[SPA] SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER, Volume XXV, Issue 1

[Newsletter Editor]

AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION
SPA SECTION NEWSLETTER
Volume XXV, Issue 1
Jan.07,2018

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Table of Contents

1. JGR-Space Physics Editor Blog Monthly Highlights

2. Reminder - Diversity in SPA Nominations for AGU Fellow 

3. MEETING: International Symposium "Environments of Terrestrial Planets Under the Young Sun: Seeds of Biomolecules", Greenbelt, Maryland, April 9-13, 2018

4. MEETING: Magnetospheres of the Outer Planets 2018, Boulder, Colorado, July 9-13

5. MEETING: Systems Science Workshop in Los Alamos, New Mexico, July 24-26, 2018

6. Special Plenary Session at TESS: Unconscious Bias in Space Physics: what is it and what are the solutions?

7. Joint UTSA/SwRI Graduate Physics Program in San Antonio, TX 

8. JOB OPENING: Heliophysics Program Scientist, NASA Headquarters

9. JOB OPENING: Magnetospheric Scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center

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Announcement Submission Website: http://goo.gl/forms/qjcm4dDr4g


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JGR-Space Physics Editor Blog Monthly Highlights

From: Mike Liemohn (liemohn at umich.edu)

This fall, one of the Editors of JGR Space Physics, Yuming Wang, conducted a webinar on publishing in AGU journals, entirely in Chinese. A writeup about it is here:
     https://liemohnjgrspace.wordpress.com/2017/12/20/manuscript-submission-webinar-in-chinese/

Here are some other posts from the last month that you might find interesting:

December 11: The free e-book on scientific writing is still available. Email me.
     https://liemohnjgrspace.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/free-e-book-on-scientific-writing/

December 21: AGU has some tips for how to make your paper more discoverable online
     https://liemohnjgrspace.wordpress.com/2017/12/21/toolkit-for-promoting-your-paper/

December 30: Plain Language Summaries are here to stay. Here are some pointers for writing a good one.
     https://liemohnjgrspace.wordpress.com/2017/12/30/more-on-plain-language-summaries/

Main Website:   http://liemohnjgrspace.wordpress.com/


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Reminder - Diversity in SPA Nominations for AGU Fellow 

From: Liz MacDonald (e.a.macdonald at nasa.gov)

Happy new year SPA community! AGU Honors season will soon be upon us once again. A longstanding challenge is to achieve representative diversity of scientists in the list of SPA Fellows. This is a final announcement of a new SPA-wide community effort to tackle this challenge. The nomination task force will begin soon, and all those who support this effort are urged to sign up here: bit.ly/AGUpledge. 

How do we meet this challenge?  Simple: nominate for AGU Fellow more scientists from underrepresented groups.  We need a community effort to accomplish this goal.  With the approval of SPA Leadership, we are forming a Nomination Task Force whose goal is to achieve equal opportunity (for all SPA members) in being chosen as an AGU Fellow.  Its specific work is to encourage nomination packages from a wider and more representative fraction of SPA.  

For example, the current statistics we have:  
(A) Women make up about 20% of AGU membership, but only about 13% of all current AGU Fellows (from SPA) are women.  https://spa.agu.org/awards/fellows/

(B) Nomination rates for women scientists (from SPA) are low:      
-  In 2015, only one (1) of the 16 nominations was a woman. That’s 6%.  
-  In 2016, only two (2) out of 14 nominations were women.  That’s 14%.
-  In 2017, zero (0) out of 15 nominations (from SPA) were women.  That’s 0%.

(C) Number for other underrepresented groups may be more difficult to obtain.  However, our colleagues in astrophysics and planetary science have studied the workplace experience for a variety of underrepresented groups:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017JE005256/epdf

To find out more about the motivation and work of this task force, please feel free to contact Jerry Goldstein (jgoldstein at swri.edu) or Alexa Halford (alexa.j.halford at aero.org).  The task force will be led by SM secretary Liz MacDonald (e.a.macdonald at nasa.gov) with meetings beginning in January.

A sign-up page for all to express support for the underlying goal of helping to increase the diversity of SPA fellows is here: bit.ly/AGUpledge
Therein, you can also sign up for the NTF and find more information. 

Sincerely Yours, 
Jerry Goldstein, Chair, SPA Fellows Committee  
Alexa Halford, Member, SPA Fellows Committee 
Elizabeth MacDonald, SM Secretary  
Anthony J. Mannucci, SA Secretary 
Christina M. Cohen, SPA President-elect  
Larry Paxton, SPA President 


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MEETING: International Symposium "Environments of Terrestrial Planets Under the Young Sun: Seeds of Biomolecules", Greenbelt, Maryland, April 9-13, 2018

From: Vladimir Airapetian (vladimir.airapetian at nasa.gov)

The "Environments of Terrestrial Planets Under the Young Sun: Seeds of Biomolecules" Symposium will be held on April 9-13, 2018, hosted by the Sellers Exoplanet Environments Collaboration at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD, USA (see GSFC/SEEC site at https://sedwebtest.gsfc.nasa.gov/600/seec/Events/Environments_of_Terrestrial_Planets_Under_the_Young_Sun.html )

This symposium is a major international interdisciplinary conference in the emerging area of astrobiology covering astrophysical, physico-chemical, atmospheric and geological aspects of environments of early terrestrial planets with a focus on the impacts of the young Sun’s space weather on the precursors of life.
The central objective of the Symposium is to unify and coordinate these efforts to understand, and characterize heliophysical, magnetospheric, ionospheric, climate and their interaction with geological environments on the early Earth, Mars and Venus and their impacts on the initiation of prebiotic chemistry.

The proposed symposium will also facilitate novel ideas, approaches, methodologies and emerging views on the characterization of local environments coupled to the global atmosphere and planetary surface that may have created favorable (or detrimental) conditions for initiation of prebiotic chemistry. This meeting will also review and discuss advances in our understanding of theoretical and experimental approaches to define pathways to complex, sugars, nucleotides, biopolymers and eventually to RNA molecule.

Please register for the meeting at 
https://sedwebtest.gsfc.nasa.gov/600/seec/Events/Apr2018ConferencePreregistrationForm.html


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MEETING: Magnetospheres of the Outer Planets 2018, Boulder, Colorado, July 9-13

From: Fran Bagenal (bagenal at colorado.edu)

The 2018 conference on Magnetospheres of the Outer Planets will be held at the University of Colorado, Boulder on July 9-13. The time is ripe to compare data from the last orbits of Cassini around Saturn with the polar orbits of Juno around Jupiter. And to keep thinking about those weird and wonderful magnetospheres of Uranus and Neptune. Information about the meeting is here http://lasp.colorado.edu/home/mop/mop2018/ and the link for (un)subscribing to the MOP email distribution is here https://lists.colorado.edu/sympa/info/mop_conference . 


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MEETING: Systems Science Workshop in Los Alamos, New Mexico, July 24-26, 2018

From: Joe Borovsky (jborovsky at spacescience.org)

A 3-day workshop “Exploring Systems-Science Techniques for the Earth’s Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Thermosphere” will be held July 24-26, 2018 at Fuller Lodge in Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA.

The workshop website is:
http://gemelli.spacescience.org/mdenton/ssworkshop/

The goals of this workshop are
(1) to assess the system properties of the M-I-T
(2) to establish new mathematical techniques for the M-I-T system
(3) to develop systems-science methodologies specific to the M-I-T and its measurements
(4) to explore collaborations and funding opportunities
(5) to discuss ideas, problems, needs, …

The workshop will be a mix of presentations and audience-participation discussions.

The workshop conveners are:
Joe Borovsky, Space Science Institute, Los Alamos
	jborovsky at spacescience.org
Enrico Camporeale, Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica, Amsterdam
	e.camporeale at cwi.nl
Mick Denton, Space Science Institute, Los Alamos
	mdenton at spacescience.org
Jeff Thayer, University of Colorado, Boulder
	Jeffrey.Thayer at colorado.edu
Juan Alejandro Valdivia, Universidad de Chile, Santiago
	alejo at macul.ciencias.uchile.cl
Simon Wing, JHU Applied Physics Lab, Laurel
	Simon.Wing at jhuapl.edu

Los Alamos is located in the mountains of Northern New Mexico. The weather in July should be pleasant and not hot. The workshop will be held in the historic Fuller Lodge in downtown Los Alamos:
https://www.osti.gov/opennet/manhattan-project-history/Resources/photo_gallery/fuller_lodge.htm
Hotel information can be found on the conference website.

Los Alamos is a 2-hour drive from the Albuquerque airport (ABQ) or a 1-hour drive from the Santa Fe airport (SAF). More travel information can be found on the conference website.

There will be no registration fee for the workshop. Please contact Joe Borovsky (jborovsky at spacescience.org) to get on the attendance list and to get in the workshop schedule.

For more info, contact Joe Borovsky or anyone on the organizing committee.


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Special Plenary Session at TESS: Unconscious Bias in Space Physics: what is it and what are the solutions?

From: Holly Gilbert (holly.r.gilbert at nasa.gov)

We invite the entire SPA and SPD to join us at TESS (May 20-24, 2018 in Leesburg, VA) for a plenary session on unconscious bias – also known as ‘implicit bias’. Unconscious bias refers to the attitudes and stereotypes that affect our understanding, actions, and decisions in an unconscious manner. Unconscious biases are an inherent part of the human brain, and every person has them, including everyone in the SPA and SPD communities. You can test to see your biases at https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/. Even in modern society, they often manifest as biases against underrepresented groups in science and engineering. While the individual acts resulting from unconscious bias are less serious than harassment or overt discrimination, their pervasive and endemic nature makes them a significant problem. (For information on harassment see the AGU https://ethics.agu.org/files/2013/03/Scientific-Integrity-and-Professional-Ethics.pdf and AAS ethics and anti-harassment statements https://aas.org/policies/anti-harassment-policy). Even though it has been demonstrated repeatedly that diversity is important to the growth, vitality, and innovation in sciences, unconscious bias adversely influences proposal and journal reviews, recommendation letters, talk and panel invites, discussions at conferences and workshops, and thereby affects hiring decisions, prestigious award results and funding. This session seeks to identify how unconscious decision-making occurs, and then how we can override it with conscious, unbiased decisions. The session will begin with an expert on the subject who will provide an overview, definitions, impacts, statistics and resources. This will be followed by a panel of members in the SPA and SPD communities who will discuss positive actions our community can take. There will be ample time for open questions from the audience.  The goal is for our community to be a true meritocracy by actively and consciously working together towards eliminating biases wherever we can.

Organizer:  Alexa Halford, Aerospace Corp., alexa.j.halford at aero.org
Co-organizers:
Nicholeen Viall, GSFC, nicholeen.m.viall at nasa.gov
Katherine Garcia-Sage, Catholic Univ. America, katherine.garcia-sage at nasa.gov
Yaireska Collado-Vega, GSFC, yaireska.m.colladovega at nasa.gov


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Joint UTSA/SwRI Graduate Physics Program in San Antonio, TX 

From: Heather Elliott, Mihir Desai (helliott at swri.edu)

Since 2004, a physics graduate program has been offered in partnership between the University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI).  UTSA is the second largest component university of The University of Texas System, with an enrollment of more than 28,000 students. SwRI's Space Science and Engineering Division is a leader in space physics and planetary science research with major involvement in numerous NASA missions. The participation by SwRI offers students a chance to be involved in many of the most exciting ongoing NASA missions (Juno, MMS, LRO, Van Allen Probes, New Horizons, TWINS, IBEX) and future missions (e.g., Europa Clipper, JUICE, Bepi Columbo, Solar Probe).  

UTSA/SwRI graduate students can engage in data analysis and instrument design & calibration, and even lead their own projects.  Some past or current projects include (for example):  analysis of Cassini observations of Enceladus’ water vapor plume, design of a new ion mass spectrometer, interpretation of the first New Horizons measurements from Pluto, and investigation of reconnection in Earth’s magnetosphere. During one year, the students in our laboratory class got to perform the calibration on one of the IBEX instruments now flying and obtaining phenomenal new observations of the interstellar boundary.  

Our areas of space physics include:
            Solar & Heliospheric physics           
            Planetary Science
            Magnetospheric physics
            Space Science instrumentation
            Astrophysics
Our website is http://www.utsa.edu/physics/, with the joint program details at http://grad.space.swri.edu.

The deadlines for application:  
1 February 2018 for entry in Fall 2018.  
1 October 2018 for entry in Spring 2019.  
Application procedures and additional information:
- Visit http://graduateschool.utsa.edu/admissions/graduate-application/ and  http://grad.space.swri.edu/application/how_to_apply.html
- Or contact Professor Mihir Desai at mdesai at swri.edu or +1 210 522 6754.
You are welcome to talk directly to current graduate students at utsaphysicsstudents at listsrv-svr.itc.swri.org.

Financial support is available to students through Research Assistantships while conducting research for SwRI's Space Science and Engineering Division (http://www.swri.edu).


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JOB OPENING: Heliophysics Program Scientist, NASA Headquarters

From: Elsayed R. Talaat (elsayed.r.talaat at nasa.gov)

NASA’s Science Mission Directorate (SMD) is seeking an experienced scientist to fill a Program Scientist position within the Heliophysics Division.  The incumbent will manage major research and analysis and advanced technology programs, as well as represent the scientific interests of several current and future NASA missions within SMD.  The incumbent will participate in developing budgets for major agency initiatives, program plans for data analysis and science operations, and long-range strategic plans for SMD.  This position is an excellent opportunity for an experienced scientist to affect positively the future of Heliophysics in the U.S.

Applicants are expected to be able to succeed in a demanding work environment and to demonstrate a high degree of initiative.  Applicants should be familiar with the U.S. grants programs and possess an ability to communicate effectively with the stakeholders in SMD activities, including the scientific community, educators, the media and others. Salary is competitive with senior scientists at universities and NASA Centers.

Open to all U.S. citizens: HQ18D0004 - http://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/487663800

Open to civil servants in the U.S. government:  HQ18C0015 - http://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/487663600


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JOB OPENING: Magnetospheric Scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center

From: Michael Purucker (michael.e.purucker at nasa.gov)

The Planetary Magnetospheres Laboratory of the Solar System Exploration Division (SSED) at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) located in Greenbelt, Maryland has a civil service position open for a Magnetometry Scientist, at either the Junior or mid-career levels. The Solar System Exploration Division conducts theoretical and experimental research to explore the solar system and understand the formation and evolution of planetary systems. For more information about the duties of this position and requirements or to apply please see:
http://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/487865100  (GS-13 position)
and
https://www.usajobs.gov/GetJob/ViewDetails/487885200 (GS-15 position)

We will be hiring a single individual, at either a junior or mid-career level, to fill this position. More Information about the SSED can be found at http://science.gsfc.nasa.gov/solarsystem  Specific questions about the SSED and this position can be directed to Michael.e.purucker at nasa.gov


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SPA Newsletter Editorial Team: Peter Chi (Editor), Guan Le (Co-Editor), Sharon Uy, Marjorie Sowmendran, Todd King, and Kevin Addison

*************** END OF NEWSLETTER ****************