Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace

Ada Lovelace is hailed as the world’s first computer programmer.  She was born in 1815, the daughter of the poet Lord Byron.  Shortly after Ada’s birth, Lord and Lady Byron separated, leaving Lady Byron to raise Ada on her own.  Not wanting Ada to become a poet like her father, Lady Byron made sure Ada was taught mathematics and science.  When she was 17, Ada was introduced to Mary Somerville, who translated Laplace’s works into English.  At one of Mrs. Somerville’s dinner parties, Ada heard about Charles Babbage‘s idea for the analytical engine, a mechanical computer that would be the successor to the difference engine, which was a design for a mechanical calculator.

In 1842, mathematician Louis Menebrea wrote a summary of the analytical engine in an article in French.  Babbage enlisted Ada to translate it into English.  Ada translated it and added a set of notes, which ended up being three times as long as the original article.  Ada Lovelace and Babbage exchanged correspondence about the engine, and Ada predicted it could have many practical and scientific uses, such as composing complex music and creating graphics.  Ada’s notes also included a method of calculating the Bernoulli numbers.  This is considered the first computer program.

Unfortunately, the analytical engine was never built, partially due to a lack of funding.  Ada died in 1852, at the young age of 36, from uterine cancer.

Sources: 1, 2

Links!

Since I haven’t had much time to post due to midterms (1 down, 2 to go..), I figured I’d just post some links to some cool articles I found this week!  Perhaps I’ll find the time to write full entries on them next week.

1) Young Women Take Top Honors at Intel Science Talent Search 2011: A cool article mainly about the young woman who won first prize for her work on the effect of separating teenagers from their cell phones.  It also briefly mentions some of the other young women who won top awards.

2) Gains, and Drawbacks for Female Professors: Really interesting discussion of the status of female professors at M.I.T. 12 years after M.I.T. began making an effort to hire more women and address gender discrimination.

3) Women in STEM fields crossword puzzle:  I came really close to finishing it and then had to use Google, but I am happy to say that I got all the women in STEM clues!

4) New report details status of women in science and engineering at M.I.T.: M.I.T. writes about report on status of women faculty.

5) Women work to gain larger foothold in tech industry: Article from CNN about women in tech and the ways in which women are trying to increase their numbers.

Enjoy!

Statistics on minority women in science

I found some statistics from the NSF on the percentages of minority women in science and engineering, broken down by field.  I have created the graphs presented below with the intent of showing how, among women in science, minority women are underrepresented at the bachelor’s degree, graduate school, and PhD recipient levels.

The following plots show us the breakdown of women in each field by race/ethnicity (i.e. they show the percentage that each racial/ethnic group makes up out of all women in the field).

The racial/ethnic makeup (in 2009) of the U.S. was as follows: 65% White, 15.8% Hispanic/Latino, 12.4% Black/African American, 4.5% Asian, 0.8% American Indian/Alaska Native (the rest of the percentages are made up of the categories Other, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Two or more races).

Next, I’ll be looking at similar statistics for the professor level.  It is clear that while women in general are underrepresented in math and science, in many STEM fields it is even more pronounced for Black and Hispanic minority women.

Data obtained from the following reports:

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/pdf/tab5-7.pdf

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/pdf/tab3-1.pdf

http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/wmpd/pdf/tab7-7.pdf

Messenger spacecraft goes into orbit around Mercury

Mercury

This morning, the Messenger spacecraft became the first spacecraft to go into orbit around Mercury.  Mercury is our solar system’s smallest planet, and it is also the closest planet to the sun.  Mercury has a highly elliptical orbit, with it’s distance from the sun varying between 28.5 million miles and 43 million miles (for perspective, Earth is 93 million miles away from the sun).  It took Messenger 6 and a half years to reach Mercury and then position itself in such a way that it could go into orbit.  Messenger will get as close as 124 miles to the surface of Mercury. Mercury has an average surface temperature of 336 degrees Fahrenheit, but can get as hot as 800 degrees Fahrenheit and as cold as -280 degrees Fahrenheit.

During its entire mission, Messenger will complete 730 orbits around Mercury, completing one orbit every 12 hours.  Messenger will collect data about Mercury’s composition, surface features, magnetic field, and exosphere.  Mercury’s gravity is not strong enough to maintain an atmosphere, but it does have an unstable exosphere containing a variety of elements and water vapor.

Messenger's orbit around Mercury (from http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/index.php)

Before Messenger, the last spacecraft to visit Mercury was Mariner 10 in the 1970s.  Mariner 10 flew past Mercury three times and provided a lot of new information, but left the majority of Mercury’s surface un-mapped.  Messenger has already flown by Mercury three times, in order to achieve the proper alignment for going into orbit.  It has already achieved a great deal, including finishing much of the mapping and drawing out Mercury’s magnetic field.

Artist's impression of Messenger (Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington)

Now that it is in orbit, Messenger can begin to collect data that can help us solve unanswered questions.  Scientists want to learn more about Mercury’s composition to help understand its 5.3 g/cm³ density, the highest in our solar system.  Scientists also want to study the structure and dynamics of Mercury’s core.  Mercury’s magnetic field suggests a partially molten core, but as of now, little is known about it.

Mae Jemison

Mae Jemison is an incredible woman and scientist, and is the first African American woman to travel in space.

Mae Jemison was born in 1956 and moved to Chicago early in her childhood.  As a child, she would spend many hours in the library reading about science.  When she was in high school, she decided to pursue a career in biomedical engineering.  After graduating from high school, she attended Stanford University on a National Achievement Scholarship.  Mae graduated from Stanford in 1977 with 2 bachelors degrees – one in chemical engineering and one in African and African-American Studies.  She then went to the Cornell University Medical College, receiving her doctor of medicine degree in 1981.  While she was at Cornell, she traveled to Cuba, Kenya, and to a refugee camp in Thailand to provide people with medical care.  Dr. Jemison became a Peace Corps Medical Officer for Sierra Leone and Liberia, where she also did medical research and taught.  After returning to the U.S., she took a job as a general practitioner.  She also enrolled in graduate courses in engineering and applied to NASA’s astronaut program.  Her first application was turned down, but she did not give up and was one of 15 people accepted from an applicant pool of over 2,000.

After completing astronaut training, Jemison became a science mission specialist.  In 1992, on the 8-day mission STS-47 Spacelab-J, Jemison conducted experiments on motion sickness and weightlessness, as well as an experiment to see how tadpoles would develop in space (they developed fine!).

After leaving NASA, Jemison accepted a teaching fellowship at Dartmouth College and founded The Jemison Group, which is a company that designs and consults on technology.  At Dartmouth, she started the Jemison Institute for Advancing Technology in Developing Countries.  She also started “The Earth We Share” which is an international science camp where students do experiments and learn critical thinking.

In an interview, when asked what tips she could give to young girls about achieving their dreams, Jemison answered:

“First of all, understand that sometimes other people won’t have the same vision of you that you have of yourself. Don’t accept other people’s limitations as being reality. Also, understand that you have as much right as anyone else to be in this world, and to be in any profession you want. That’s the most important thing — you don’t have to wait for permission.”

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4

Female undergrads more likely to answer questions in math class when professor is female

Researchers from the University of Amherst recently studied the performance of undergraduate students with male and female math professors.  The differences that appear in the performance of female students is particularly fascinating.  The data breaks down like this:

1) Percentages of female students attempting to answer questions posed to the class (beginning of the semester)

• With male professor: 11%
• With female professor: 7%

2) Percentages of female students attempting to answer questions posed to the class (end of the semester)

• With male professor: 7%
• With female professor: 46%

3) Percentage of female students approaching professor for help after class (beginning of the semester)

• With male professor: 12%
• With female professor: 12%

4) Percentage of female students approaching professor for help after class (end of the semester)

• With male professor: 0%
• With female professor: 14%

Finally, the researchers evaluated how much women “identified” with mathematics and found that women were less confident in their mathematical abilities when their teachers were men (even when the women were scoring higher than men on tests).

So what does this tell us?  First of all, we need to make women scientists and mathematicians more visible!  Having female role models is  a significant way of boosting women’s confidence and participation in mathematics, so we need to show students that there are many successful female scientists and mathematicians.  Second, there are subtle factors that may alter a woman’s decision to pursue science or math.  While overt discrimination still exists, it is important to be aware of these subtleties, because they play a role in the under-representation of women in STEM fields as well.

Reference: Psych-Out Sexism by Shankar Vedantam

Happy International Women’s Day!

Today is the 100th annual International Women’s Day.  Women have come a long way in the sciences since 1911.  When Marie Curie won her second Nobel Prize in 1911, it was extremely unusual for a woman to be involved in science.  While women are still underrepresented in STEM fields, we have come a long way since then.  I thought today I’d share some statistics to show the progress we have made in science over the last 50 years or so.

In 1958, women were awarded 7.9% of doctorates in all science, engineering, and health fields.  In 2006, that number was 40.2%.

Percentages of women earning doctorates in specific fields: (statistics from NSF)

• Physical sciences – 1958: 3.5%, 2006: 29.0%
• Mathematics – 1958: 5.9%, 2006: 29.6%
• Life Sciences – 1958: 10%, 2006: 51.8%
• Engineering – 1958: 0.5%, 2006: 20.2%
• Computer Sciences: 1978: 9.1%, 2006: 21.3%

Percentages of tenured or tenure-track female faculty:

• Physical sciences – 1979: 3.8%, 2006: 17.0%
• Mathematics – 1979: 6.2%, 2006: 17.4%
• Life Sciences – 1979: 10.2%, 2006: 32.3%
• Engineering – 1979: 0.7%, 2006: 10.8%
• Computer Sciences: 1985: 12.6%, 2006: 21.2%

We have made so much progress, but there is still significant work to be done!  That is why it’s so important to give women the encouragement they need to pursue science and to demonstrate to younger women that there are many great female scientists and that pursuing science is a career option for women too.

Dealing with rejection

In this season of summer internship applications, rejections abound.  I feel like scientists are always applying for something or another; whether it is grants, internships, jobs, or scholarships.  And although we often have to deal with rejection, it never seems to get any easier.  So here are my tips for dealing with rejection! (They’re sort of slanted toward dealing with summer internship rejection, but I think they could be adapted for almost anything)

1) Give yourself a little time to wallow. Getting rejected sucks, and sometimes there is nothing you can do for the moment to make yourself feel better.  So let it out!  Cry if you need to.  It’s okay to be sad or angry.

2) Indulge. Give yourself a homework break for the night (unless there is something urgent!).  Curl up with a funny movie, hot chocolate, and popcorn (or whatever snacks you fancy).  Read web comics (Science-y ones are the best. I recommend XKCD and Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal).  Watch funny videos on youtube.  Look at cute pictures of animals.

How can you be sad looking at a kitten wearing a frog hat?

3) Remember that whatever program you got rejected from isn’t the only program in the world. Maybe you didn’t get into the Super Awesome Program Of Your Dreams, but there will be other opportunities for you to succeed.  There may be advantages to not getting into the Super Awesome Program Of Your Dreams.  And who knows?  Maybe you will get into the Even More Awesome Program Of Your Dreams.

4) Make a list of all the reasons why you make a good candidate. Usually, there’s no way of knowing why a program didn’t take you.  But getting rejected doesn’t mean you don’t have good qualities.  Remind yourself that they will miss out on your awesomeness, but that you will find another opportunity.

5) Try again! The more times you try, the more likely you are to get an acceptance.  Learn from your rejections.  Is there anything you could have done better on your application?  Identify these things, and fix them the next time around.  Trying will undoubtedly come with rejections, but every rejection brings you closer to an acceptance!

And remember this:

“Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” -Winston Churchill