-on activities for use with students. Dara’s tenure at CTIO, which concludes this Dara has also continued to give talks to student year, has been under the auspices of a National Sci- groups, both in Chile (in Spanish) and in the US, ence Foundation Astronomy and Astrophysics when she can. “Since I am often in Chicago visiting Postdoctoral Fellowship. This fellowship is right up family, I have taken the opportunity to talk with Dara’s alley. “In addition to pursuing a research students participating in NASA’s Saturday Acad- program, fellows are also expected to have an out- emy for Space Science (SASS) program at Chicago reach/education component to their work.” Fellow- State University.” Dara describes the SASS pro- ships are awarded on the strength of the research gram in an article which appears on page 14. SPECTRUM P AGE 19

Meet Bryan Méndez at UC Berkeley Space Sciences Lab by Keivan Guadalupe Stassun Bryan Méndez, a recent graduate of UC Berke- While at U of M, Bryan ley, is presently a Space Science Education and primarily worked with Pat- Public Outreach Officer at the UC Berkeley rick Seitzer in the astronomy Space Sciences Laboratory. I asked Bryan to department studying the share his educational and career path with proper motion of Galactic globular clusters with 10- SPECTRUM readers. year-old CCD images as well ryan was born and raised in Traverse City, as HST data. He also spent Michigan, at the base of the Grand Traverse two summers away for in- Bay. “It’s the body of water separating the ternships: the first was at the B Space Telescope Science Institute studying the ag- pinky from the rest of the mitten of the Lower Pen- insula,” explains Bryan. ing of Sun-like stars in the solar neighborhood with David Soderblom, and the second was at the God- His mother and maternal grandparents are all dard Space Flight Center studying Galactic giant from that area. “But my father immigrated to the HII regions in the near infrared with Dr. David Lei- United States from Mexico when he was a child sawitz. with my abuelos,” says Bryan, using the Spanish word for grandparents. With a population of 25,000 At U of M, Bryan was also a member of phys- within the city limits, Traverse City was the largest ics and astronomy student groups. And it was while city in all of Northern Michigan and was quite ho- participating in education and public outreach ac- mogenous. “So I was always the oddball kid in tivities with these groups that he developed a strong school with the unusual last name.” interest in teaching. But the small town skies were always very After five years at Michigan Bryan went dark, and Bryan found them wondrous. “As long as straight into graduate school at UC Berkeley, where I can remember I was fascinated by the sky. After he found the opportunity to continue his interests in watching Star Wars, at the impressionable age of both research and teaching simultaneously. “During four, I was forevermore lying on the lawn at night the first year, I was a graduate student instructor for gazing out at the stars and imagining the amazing introductory astronomy classes and discovered that adventures to be had up there.” I had knack and passion for teaching.” Bryan in- deed loves to teach, so much so that he went on to But Bryan’s interest in astronomy ultimately teach every year he was at Berkeley, including de- came from a place considerably more down to signing his own courses. He also volunteered in Earth. “I became particularly interested in the study local classrooms through Project ASTRO, was the of astronomy after a visit to the Adler Planetarium public liaison for the astronomy department, and in Chicago. After that, my parents bought me a 5- was a volunteer scientist for MadSci.org, where inch refractor and a sky chart. I was hooked.” people come to have their questions on science an- After high school Bryan attended the Univer- swered by experts. sity of Michigan in Ann Arbor—“just west of De- At the end of his first year Bryan began work- troit in the lower thumb area.” Bryan was an ambi- ing with Dr. Marc Davis of UC Berkeley’s Physics tious college student, and pursued a triple major at and Astronomy departments. “He had a ‘little sum- U of M. He double majored in physics and astron- mer project’ for me that would tide me over until omy like most of the other astronomy majors, but the DEEP project was underway. It turned out to be he also majored in saxophone performance at U of ‘the little summer project that could.’ It blossomed M’s School of Music. “Music was a passion equal and grew into my dissertation project, which was to astronomy for me at the time, and it took me 3 lucky since the DEEP project did not see first light years before I decided which way to go with my until my final year.” life.” Bryan graduated with both Bachelor of Sci- ence and Bachelor of Musical Arts degrees. The project involved probing the peculiar ve- (Continued on page 21) P AGE 20 J ANUARY 2004

Professional Organizations Serving Minorities in the Physical Sciences (cont’d)

(Continued from page 11) involvement and participation with other profes- teacher at the SACNAS Annual National Confer- sional organizations and federal agencies. ence with its Distinguished K-12 Educator Award, presented to an individual who best inspires the American Physical Society Committee on next generation of minority scientists. Minorities Numerous SACNAS activities also aim to en- The Committee on Minorities in Physics (COM) is hance experiences of minorities pursuing advanced an outreach committee of the American Physical degrees in technical fields. SACNAS is involved Society. Programs and activities include: with numerous summer programs, including the Mathematical Theoretical Biology Institute- Travel Grants for Minority Speakers Cornell-SACNAS Mathematical Sciences Program The APS has compiled the names and talk titles and the Summer Institute in Mathematics for Un- of women and minority physicists who are avail- dergraduates at the University of Puerto Rico, able to give colloquia. These lists (minority speak- Humacao. Additionally, SACNAS participates in ers and women speakers) are indexed by field of the SACNAS/NINDS Neuroscience Scholars Fel- physics and state, and are available from the APS lowship Program which gives students the opportu- Education & Outreach Department. Members may nity to conduct neurology-related research. enroll in the minority speakers list via the web. Through its efforts to improve K-12 education APS also provides small travel grants to physics and enhance student experiences, SACNAS aims to departments to fund visits by minority and women increase the numbers of Chicanos and Native colloquium speakers. Departments can apply by Americans in the highest levels of academia and completing the online form at: research. http://www.aps.org/educ/com/minority-app.html

National Society of Hispanic Physicists Minority Scholarship Similar to the NSBP, the National Society of His- The award consists of $2000 per year for new panic Physicists (NSHP) serves to support and de- scholars, and $3000 per year for renewal students velop the careers of Hispanic physicists and stu- to be used for tuition, room & board, and educa- dents. Through a grant from the Sloan Foundation tional materials. In addition, each physics depart- and coordination of the Pan-American Association ment that hosts one or more APS minority under- of Physics, the first NSHP meeting was held in graduate scholar and assigns a mentor for their stu- 1996 in Austin, Texas. Since its founding, the dent/s will receive a $500 award for programs to NSHP has held joint annual meetings with other encourage minority students. professional organizations like SACNAS, the Any African-American, Hispanic American, or American Physical Society, and the American As- Native American U.S. citizen or permanent resident sociation of Physics Teachers. Particularly, NSHP who is majoring or planning to major in physics, has held numerous special sessions at SACNAS and who is a high school senior, college freshman, National Conferences to promote interest in physi- or sophomore is eligible to apply. cal sciences. These efforts have generated a size- able physics presence in the SACNAS community. For more information on these organizations and As the NSHP is a new organization, it is still their efforts to increase participation of underrepre- developing its strategy to address Hispanic repre- sented minorities in the physical sciences, please sentation in the physical sciences. NSHP leadership see their respective websites: has considered numerous projects to establish its NSBP: http://www.nsbp.org identity, including active recruitment of Hispanic- SACNAS: http://www.sacnas.org American students for participation in the NSF Re- NSHP: http://physics.utep.edu/nshp/nshp.html search Experience for Undergraduates (REU) Pro- grams. Additionally, the NSHP plans to increase its APS: http://www.aps.org SPECTRUM P AGE 21

Meet Laura Lopez at MIT by Keivan Guadalupe Stassun

riginally from Barrington, Illinois, Laura mine the system’s physical Lopez is a senior at MIT majoring in phys- properties. This analysis O ics with minors in astronomy and political will give new clues regard- science. She is a two-time recipient of the Ameri- ing the evolutionary state can Physical Society Corporate Minority scholar- of the binary, the nature of ship, and she has presented posters at the 202nd the compact object, and the American Astronomical Society meeting in Nash- jet formation process. The ville and the Women in Astronomy II meeting at work will be published in Caltech. the Astrophysical Journal, and Laura will present Currently, Laura is working with Dr. Herman the final results in a press conference at the January Marshall of the MIT Center for Space Research to 2004 AAS meeting in Atlanta. She is writing her model the X-ray spectrum of SS 433 taken with the undergraduate thesis on similar work, and for her Chandra High-Energy Transmission Grating Spec- doctoral degree she hopes to continue working as trometer. SS 433 is thought to be a binary consist- an observational astronomer. ing of a large blue normal star supplying gas to a Laura is also actively involved in a number of compact object and ejects a small portion of the minority outreach activities, including participation accreted material in twin, oppositely directed jets at on the AAS CSMA, and has organized an Under- 26% of the speed of light. graduate Women in Physics group at MIT. Observed while the companion eclipsed the Laura is applying to astronomy graduate pro- receding jet, Laura is using the X-ray spectra grams this year. model, in conjunction with optical data, to deter-

Meet Bryan Méndez at UC Berkeley SSL (cont’d)

(Continued from page 19) IRAS models, with ß = 0.5 and H0 = 73 km/s/Mpc, locity field of the very local Universe, within 10 were statistically consistent with the observed pecu- Mpc, which had previously been observed to be liar velocity flow.” remarkably cool but predicted by quasi-linear mod- After graduation from Berkeley’s astronomy els based on IRAS galaxies to be much hotter. department in December 2002, Bryan started work “We required consistent and accurate distances at the UC Berkeley Space Sciences Laboratory to galaxies within this volume. The regions of most (SSL) as part of the Center Science Education interest were above and below the SuperGalactic (CSE@SSL), which is under the direction of Dr. plane where a strong quadrupolar flow was pre- Isabel Hawkins. dicted to have largely depopulated the regions of “I’ve turned my love for teaching and sharing galaxies. The galaxies in these regions are primarily science with the public into a new career.” Bryan is early-type dwarfs and dwarf irregulars, which are now a Space Science Education and Public Out- not good candidates for Cepheid or Surface Bright- reach Specialist. He develops educational materials, ness Fluctuation studies. Therefore we used the tip conducts teacher training in space science, and de- of the red giant branch (TRGB) as our distance in- velops public programs for several NASA funded dicator to galaxies within this local volume. We missions and projects. made use of Keck and HST observations and devel- “I find this work extremely rewarding and plan oped more statistically robust methods for measur- to continue with it for the foreseeable future,” says ing TRGB magnitudes and estimating their uncer- Bryan. tainties. In the end, we found that the predictions of P AGE 22 J ANUARY 2004

NASA Space Science Diversity Initiatives (cont’d)

(Continued from page 16) ticipants are expected to gain insights and contacts Eight of these institutions will be developing leading to a better understanding of how the NASA research capabilities in various areas of space sci- space science program is organized, planned, and ence through partnerships with major space science conducted; how missions and research programs research institutions. In addition, all 16 of them will are conceived; how mission and research teams are be improving their academic capabilities in space formed; and how successful proposals are con- science at various levels in the educational system, structed. including 14 who are developing undergraduate The workshop will be held at the Hilton Chi- courses or degree programs, three who are develop- cago on June 28-29, 2004. Participants will engage ing graduate courses or degree programs, 13 who in two full days of briefings and discussions with are developing precollege outreach or teacher train- ample time for sharing experiences and interests, ing programs, and six who are engaging in Public developing insights, and forming partnerships, cul- Outreach activities. minating in a grand networking picnic supper that Each of the MUCERPI-2003 awards is a three- all participants are urged to attend. year grant offering up to $275,000 per year over the Strong participation by members of the AAS period from January 1, 2004, to December 31, will be a major key to the success of this workshop. 2006. More than 50 major OSS-sponsored research For further information and to sign up for the work- or educational institutions will be active partners in shop mailing list, please visit these projects. Synopses of each project and a full http://analyzer.depaul.edu/Chicago2004. list of the partners may be found at The meeting poster is shown on the facing http://spacescience.nasa.gov/education/news page. in the January 2004 issue of the OSS Voyages newsletter.

Chicago 2004 Additional information on these initiatives may The second thrust of OSS’s diversity efforts is a be obtained from the OSS Diversity Coordinating response to discussions held over the past several Committee by contacting: years with leaders of various professional societies Dr. Philip Sakimoto, Space Science Education of minority scientists and also to a strong recom- and Public Outreach, NASA Headquarters (E-mail: mendation of the NASA Space Science Advisory [email protected]), Committee’s Task Force on Education and Public Outreach (E/PO) that OSS “expand and intensify” Dr. Lynn Narasimhan, NASA/OSS Broker/ it’s “pioneering efforts to attract and better inte- Facilitator, DePaul University (E-mail: grate minorities into E/PO projects and into the [email protected]), or mainstream of OSS science programs.” Dr. Charles McGruder, Western Kentucky Uni- As a result, OSS is sponsoring Chicago 2004: versity and Past President, National Society of A Workshop to Foster Broader Participation in Black Physicists (E-mail: NASA Space Science Missions And Research Pro- [email protected]) grams. This workshop is aimed at bringing together NASA personnel, current OSS-funded scientists and educators, and a diverse array of scientists and educators who are interested in participating in fu- ture OSS missions and research programs. A spe- cific goal of the workshop is to seed personal con- tacts among a much more diverse community of investigators than has traditionally been active in NASA space science missions. In addition, all par- SPECTRUM P AGE 23 First Class Postage Paid Washington, DC Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy Permit #1725

American Astronomical Society 2000 Florida Avenue, NW Suite 400 Washington, DC 20009-1231 Phone: 202-328-2010 Fax: 202-234-2560 Email: [email protected]

The Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy

(CSMA) is a Standing Committee of the We’re on the web! www.vanderbilt.edu/ csma American Astronomical Society.

‘SPECTRUM’ is a semi-annual publication describing the ac-

tivities of the CSMA, highlighting resources, and providing a

forum for discussion of issues relevant to the representation of

minorities in the astronomy profession.