Research Blogging

Time to talk briefly about other uses of blogging. Some time ago I spoke about the idea of using blogging as a sharper tool for exchanging and even developing research ideas. The conversation about the suggestion degenerated into vapour, at some point, and having floated the idea and learned from the conversation, I left it alone. In public at least.

In private, I continued. The fact is that I have other blogs on the go. I’d like to tell you about one of them, since it might be a useful tool for you too. The way I use it is simple. I run my “lab” with it. It’s my virtual lab-space. I have about five students working with me, and a million and one projects, and not enough hours in the day. The students all are working on several projects with me, with each other, and alone…. but all under the umbrella of being part of my little “subgroup” of the larger high energy theory group here at USC. I want us all to have conversations, point at new papers, throw out ideas, show partial computations to each other (and definitely to me) for comment, share drafts of papers with each other, etc.

So far so standard. Normally, this is all done with emails back and forth, one on one conversations, etc. Sometimes those conversations can be supplemented by one or other person from the group (me, or anyone else) dropping in and setting the whole thing straight with a comment. Sure, you can do this with email in the “reply-to-all” mode, but…. […] Click to continue reading this post

Field Testing

Well, ok, it is working well out in the field. (See here for what I’m talking about.)

Keys started out a little sticky, but are loosening up with use. Good. Ok, here’s a secret: I admit to feeling a little (just a little) smug among the group of people sitting here, ‘cos you see they’re all the same – all five of them, in one tiny cafe – with their normally individual and cool-looking macbooks (it’s one of those ‘hoods), now looking unneccessarily big, heavy and clunky in comparison.

Ok, I’ll stop being annoying. It was just a smug moment, and now it has passed. Here’s the setup in the field: […] Click to continue reading this post

Inkling

While we’re on the subject of women in science, some other news*:

Well, they’ve done it! Some of the women – Anna and Anne – who run InkyCircus (Life in the Girl Nerd World) have done what they said they’d set out to do a while back – they’ve started a science magazine.

Congratulations Anna and Anne!

It is called Inkling (…on the Hunch that Science Rocks), and here’s the banner (I hope they don’t mind me linking it for advertising purposes): […] Click to continue reading this post

Women in Science – What to Do Next?

Cornelia Dean has written a very interesting article for the New York Times about the things people are doing to change the current situation concerning the underrepresentation of Women in Science in academia. It continues on from the discussion we were having after the September release of the report by the National Academy of Science on the issue.

The key point under discussion? From the article:

Since the 1970s, women have surged into science and engineering classes in larger and larger numbers, even at top-tier institutions like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where half the undergraduate science majors and more than a third of the engineering students are women. Half of the nation’s medical students are women, and for decades the numbers have been rising similarly in disciplines like biology and mathematics.

However…

Yet studies show that women in science still routinely receive less research support than their male colleagues, and they have not reached the top academic ranks in numbers anything like their growing presence would suggest.

In fact, it is only in the social, behavioral or life sciences that the proportion of women full professors has risen into double digits – 15 percent or so. Something goes wrong. What is it?

at each step on the academic ladder, more women than men leave science and engineering.

The current article reports on a number of gatherings on various campuses – conferences organised to network, share, and brainstorm a bit on the issue. There are interviews with several people, and experiences and anecdotes are shared. Very much worth your time to read. Discussed are a wide range of topics, the most central being that it is still the case that women are judged by different standards than men. Even though often times it might seem to be something as simple as what to wear to a meeting – it makes a difference. These things all add up. Other things mentioned are the two-body problem, mentoring, letters of recommendation, children and motherhood, and negotiating skills, among others.

I’ll let you read the article, but do come back and let us know what you think. We’ve been through a lot of this discussion before, so one aspect I’d like to hear about is the following: What are you doing about the issue in your own sphere of influence? Are […] Click to continue reading this post