I'm writing a proposal.
This, is not actual news. It is part of everyday academic life. We chase money. I'm a bit ambivalent about the proposal writing thing. Some faculty members hate it; it's putting a price on science! Some faculty members love it; they are mostly the ones that are good at it. I'm in the middle, to me it's just a necessary step on the way to doing the fun stuff. Science costs money, therefore I must find money.
Proposal writing, in general, isn't really my point today. I want to talk about a specific, rather modern aspect of proposal writing. The "broader impacts". It's been talked about before by those more experienced than me (just search broader impacts there and you'll get an array of results). Today, I'm contemplating this exact issue. Whether we like or not, whether we agree with it or not, by definition every women in science is a broader impact. We can choose to include it explicitly in our proposals, or we can choose to ignore it. On my own I'd opt for the latter. Today, I'm not writing a proposal on my own. It's a collaborative project between 5 people. For tenured men and me. The lastest draft includes a little subsection entitled Underrepresented Groups. Not out of the normal in the context of BI in proposals. But there it was: "Dr. Rini is a female junior tenure track scientist."
In the end it is what it is, and there isn't anything drastic I can do to change it. In the grand scheme of proposal writing, we argue about the science, the objectives, the budgets. We never once talk about this particular sentence. But here is my feeling, as a women, as a scientist:
I hate being a broader impact. I'd like to have a broader impact. But, I don't want to be a broader impact.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Drive by blogging
Well, It's been awhile since I've blogged about anything. This is mainly because I've been quite busy and never seem to have the time to sit down and write a full-on post. So I'm going to try something new this year. I will only write what I can write in 10 minutes. Hopefully this will lead to more posts and less lengthy reads. If I feel like I really want to go in depth on something I might, but I won't put it off until I find the hour to do it. Instead I'll do the 10 minute version. This has been inspired by my friend who just started her first blog. She is attempting to walk more miles then she drives her car this year and is only going to commit 5 minutes a day to any particular blog post about the experience. (As a side note: I might join her in this venture, or at the very least keep track of how much I bike/walk in comparison to how much I drive this year).
So in the spirit of my new drive-by blogging style here is the list of things I wanted to blog about in the last few months but didn't because I never really felt I'd give them justice.
1) The GQ "rock stars of science": many, many, many, many people have many things to say about this campaign. I for one applaud the effort but am mighty offended that GQ and Geoffrey Beene seem to think science = medicine. Let's clarify that: Medicine is a subset of science. If we want to encourage young people to enter science we should show them that. Let's face it, there's never a shortage of people who want to become doctors and make money. But finding those who want to save the climate, clean the air we breathe and the water we drink, learn how people relate to each other, grow our food better....or about a billion other issues that area really relevant to society to day...we have a severe shortage of candidates for those jobs. Science is bigger than the medical fields. WAY bigger. And all of it is just as important and saves just as many lives, although in a less tangible way. Where are those rock stars?
2) This guy. I could rant for way more than 10 minutes about this. Since the average american doesn't even understand what science is (as evidenced by #1 above), how about we just leave the peer-review process to the actual scientists. NSF is really respected and has one of the most rigorous review processes around. Actual scientists regard it as some of the hardest funding to get. Ugh, just Ugh America.
Times up for now, but man I really had some stuff to say about those science cheerleaders too...
So in the spirit of my new drive-by blogging style here is the list of things I wanted to blog about in the last few months but didn't because I never really felt I'd give them justice.
1) The GQ "rock stars of science": many, many, many, many people have many things to say about this campaign. I for one applaud the effort but am mighty offended that GQ and Geoffrey Beene seem to think science = medicine. Let's clarify that: Medicine is a subset of science. If we want to encourage young people to enter science we should show them that. Let's face it, there's never a shortage of people who want to become doctors and make money. But finding those who want to save the climate, clean the air we breathe and the water we drink, learn how people relate to each other, grow our food better....or about a billion other issues that area really relevant to society to day...we have a severe shortage of candidates for those jobs. Science is bigger than the medical fields. WAY bigger. And all of it is just as important and saves just as many lives, although in a less tangible way. Where are those rock stars?
2) This guy. I could rant for way more than 10 minutes about this. Since the average american doesn't even understand what science is (as evidenced by #1 above), how about we just leave the peer-review process to the actual scientists. NSF is really respected and has one of the most rigorous review processes around. Actual scientists regard it as some of the hardest funding to get. Ugh, just Ugh America.
Times up for now, but man I really had some stuff to say about those science cheerleaders too...
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
The Universe always provides
Just a quick check-in. Today is much better than yesterday. I had an absolutely lovely lunch with another knitter who is also a physicist, so she's as cool as they come in my book. A leisurely lunch with great conversation was just so normal on a day like today that is was perfect. Well, almost normal, we did eat outside on the day before Thanksgiving. I will adapt to this weather eventually.
Top that off with some encouraging news from a granting agency, not an award just yet, but not a rejection either, and not the make you want to cry kind of reviews, but the kind of letter that says could you fix a few things for us, which in this game is encouraging. It's a biggy too, the kind that would get my Co-PI's tenure when they go up next year, and give me instant cache around here, so encouraging is really exciting news.
And, just this morning I finally broke through the wall on my next paper. There is still a lot of work to do, but I now have a vision/road map in my mind, rather than just a jumble of numbers, it's the turning point on any paper and the rest is hard work, but not the kind where you feel like you are banging your head against a wall. Sometimes science is a mystery to even scientists.
So the world stays in balance. The way I like it. :)
Top that off with some encouraging news from a granting agency, not an award just yet, but not a rejection either, and not the make you want to cry kind of reviews, but the kind of letter that says could you fix a few things for us, which in this game is encouraging. It's a biggy too, the kind that would get my Co-PI's tenure when they go up next year, and give me instant cache around here, so encouraging is really exciting news.
And, just this morning I finally broke through the wall on my next paper. There is still a lot of work to do, but I now have a vision/road map in my mind, rather than just a jumble of numbers, it's the turning point on any paper and the rest is hard work, but not the kind where you feel like you are banging your head against a wall. Sometimes science is a mystery to even scientists.
So the world stays in balance. The way I like it. :)
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
A sea of grey
I must be the only nearly 29 year old in the world that wishes I was at least 5 or 6 years older.
I mean shouldn't I be lamenting the loss of my 20's, not wishing them away?
This meeting I'm at was supposed to be for young faculty, early career scientists, particularly post-docs and graduate students. It's about getting funding from NSF, the process, available programs, etc. Since NSF funding seems to be the second half of your union card into the world of being a full fledged scientist and/or professor, I signed up immediately. I was pretty excited, the post-doc thing is well, I talked about that yesterday, so I won't waste the space here. But the opportunity to be with other people in or about my cohort was pretty exciting. Talking about science and the future directions is always stimulating and refreshing, and I though the energy of "younger" people would make it even better. I new that there would be many of the well respected icons of the field here too, but I thought the focus would be on getting the "new blood" involved. So imagine my surprise and frustration to find myself the only one under, let's conservatively say 37. Now, I'm not complaining or anything, I love to listen and learn, that's part of why I do what I do, but it's very difficult to always feel like your outside in the cold knocking on the door. When I finally did work up the courage to take that damn mic and express and opinion I was blatantly ignored. All those old men looked at me like I was an alien. My comments didn't even make it into the plenary session review, even though others came up to me after and said they were good ideas. So it seems good ideas from the "early career" scientists this workshop was supposed to help embrace aren't good enough. That's not making us feel welcome. Yet you can devote entire sessions to the educational needs we should be meeting to "save the future of the field". The future is right here in the room, how about paying attention!
Sorry that was a bit ranty, but it was hard to sit and listen to that today, and to hear them say things like "I see a lot of grey out there, maybe we don't understand the virtual world that students live in today", and in the welcome, "we really want to get the new scientists involved, this has been an old boys club for a long time and it's time to change that". The keynote speaker for crying out loud. One of the main reasons I came her was to get recharged to feel like there was a future for me in this field. I've been thinking a lot about leaving lately. There are about a billion reasons some revolving around my specific work environment right know, and those I know will change as soon as I find a new job. Those pesky problems aside, it's still a hard road, there are alot of obstacles, that seem to grow exponentially when you are a women, and when you are younger than the average PhD out there (I'm no Dougie Howser or anything, but I am the youngest PhD I know) they seem to grow even more. Midway through day three, I almost walked out, leaving that sea of seemingly brilliant but horrifically ignorant grey behind. I have better things to do than be ignored. But I stayed, mainly because I'm half a country away from home and had nowhere else to go, but partly because my love of science will not die and I still have some silly hope that I will discover something new and meaningful and to do that, you some how have to break into the club. So I'll keep trying. I'm kind of stubborn like that.
At least now I know who to submit the proposals to, how to request use of the sites, and navigate the endless pit of paperwork to get my ideas to that panel of my grey haired "peer" reviewers. Maybe they're more receptive when the future isn't standing in front of them looking so damn young and womenlike and instead is some "anonymous" scientist on a piece of paper. Sometimes I think we live in a mad mad world.
I think this post came out more negative then I meant it to be. But this gig really is hard sometimes. The conference wasn't all bad. I did get through to a couple of the scientists here and I had a very exciting conversation with one of the scientists here, one I respect quite a bit and he was very receptive to my ideas, and offered a lot of help and collaboration and told me I should apply for a very competitive post-doc program and offered to sponsor my application, so that's all good...but another post-doc??? That's a musing for another day.
I mean shouldn't I be lamenting the loss of my 20's, not wishing them away?
This meeting I'm at was supposed to be for young faculty, early career scientists, particularly post-docs and graduate students. It's about getting funding from NSF, the process, available programs, etc. Since NSF funding seems to be the second half of your union card into the world of being a full fledged scientist and/or professor, I signed up immediately. I was pretty excited, the post-doc thing is well, I talked about that yesterday, so I won't waste the space here. But the opportunity to be with other people in or about my cohort was pretty exciting. Talking about science and the future directions is always stimulating and refreshing, and I though the energy of "younger" people would make it even better. I new that there would be many of the well respected icons of the field here too, but I thought the focus would be on getting the "new blood" involved. So imagine my surprise and frustration to find myself the only one under, let's conservatively say 37. Now, I'm not complaining or anything, I love to listen and learn, that's part of why I do what I do, but it's very difficult to always feel like your outside in the cold knocking on the door. When I finally did work up the courage to take that damn mic and express and opinion I was blatantly ignored. All those old men looked at me like I was an alien. My comments didn't even make it into the plenary session review, even though others came up to me after and said they were good ideas. So it seems good ideas from the "early career" scientists this workshop was supposed to help embrace aren't good enough. That's not making us feel welcome. Yet you can devote entire sessions to the educational needs we should be meeting to "save the future of the field". The future is right here in the room, how about paying attention!
Sorry that was a bit ranty, but it was hard to sit and listen to that today, and to hear them say things like "I see a lot of grey out there, maybe we don't understand the virtual world that students live in today", and in the welcome, "we really want to get the new scientists involved, this has been an old boys club for a long time and it's time to change that". The keynote speaker for crying out loud. One of the main reasons I came her was to get recharged to feel like there was a future for me in this field. I've been thinking a lot about leaving lately. There are about a billion reasons some revolving around my specific work environment right know, and those I know will change as soon as I find a new job. Those pesky problems aside, it's still a hard road, there are alot of obstacles, that seem to grow exponentially when you are a women, and when you are younger than the average PhD out there (I'm no Dougie Howser or anything, but I am the youngest PhD I know) they seem to grow even more. Midway through day three, I almost walked out, leaving that sea of seemingly brilliant but horrifically ignorant grey behind. I have better things to do than be ignored. But I stayed, mainly because I'm half a country away from home and had nowhere else to go, but partly because my love of science will not die and I still have some silly hope that I will discover something new and meaningful and to do that, you some how have to break into the club. So I'll keep trying. I'm kind of stubborn like that.
At least now I know who to submit the proposals to, how to request use of the sites, and navigate the endless pit of paperwork to get my ideas to that panel of my grey haired "peer" reviewers. Maybe they're more receptive when the future isn't standing in front of them looking so damn young and womenlike and instead is some "anonymous" scientist on a piece of paper. Sometimes I think we live in a mad mad world.
I think this post came out more negative then I meant it to be. But this gig really is hard sometimes. The conference wasn't all bad. I did get through to a couple of the scientists here and I had a very exciting conversation with one of the scientists here, one I respect quite a bit and he was very receptive to my ideas, and offered a lot of help and collaboration and told me I should apply for a very competitive post-doc program and offered to sponsor my application, so that's all good...but another post-doc??? That's a musing for another day.
Saturday, June 2, 2007
Why I Didn't Buy a Prius
After reading Paul's blog yesterday, I was thinking a lot about what I should post on my new science and craft blog. I decided to go with Sciencey thoughts today. Maybe tomorrow they will be crafty.
Since we recently bought a new car, (VW Rabbit), which I'm totally in love with...and I am a atmospheric scientist, and therefore should understand the fossil fuel problem intimately. The first question I'm asked is why didn't I buy a Prius.
The simple straightforward answer is the cost. We test drove a Prius, I drove a Corolla for years and was very happy with it and therefore Toyota, and I really liked driving the Prius...but it costs $6000 more then the car we bought. The common response is that I would save that in gas. Well after hearing this many times, I did the math. Considering that we would be financing that extra $6000, it actually translates to an increase in price of $6926.22 over the life of the loan. Assuming all else to be equal (maintenance, reliability, safety, both cars are PZEV, etc) Driving each car for 100,000 miles with gas being $4.00/gal, which it isn't yet and I think some federal relief is going to kick in before it gets there and if it gets there it won't stay there consistently for the duration, but we'll figure and average price of $4 over the next 10 years or so results in these costs, now I admit these numbers might be biased, because I used a 45 mile/gal figure for the Prius, which is not the rated value, but what average drivers report, and 28 miles/gal for the VW which is what I'm getting.: Prius $8,888, VW:$14,285. Difference: $5,397. Making the VW overall ~$1500 less then the Prius. Now, this may not seem like a big difference, but 1) Have you seen what they pay young scientists these days? Not enough to be fully environmentally friendly that's for sure. 2) I'm debt conscious, and may or may not have to qualify for another mortgage in the next year or so, an extra $7000 in the debt category makes a difference to me. 3) DH hated driving the Prius, and was determined to see how terrible he could do on gas mileage...meaning I doubt we'd ever see 45 mpg Also, we never got the real time gas mileage meter above 32 miles/gallon on a fairly long test drive...so the 55 they advertise is suspicious to me. 4) For us that difference was even greater since we had $725 in VW credits and they gave me nearly $1000 more then Toyota was going to for my old Corolla.
Now, does this make me un-environmentally friendly? Many people would say yes. I say no. I did seriously consider buying the Prius, if for no other reason than to support the alternate technology that I very strongly believe in. But, life is a balance, and making a purchase that large involves a lot of decisions, right now the big one being, can we afford the monthly payment and still put food (most of which is organic) on the table. Prius: No, VW: Yes.
So I continue to alter my life style in ways I can both feel good about and afford. Envirosaxs, locally grown food, carpooling almost everyday, recycling, high efficiency light bulbs, regulated thermostats, etc. I'm considering a TerraPass for the cars, but I need to spend some time doing the research on that before I purchase.
Maybe once I'm not a "young" scientist anymore I can truly afford to Go Green all the way.
Since we recently bought a new car, (VW Rabbit), which I'm totally in love with...and I am a atmospheric scientist, and therefore should understand the fossil fuel problem intimately. The first question I'm asked is why didn't I buy a Prius.
The simple straightforward answer is the cost. We test drove a Prius, I drove a Corolla for years and was very happy with it and therefore Toyota, and I really liked driving the Prius...but it costs $6000 more then the car we bought. The common response is that I would save that in gas. Well after hearing this many times, I did the math. Considering that we would be financing that extra $6000, it actually translates to an increase in price of $6926.22 over the life of the loan. Assuming all else to be equal (maintenance, reliability, safety, both cars are PZEV, etc) Driving each car for 100,000 miles with gas being $4.00/gal, which it isn't yet and I think some federal relief is going to kick in before it gets there and if it gets there it won't stay there consistently for the duration, but we'll figure and average price of $4 over the next 10 years or so results in these costs, now I admit these numbers might be biased, because I used a 45 mile/gal figure for the Prius, which is not the rated value, but what average drivers report, and 28 miles/gal for the VW which is what I'm getting.: Prius $8,888, VW:$14,285. Difference: $5,397. Making the VW overall ~$1500 less then the Prius. Now, this may not seem like a big difference, but 1) Have you seen what they pay young scientists these days? Not enough to be fully environmentally friendly that's for sure. 2) I'm debt conscious, and may or may not have to qualify for another mortgage in the next year or so, an extra $7000 in the debt category makes a difference to me. 3) DH hated driving the Prius, and was determined to see how terrible he could do on gas mileage...meaning I doubt we'd ever see 45 mpg Also, we never got the real time gas mileage meter above 32 miles/gallon on a fairly long test drive...so the 55 they advertise is suspicious to me. 4) For us that difference was even greater since we had $725 in VW credits and they gave me nearly $1000 more then Toyota was going to for my old Corolla.
Now, does this make me un-environmentally friendly? Many people would say yes. I say no. I did seriously consider buying the Prius, if for no other reason than to support the alternate technology that I very strongly believe in. But, life is a balance, and making a purchase that large involves a lot of decisions, right now the big one being, can we afford the monthly payment and still put food (most of which is organic) on the table. Prius: No, VW: Yes.
So I continue to alter my life style in ways I can both feel good about and afford. Envirosaxs, locally grown food, carpooling almost everyday, recycling, high efficiency light bulbs, regulated thermostats, etc. I'm considering a TerraPass for the cars, but I need to spend some time doing the research on that before I purchase.
Maybe once I'm not a "young" scientist anymore I can truly afford to Go Green all the way.
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