Wednesday, December 1, 2010
Thursday, October 7, 2010
100 best communities for young people
http://www.americaspromise.org/100Best
All three cities where I've lived (Edina, Northfield, and Durham) make the list :).
All three cities where I've lived (Edina, Northfield, and Durham) make the list :).
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Trip to Washington DC
David and I bought tickets to the finals of the Legg Mason tennis classic on a whim about a month ago. We enjoy watching the majors on TV and have always talked about going to a tennis tournament and finally did it. This last weekend, we went to DC and saw the sights on Saturday followed by the tournament on Sunday. It was a blast. We kind of ran ourselves into the ground though on Saturday because we went to the National Aquarium (not recommended by the way, it's way too small), the American History Museum, the Natural History Museum, half of the Air and Space Museum (the space part), and all the monuments. Kind of crazy right? Needless to say, we were pretty tired on Sunday morning, but it was a lot of fun at the Legg Mason. I was hoping to see Andy Roddick, but unfortunately he lost in the quarters. But we got to see a bunch of good players, and possibly Tina Turner. The announcer said that it was her, but I'm not 100% sure he wasn't kidding. Oh well, we were too far to really tell. I posted pictures from our weekend on facebook if people want to take a look. Have a good day!
Saturday, July 24, 2010
another hot day in North Carolina
I hate North Carolina summers. I miss Minnesota. I like that the sun stays up until 8pm, but I despise how hot it is. It's relentless. And just when you think you can't take it anymore, you get a 102 degree like today when I had to play a 2 hour game of Ultimate after having just donated blood on Thursday. I know, I'm real smart about my timing. But when you have O- blood you have to donate, it's part of having blood arrogance. Yeah, that's right. I said it. I'm proud of my blood type, and you should all be jealous. Does everyone know their blood type? Do you know how blood typing works? It's super cool. Good 'ole genetics at work. You can have one of three letters: A, B, and O and either be + or -. O people can give to A or B, but not the other way around. - people can give to + people, but not the other way around. Basically I can give to anyone, but can only get from another O-. Good thing my mom is O- :). I won't bore you with the nitty gritty biology behind blood typing, but just know that it's cool. I know, I'm a nerd.
Friday, July 16, 2010
mid-summer cleaning
Today in lab we decided to defrost one of our -20 freezers. It was so cleansing and therapeutic. I even started to clean out our cold room a little bit because I was basically on a cleaning spree. Who knew I was somewhat of a clean freak? Well, let's not push it that far. I've definitely fulfilled the don't-clean-anything-until-it's-really-bad-then-overhaul-clean-it mentality that I discovered in college. If only more people in my lab were like that. Unfortunately, it was like pulling teeth trying to empty out the freezer. Ugh. Anyways, here ends my rant.
Monday, July 5, 2010
fourth of july
wow, it's been a long time since I've posted. Well, to start things off again I'm going to post a comic that describes me today.
Friday, March 26, 2010
interesting article
Not surprisingly, things are getting really hectic towards the end of the semester especially because I'm working on a grant too. Aaahhh! Well, I was taking a quick break when I found an interesting article that I wanted to share with everyone. From my experiences, I completely get what they are talking about. One example (of many): I'm putting my thesis committee together, and there is one woman's name on the list out of 10. Pretty sad.
Bias Called Persistent Hurdle for Women in Sciences
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: March 21, 2010
A report on the underrepresentation of women in science and math by the American Association of University Women, to be released Monday, found that although women have made gains, stereotypes and cultural biases still impede their success.
The report, “Why So Few?,” supported by the National Science Foundation, examined decades of research to cull recommendations for drawing more women into science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the so-called STEM fields.
“We scanned the literature for research with immediate applicability,” said Catherine Hill, the university women’s research director and lead author of the report. “We found a lot of small things can make a difference, like a course in spatial skills for women going into engineering, or teaching children that math ability is not fixed, but grows with effort.”
The report treads lightly on the hot-button question of whether innate differences between the sexes account for the paucity of women at the highest levels of science and math.
Five years ago, Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, sparked a firestorm when he suggested that “there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude” reinforced by “lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination.”
The association’s report acknowledges differences in male and female brains. But Ms. Hill said, “None of the research convincingly links those differences to specific skills, so we don’t know what they mean in terms of mathematical abilities.”
At the top level of math abilities, where boys are overrepresented, the report found that the gender gap is rapidly shrinking. Among mathematically precocious youth — sixth and seventh graders who score more than 700 on the math SAT — 30 years ago boys outnumbered girls 13 to 1, but only about 3 to 1 now.
“That’s not biology at play, it doesn’t change so fast,” Ms. Hill said. “Even if there are biological factors in boys outnumbering girls, they’re clearly not the whole story. There’s a real danger in assuming that innate differences are important in determining who will succeed, so we looked at the cultural factors, to see what evidence there is on the nurture side of nature or nurture.”
The report found ample evidence of continuing cultural bias. One study of postdoctoral applicants, for example, found that women had to publish 3 more papers in prestigious journals, or 20 more in less-known publications, to be judged as productive as male applicants.
Making judgments about an individual’s abilities based on his or her sex is a classic form of discrimination, said Nancy Hopkins, an M.I.T. biology professor who created an academic stir in the 1990s by documenting pervasive, but largely unintentional, discrimination against women at the university.
Even if male math geniuses outnumbered female geniuses 3 to 1, Dr. Hopkins said, it would be reasonable to expect one female math professor for every three male professors at places like Harvard and M.I.T. “But in fact, Harvard just tenured its first female, after 375 years,” said Dr. Hopkins, who, famously, walked out of the room after Mr. Summers made his controversial remarks.
The university women’s report cited research showing that girls’ performance suffers from any suggestion that they do poorly at math. In one experiment, college students with strong math backgrounds and similar abilities were divided into two groups and tested on math. One group was told that men perform better on the test, the other that there was no difference in performance between the sexes. Their results were starkly different: in the group told that men do better, men indeed did much better, with an average score of 25 compared with the women’s 5. In the group told there was no difference, women scored 17 and men 19.
Any suggestion of advantage based on sex affects results, the research shows, even where there is no cultural stereotype.
In an experiment ostensibly testing “contrast sensitivity ability” — a made-up skill — men and women in a group told there was no difference between the sexes in such sensitivity rated their own ability equally. But in a group told that men were better at it, men rated their skills far higher than women did.
Teaching girls about how stereotypes affect performance, the report found, can diminish such effects.
In a separate survey of 1,200 female and minority chemists and chemical engineers by Campos Inc., for the Bayer Corporation, two-thirds cited the persistent stereotype that STEM fields are not for girls or minorities as a leading contributor to their underrepresentation.
Many in the Bayer survey, also being released Monday, said they had been discouraged from going into their field in college, most often by a professor.
“My professors were not that excited to see me in their classes,” said Mae C. Jemison, a chemical engineer and the first African-American female astronaut, who works with Bayer’s science literacy project. “When I would ask a question, they would just look at me like, ‘Why are you asking that?’ But when a white boy down the row would ask the very same question, they’d say ‘astute observation.’ ”
The university women’s report found that girls have less confidence in their math abilities than boys with equivalent achievement levels. Because most people choose careers where they believe they can do well, the report said, girls’ lesser belief in their skills may partly explain why fewer young women go into scientific careers. Both the university women’s report and the Bayer survey stress the need for more female mentors and role models.
But even as women earn a growing share of the doctorates in the STEM fields, the university women’s report found, they do not show up, a decade later, in a proportionate number of tenured faculty positions.
Bias Called Persistent Hurdle for Women in Sciences
By TAMAR LEWIN
Published: March 21, 2010
A report on the underrepresentation of women in science and math by the American Association of University Women, to be released Monday, found that although women have made gains, stereotypes and cultural biases still impede their success.
The report, “Why So Few?,” supported by the National Science Foundation, examined decades of research to cull recommendations for drawing more women into science, technology, engineering and mathematics, the so-called STEM fields.
“We scanned the literature for research with immediate applicability,” said Catherine Hill, the university women’s research director and lead author of the report. “We found a lot of small things can make a difference, like a course in spatial skills for women going into engineering, or teaching children that math ability is not fixed, but grows with effort.”
The report treads lightly on the hot-button question of whether innate differences between the sexes account for the paucity of women at the highest levels of science and math.
Five years ago, Lawrence H. Summers, then the president of Harvard, sparked a firestorm when he suggested that “there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude” reinforced by “lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination.”
The association’s report acknowledges differences in male and female brains. But Ms. Hill said, “None of the research convincingly links those differences to specific skills, so we don’t know what they mean in terms of mathematical abilities.”
At the top level of math abilities, where boys are overrepresented, the report found that the gender gap is rapidly shrinking. Among mathematically precocious youth — sixth and seventh graders who score more than 700 on the math SAT — 30 years ago boys outnumbered girls 13 to 1, but only about 3 to 1 now.
“That’s not biology at play, it doesn’t change so fast,” Ms. Hill said. “Even if there are biological factors in boys outnumbering girls, they’re clearly not the whole story. There’s a real danger in assuming that innate differences are important in determining who will succeed, so we looked at the cultural factors, to see what evidence there is on the nurture side of nature or nurture.”
The report found ample evidence of continuing cultural bias. One study of postdoctoral applicants, for example, found that women had to publish 3 more papers in prestigious journals, or 20 more in less-known publications, to be judged as productive as male applicants.
Making judgments about an individual’s abilities based on his or her sex is a classic form of discrimination, said Nancy Hopkins, an M.I.T. biology professor who created an academic stir in the 1990s by documenting pervasive, but largely unintentional, discrimination against women at the university.
Even if male math geniuses outnumbered female geniuses 3 to 1, Dr. Hopkins said, it would be reasonable to expect one female math professor for every three male professors at places like Harvard and M.I.T. “But in fact, Harvard just tenured its first female, after 375 years,” said Dr. Hopkins, who, famously, walked out of the room after Mr. Summers made his controversial remarks.
The university women’s report cited research showing that girls’ performance suffers from any suggestion that they do poorly at math. In one experiment, college students with strong math backgrounds and similar abilities were divided into two groups and tested on math. One group was told that men perform better on the test, the other that there was no difference in performance between the sexes. Their results were starkly different: in the group told that men do better, men indeed did much better, with an average score of 25 compared with the women’s 5. In the group told there was no difference, women scored 17 and men 19.
Any suggestion of advantage based on sex affects results, the research shows, even where there is no cultural stereotype.
In an experiment ostensibly testing “contrast sensitivity ability” — a made-up skill — men and women in a group told there was no difference between the sexes in such sensitivity rated their own ability equally. But in a group told that men were better at it, men rated their skills far higher than women did.
Teaching girls about how stereotypes affect performance, the report found, can diminish such effects.
In a separate survey of 1,200 female and minority chemists and chemical engineers by Campos Inc., for the Bayer Corporation, two-thirds cited the persistent stereotype that STEM fields are not for girls or minorities as a leading contributor to their underrepresentation.
Many in the Bayer survey, also being released Monday, said they had been discouraged from going into their field in college, most often by a professor.
“My professors were not that excited to see me in their classes,” said Mae C. Jemison, a chemical engineer and the first African-American female astronaut, who works with Bayer’s science literacy project. “When I would ask a question, they would just look at me like, ‘Why are you asking that?’ But when a white boy down the row would ask the very same question, they’d say ‘astute observation.’ ”
The university women’s report found that girls have less confidence in their math abilities than boys with equivalent achievement levels. Because most people choose careers where they believe they can do well, the report said, girls’ lesser belief in their skills may partly explain why fewer young women go into scientific careers. Both the university women’s report and the Bayer survey stress the need for more female mentors and role models.
But even as women earn a growing share of the doctorates in the STEM fields, the university women’s report found, they do not show up, a decade later, in a proportionate number of tenured faculty positions.
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