Women to Follow During the Coronavirus/Covid-19 Pandemic

During the coronavirus pandemic, listening to experts—and those who most closely follow the virus, its effects, and the effort to combat it—is crucial. And from analysts and academics to reporters and epidemiologists; several dedicated, hard-working, qualified women have stepped up to provide information and insight. Follow the women in this list for information, clarity, and inspiration during this difficult time.

Esther Choo, ER physician, Portland, Oregon
Dr. Choo, an emergency room physician, shares her experiences from the front lines of the coronavirus crisis on her broadcast “Doctor’s Log https://www.radio.com/media/podcast/doctors-log,” giving a twice-weekly report detailing the threats, challenges, and experiences from her own ER. Her topics include ventilator shortages, unexpected secondary consequences of the virus and our efforts to fight it, and the need for personal protective equipment for healthcare workers.

Yamiche Alcindor, PBS NewsHour correspondent and political contributor to NBC News and MSNBC
Alcindor reports on the cultural and social impact, responsibility of leaders, and how health officials and political leaders are handling the crisis and remaining transparent during the pandemic.

Tara C. Smith, professor of epidemiology at Kent State University College of Public Health
Dr. Smith, an infectious disease epidemiologist and science communicator, looks at how diseases spread, covers other topics becoming more relevant to many lately such as vaccines, and examines various aspects of how the virus is being studied, such as genomics.

Weijia Jiang, CBS News correspondent
Jiang has covered the last two United States presidential administrations extensively, and has been covering how the United States combats virus. Her forthright questioning of political leadership and regular communication provide information and context.

Sue Desmond-Hellmann, physician, researcher, former CEO of Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
Dr. Desmond-Hellmann, known for her work as an AIDS researcher and overseeing the world’s largest charitable foundation, focuses on business and philanthropic responses, the lives lost and affected by the virus, scientific breakthroughs, and looking forward.

Kaitlan Collins, CNN correspondent
Collins, known for covering the crisis including economic and medical strategies and fallout, is known for asking tough questions and also uses her platform to promote other voices covering the pandemic.

Dara Kass, ER physician and professor at Columbia University Medical Center
Dr. Kass posts regular information about the virus and outbreak, and advocates for informed, capable, transparent leadership and open communication.

Francesca Chambers, McClatchy correspondent
Chambers has covered political issues for several years and is now reporting on the response to the virus. Her recent reporting includes testing and outreach efforts to reduce coronavirus deaths among African American communities.

Jen Gunter, physician and New York Times contributor
An OB-GYN, Dr. Gunter discusses the coronavirus from angles ranging from public health to personal hygiene and intimacy. She also boosts several other leading voices discussing the pandemic.

Juliette Kayyem, national security analyst for CNN
Kayyem, a business owner and former assistant secretary at the Department of Homeland Security, offers insightful breakdowns of various aspects of preparedness, leadership, and the response to the virus, especially in the United States.

Angela Rasmussen, virologist, Center of Infection and Immunity, Columbia University
Dr. Rasmussen is a researcher who focuses on highly pathogenic viruses like Covid-19. She addresses scientific and everyday concerns about the virus in an accessible, informative way.

Paula Reid, CBS News correspondent
Reid, a journalist who has covered American leadership for years, has recently become known for her pressing questions and drive to go deeper while covering the outbreak. She shares news and analysis from many other sources on her platform as well.

Steffanie Strathdee, professor and Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences, University of California San Diego School of Medicine
Dr. Strathdee, an infectious disease epidemiologist, shares both professional and personal experiences, having advocated for a cure for her husband after he contracted an antibiotic-resistant bug.

Let us know who we missed, and keep following these and other leading voices as we come together during this time help women, and those of all genders everywhere, stay safe and healthy.

Lego launching set featuring women stars of NASA

Representation matters in all forms -- even when that form is less than two inches tall. Women's history in STEM professions has long gone underappreciated, but with a newly unveiled Lego minifigure set and more, that is starting to change. The new set sheds light on women's contributions to the U.S. space program. Read more, and keep an eye out for celebrations of women who have led the way in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. cnet.com - Lego fans want to see brick versions of women in the sciences, and the toy company has heard them.

In 2016, 10,000 supporters on the Lego Ideas fan-created projects site backed a Women of NASA set. Lego announced on Tuesday it will produce the set, which was proposed by Lego fan and science writer and editor Maia Weinstock.

The approval of the set comes on the heels of popular 2016 movie "Hidden Figures," which explores the contributions of black women to the space agency and the launch of astronaut John Glenn into orbit in the early 1960s. Katherine Johnson, one of the scientists featured in the film, appears in the Lego minifig set.

The project also includes computer scientist Margaret Hamilton, astronaut Sally Ride, astronomer Nancy Grace Roman and astronaut Mae Jemison.

Weinstock's vision for the set includes minifig representations of each woman and a group of vignettes that feature mini versions of the space shuttle and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Lego previously delved into the world of NASA with the Mars Science Laboratory Curiosity Rover set, which is now retired.

by Amanda Kooser

Read more

Want to receive early-bird invitations to our global events, custom-tailored content we think you'll love, and get exclusive access to "The World Women Report"?

Join Us by Subscribing NOW!

India’s rocket women

Women really are making their mark around the world -- and even out of it. We were so excited to see "India's rocket women" celebrating the country putting a satellite in orbit around Mars. Not only were the women involved with and leading the Mars orbiter mission, the Indian Space Research Organization has several women scientists in key positions helping the country explore space. The Deccan Chronicle got to know a few of these remarkable women. deccanchronicle.com - The overwhelming success of India’s space missions has highlighted the role of the country’s women scientists.

Think Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), think Vikram Sarabhai, Satish Dhawan, G. Madhavan Nair, Rodham Narsimha and a host of geniuses. They build on an earlier generation of scientists who worked to push India’s space frontiers, men who came to define the contours of the country’s scientific rediscovery — C.V. Raman and Meghnad Saha. But times are changing.

Two years ago, as Indian scientists successfully put a satellite Mangalyaan into orbit around Mars, history was scripted. Away from the dour image of spectacled and formally suited nerds working on complex diagrams and theories, this snapshot of Indian scientists, who achieved the feat in a record 15 months, was warmly refreshing — women dressed in resplendent saris, chatting gaily as they went about their work. Given that they have to work hard at home as well, faced as they are with societal discrimination, the Isro story remains a landmark not just for Indian science, but the women behind it.

Ritu Karidhal — from sky watcher to scientist

Ritu Karidhal is the Lucknow-born deputy operations director of the Mars Orbiter Mission. As a little girl growing up in Lucknow, Ritu was an avid sky watcher who “used to wonder about the size of the moon, why it increases and decreases. I wanted to know what lay behind the dark spaces,” she says.

A student of science, she scoured newspapers for information about NASA and ISRO projects, collected news clippings and read every detail about anything related to space science. After getting her PG degree, “I applied for a job at ISRO and that’s how I became a space scientist,” she says.

Eighteen years later, she has worked on several projects at ISRO, including the prestigious Mars mission, which thrust her and her colleagues into the limelight. She told a news portal in 2015 that she had to conceptualise and ensure the execution of the craft’s autonomous brain so that it could function on its own and even overcome malfunctions.

Manoj Joshi and B. R. Srikanth, Deccan Chronicle

Read more

Want to receive early-bird invitations to our global events, custom-tailored content we think you'll love, and get exclusive access to "The World Women Report"?

Join Us by Subscribing NOW!

Fighting the STEM gender gap with stories of trailblazing female scientists

pri.org - For writer and illustrator Rachel Ignotofsky, the idea to profile 50 pioneering female scientists in her recent book, “Women in Science,” was spurred by conversations with educator friends. As they talked about the gender gap in science, technology, engineering and math fields, Ignotofsky realized women aren’t just underrepresented in STEM, itself — the stories about their contributions don't get much play, either. This story is based on a radio interview. Listen to the full interview.

“I just kept saying over and over again, we ... only talk about female scientists during women's history month,” she says. “We're not taught about them in school. We're not taught about them in history class, and the only one that we do talk about is Marie Curie.”

“So, what happens to young girls and boys when you're not introduced to these strong female role models, who all throughout history have made an immense impact on the sciences?”

The answer to that question is evident by the numbers: There’s a 22 percent gender gap among science and engineering grads, and a 52 percent gender gap among the entire STEM workforce, according to 2011 data from the United States Census Bureau. “I think when people close their eyes and think of who a scientist is, they don't see a woman,” Ignotofsky says.

A Day With the Women Scientists Protesting Trump

theatlantic.com - “I’m so anti-protest, and so anti-demonstration,” she told me. “Growing up in the U.S.S.R., I always have that sense that protest is theater.” Even after she moved to the United States, she retained her suspicion of demonstrations large and small. They seemed to rarely achieve their goals, and they reminded her of the government-planned pageantry of her youth. As a graduate student at the University of Colorado Boulder, she attended a protest during the run-up to the Iraq War—only to leave before it ended out of personal unease. Since then, her research into community ecology has taken her to the tropical rainforests of Costa Rica and the high-elevation deserts of Utah. It let her spend months studying leafcutter ants, a colony-dwelling creature that grows fungus for its food; and it introduced her to Pseudobombax septenatum, a tree sheathed in photosynthetic bark that can store water in its trunk for months at a time. But her life as a scientist didn’t bring her to a mass protest until January 21, 2017, when she joined roughly 50 other female scientists—and hundreds of thousands of demonstrators—at the Women’s March on Washington. She marched as part of 500 Women Scientists, a new advocacy group for science and scientists that she and several of her friends established in the weeks after the election. Most of the women walked in white lab coats, on which they had written with Sharpie the names of their heroes, mentors, and friends who could not attend. They chanted “What do we want? Data! When do we want it? Forever!” and “When I say peer, you say review! Peer! Review! Peer! Review!” Someone held a sign saying, “MAR-A-LAGO (Trump’s Resort) WILL BE UNDER WATER BY 2045.” At the bottom, in tiny text, it cited a report from Coastal Risk Consulting, a private firm that uses climate data to project future sea-level rise. They marched together, but it was the first time many of the members had met each other in person. 500 Women Scientists first attracted attention in late November after its post-election pledge garnered more than more than 10,000 signatures in a week. Since then, its members have sat on panels together and plotted the group’s next steps. But many did not actually gather together until Saturday, when women scientists associated with the group marched in Denver, Seattle, Los Angeles, and D.C.

This Turkish materials engineer is changing the way docs operate on breast cancer

geektime.com - Producing unique models for doctors to practice breast surgery, Özge Akbulut pushes the frontiers of material science in a challenge to VR-simulated surgeries I met Özge Akbulut by chance when we were leaving the Helsinki-Vantaa Airport a couple days ahead of the European startup conference Slush. We were part of a group conversation about what we were all doing there. That’s when she asked me a very unusual question.

“Do you want to see a breast?”

Reaching into her luggage, she pulled out one of her synthetic breasts. She and co-founder Barkın Eldem, MD, launched Surgitate, a materials startup that develops synthetic models to train prospective surgeons for breast surgery. In contrast to new virtual reality training tools, they provide a more realistic feeling of incisions, suturing, dissection, and reconstruction. Ultimately, they utilize advances in material science to quite literally reshape the way surgeons prepare for operations by building individualized breast molds for different patients according to specific features.

These Georgia Tech physicists helped prove Einstein right - Atlanta Magazine

We all know women have been making their mark on history for, well, all of recorded history. But two women profiled in a piece by Atlanta Magazine this month were part of a team that looked back well beyond that—billions of years back, in fact.

Deirdre Shoemaker, director of the Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, and longtime researcher Laura Cadonati discussed their findings recently. The breakthrough confirmed predictions made 100 years ago, by Albert Einstein. Their team confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity. The finding will affect how physicists study and describe the entire universe going forward.

If you find gravitational waves a bit tough to understand, you're not alone—we're a bit fuzzy on the details. But it's a fascinating, inspirational read, and just one more way women are—excuse the pun—making waves. Read more at the link to learn about their amazing work.

atlantamagazine.com - Deirdre Shoemaker has known from the time she was a 12-year-old science fiction fan that she wanted to spend her life studying black holes. But when she came to Georgia Tech in 2008 as a founding faculty member of the university’s Center for Relativistic Astrophysics, she found few other female postgraduates.

“You see women in biology, life sciences, and even math, but physics is still lagging for whatever reason,” says the bubbly Shoemaker, who in 2013 became director of the center, which researches cosmic mysteries like dark matter and particle physics.

This past February, Shoemaker and Laura Cadonati, a veteran researcher who joined Tech last year, were part of the international team that confirmed the existence of gravitational waves, a long-elusive cosmic feature first predicted a century ago by Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity.

A few days after the scientific breakthrough made headlines around the world, the two women delivered a presentation on the findings during a Sunday afternoon event sponsored by the Atlanta Science Tavern. Before an improbably standing-room-only crowd at the Decatur Recreation Center, they explained that the first gravitational waves ever to be detected had come from the collision and merger of two black holes—each about 30 times the mass of the sun—that occurred 1.3 billion years ago.

“The gravitational wave discovery,” Cadonati says, “has opened up new ways to study the universe” because the waves can be used to collect data about distant objects like neutron stars and cosmic events like the Big Bang.

Read more

The Movie About NASA’s Black Female Scientists That’s Been A Long Time Coming—ThinkProgress

Women, especially women of color, do not always enjoy the notoriety and recognition of their male peers—even when they are instrumental in the scientific progress of humanity. One movie, Hidden Figures, focuses on black women mathematicians working for NASA during the 1960s. ThinkProgress has more about the movie, the nonfiction book upon which it's based, and the movement to recognize women, especially women of color, as central players and leaders in the human story. Check out the trailer here, and read more at the link.

thinkprogress.org - The movie trailer premiered to Twitter fanfare on Sunday night during Olympic prime time. Sandwiched between two Olympic events, the timing of the new trailer seemed aimed at generating buzz for these long-overlooked women among the widest audience possible.

The trailer for Hidden Figures, an upcoming movie focusing on three black female mathematicians working at the NASA during the days of Jim Crow and the civil rights movement, attacks this erasure head on.

The highlights of the space race still loom large in the American imagination. John Glenn, the first man to orbit the earth, and Neil Armstrong, the first man to step on the moon, are both household names. But behind those celebrated men were legions of scientists and engineers, among them scores of brilliant women of all backgrounds, whose brainpower made it all possible. Those women, for the most part, have been forgotten — until now.

In the trailer, a white cop comes across the movie’s three central women — Katherine Johnson (Taraji P. Henson), Dorothy Vaughan (Octavia Spencer), and Mary Jackson (Janelle Monae) — marooned on the side of the road thanks to car trouble (the alternative, one of the women says half-joking and half-not, would be to “sit in the back of the bus”). When the cop asks for ID, they hand over a NASA ID card.

Read more