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IAU Office of Astronomy Development Stakeholder’s Workshop – Day 3 December 17, 2011

Posted by International.Chair in : Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASTRO), Technology Transfer, Business Development and Entrepreneurism (TBE) , add a comment

by Dr. Jarita Holbrook
Tuesday December 15, 2011

The morning began with two presentations about funding. One was given by Ravi Sheth about International Centre for Theoretical Physics (ICTP) in Trieste, Italy; the other by Ernst van Groningen about International Science Programme of Uppsala University, Sweden. Dr. van Groningen’s presentation included a framework much like a spreadsheet of things to think about and include before writing a request for funding that I thought was particularly useful. His talk can be seen at http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/19135075 starting at about 15 minutes into the broadcast. The rest of the morning was dedicated to two talks by popular vote: one by Pedru Russo and Valerio Ribeiro about Evaluation Metrics, the other by Carolina Govender about Evaluation & Planning focusing on having evaluation at every step of project planning. The first talk starts at about five minutes into the stream and the second about twenty one minutes into the stream.

The unique activity of the workshop was the Unconference Topics. Over the workshop there was a place for participants to write down topics that they wanted to discuss that they thought were important. Then the participants voted on each topic, those that received the most votes won. There were five popular topics:
1. Citizen Science,
2. Mobile Planetaria,
3. Distance Education,
4. Managing Volunteers, and
5. Evidence for economic development resulting from astronomy.

I joined the last group. After much discussion we determined there were four steps that OAD should take
A. The OAD should host a webpage where links to previous reports can be accessed. For example, it is possible to get actual amounts that governments spend on astronomy, as well as organizations such as NASA in the USA produce annual reports by state of the impact of NASA funding.
B. OAD should analyze the metrics and evaluation methods used in these existing reports and
C. determine if we need to develop new metrics to suit OAD goals or simply use existing ones.
D. OAD should develop a team of people that can then go to astronomy facilities and assess the economic impact of each. Why would such a team be important? As with all forms of evaluation and assessment associated with projects, the funders want to know where their money went and that positive things have come out of their investment. I would like to know who benefits from astronomy dollars and how this breaks down demographically by gender and ethnicity. To do this OAD will have to partner with more than just astronomers.

My thoughts about the workshop are positive. It brought together stakeholders who were primarily interested in
1. Educating the public about astronomy,
2. Attracting young people to become astronomers, and
3. Increasing the number of university level astronomy classes and programs worldwide.

As a result, most of the attendees were astronomers. For the next workshop, I would like to see stakeholders from the towns nearest observatories, from government offices responsible for development, from the United Nations Development Program, and perhaps indigenous rights groups. The point of the workshop was to help shape the breadth and scope of the new Office of Astronomy for Development, it would be interesting to get input from these development stakeholders.

IAU Office of Astronomy Development Stakeholder’s Workshop – Day 2 December 14, 2011

Posted by International.Chair in : Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASTRO), History, Policy and Education (HPE), Technology Transfer, Business Development and Entrepreneurism (TBE) , add a comment

by Dr. Jarita Holbrook
Tuesday December 14, 2011

The IAU Office of Astronomy for Development (OAD) has three established task forces. Tuesday December 13th, the workshop participants were assigned to task forces and met for the morning session. The goal was to brainstorm new ideas at the intersection of astronomy and development, but also to consider how to implement the published OAD Strategic Plan.

In the afternoon we had breakout sessions by regions. The divisions were Africa and the Middle East, Latin America, Asia Pacific, North America, and Europe. In these breakout sessions we were to examine our regional strengths and regional needs. North America consisted of representatives from the United States and Canada. Mexico joined the Latin America group.

As with other places worldwide North America has underserved populations that we would like to help such as First Nations/Native Americans, underrepresented groups, inner city underclass, etc. There were two tiers of needs, the first was to do things that astronomers normally do but reach these underserved communities. That is astronomy education and astronomy outreach, there are already many programs and networks to do these but these need to be extended to these communities. The second need was to consider social justice, cultural awareness, and egalitarian science in the context of astronomy for development.

This area was a fairly new way of thinking for astronomers and specific strategies, methods, actions and activities are left for the future. Unlike other parts of the world, North America is rich in resources including in plain old cash!

There are over 300 volunteers registered through the OAD website, few of these are from North America. Thus, there is a need to recruit volunteers. The North American group did not discuss WHERE an OAD node office should be located instead we focused on the issues discussed above.

OAD Workshop Participants Silvia Torres-Peimbert (Mexico), Postdoc Linda Strubbe (USA), and Graduate Student and NSBP Member Deatrick Foster (USA)

IAU Office of Astronomy Development Stakeholders’ Workshop – Day 1 December 13, 2011

Posted by International.Chair in : Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASTRO), History, Policy and Education (HPE), Technology Transfer, Business Development and Entrepreneurism (TBE) , add a comment

by Dr. Jarita Holbrook
Tuesday December 13, 2011

The first day was an opportunity for stakeholders to provide quick descriptions of their activities and how they wish to contribute to OAD or make use of OAD. Each person was to have five minutes and two slides. All of the presentations were interesting. What I found informative was the reports from the various divisions within the International Astronomical Union: IAU Commission 46: Education and Building Capacity and IAU Commission 55: Communicating Astronomy with the Public. Both of these have several working groups doing work relevant to OAD. Where the American Astronomical Society is very active regarding the direct needs of research astronomers, these two IAU commissions have been far more active socially beyond the needs of astronomers.

There were several groups focused specifically in Africa: AIMS-Next Einstein, the African Astronomical Society, South African Astronomical Observatory, and there was an artist group doing work in the town closest to the Observatory in Sutherland, South Africa.

I was given two minutes to represent the National Society of Black Physicists. I shared the following:

  • 1. The National Society of Black Physicists is a global professional society based in the United States.

    2. We are active participants in the African Astronomical Society.

    3. We are interested in international scientific collaborations.

    4. We are interested in international exchanges.

    5. We are exploring forming a regional node in the United States. We aren’t the only ones there is also Steward Observatory and the Vatican Observatory.

    6. We have a long-term investment in the development of astronomy in Africa.

    7. We offer our services to help OAD anyway we can.

    • There are three established task forces:

    1. Astronomy for Universities and Research

    2. Astronomy for Children and Schools

    3. Astronomy for the Public

    Today we will be meeting within these task force to brainstorm, keeping in mind the OAD mission: To help further the use of astronomy as a tool for development by mobilizing the human and financial resources necessary in order to realize its scientific, technological and cultural benefits to society. OAD Director Kevin Govender reminds us that astronomy is not the silver bullet to solve all the problems fo the world. We are also to consider the economic impact of our activities.

    The Global Office of Astronomy for Development December 10, 2011

    Posted by International.Chair in : Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASTRO), Technology Transfer, Business Development and Entrepreneurism (TBE) , add a comment

    by Dr. Jarita Holbrook
    Friday December 9, 2011

    The International Astronomical Union has opened the Global Office of Astronomy for Development in Cape Town, South Africa. The OAD was officially inaugurated in April 2011. The new office is housed in a refurbished building on the grounds of the South African Astronomical Observatory headquarters. It is part of the thriving astronomy community in South Africa.

    SAAO grounds

    My trip to South Africa has three purposes:

    1) To represent the National Society of Black Physicists at the first OAD stakeholders workshop, December 11 – 14, 2011. See http://www.astronomyfordevelopment.org/index.php/oadevents/oadworkshop.

    2) To plan the next African Cultural Astronomy conference for 2014 in Cape Town.

    3) To discuss the findings of my research on the South African National Astrophysics and Space Sciences Programme (NASSP) with NASSP instructors and administrators.

    Today, my focus is on the workshop. What is exciting is that the workshop is structured in an unique way that includes participant input as to what talks they want to hear on the last day! People have submitted possible talks for consideration. Given my absorption with finishing my book on NASSP, I did not submit a potential talk topic.

    My role in the OAD workshop is multifold: Working with Astronomy without Borders, Steward Observatory, and the National Society of Black Physicists, we first considered hosting the OAD in the United States, but ultimately chose to support the South Africa bid, which they won. However, there is the possibility of a USA OAD node, i.e. there is a chance of an OAD satellite office in the United States. Though I haven’t been part of any formal discussions this last year, I know that there is still some interest from US astronomers to have a local office. I think an office in the USA would give greater access to USA based funding organizations that might be interested in financially supporting OAD projects.

    More about OAD: Though based in South Africa, it is a global effort.

    GOAD Office Plaque

    OAD came out of one of the International Year of Astronomy 2009 (IYA2009) projects. There are many IYA2009 people involved in OAD and they will be attending the workshop. Through my IYA2009 involvement I know many of them.

    From the OAD website:

    “The mission of the OAD is to help further the use of astronomy as a tool for development by mobilizing the human and financial resources necessary in order to realize the field’s scientific, technological and cultural benefits to society.”

    OAD specifically addresses for the first time how astronomy positively impacts society economically as well as intellectually. Astronomers often think about and foster connections to K12 education and the public, but rarely think about how astronomy can stimulate local economies. OAD seeks to foster projects that encourage local economies and, more broadly, stimulate development. Though there is a historic connection between astronomy and economic development, it has not been the goal of or of great interest to astronomers. Thus, OAD marks a major change in the way astronomers think about themselves, what they do, and their impact on society.

    I’m looking forward to this workshop!

    OAD office space

    Texas’ Decision to Close Physics Programs Jeopardizes Nation’s Future September 14, 2011

    Posted by admin in : Health Physics (HEA), History, Policy and Education (HPE), Medical Physics (MED), Technology Transfer, Business Development and Entrepreneurism (TBE) , add a comment
    The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) has to varying degrees cut 60% of the undergraduate physics programs in State. This includes both programs at its two largest Historically Black Institutions, Texas Southern University (TSU) and Prairie View A & M University (PVAMU). Although all these institutions have the right to appeal the State’s decision, the dramatic nature of these and other actions strongly suggest that short-term politics, not good science education planning or sound economic policy, is motivating their actions.
     
    In 2009 Texas state schools produced 162 B.A./B.S. degrees in physics (and another 38 by its private schools).  But Texas produces 50% fewer B.S. physics degrees, per capita, than California.  Closing physics programs would therefore seem to be a step in the wrong direction.
     
    The State of Texas is leading the country down an abysmal path.  If all the other states were to adopt Texas’ approach, which the State of Florida is already considering, 526 of the roughly 760 physics departments in the US would be shuttered.  All but 2 of the 34 HBCU physics programs would be closed.  A third of underrepresented minorities and women studying physics would have their programs eliminated.  Physics training would be increasingly concentrated in larger elite universities with very adverse effects on the future scientific workforce.
     
    College physics programs are the incubators of content-driven K-12 physics teachers that sow the seed-corn of future Texas innovators.  Physics graduates are direct contributors to economic prosperity.  Even at the BS level a physics degree leads to high-paying jobs that fire the engines of innovation.
     
    Texas universities, including the flagship schools, have been unable to produce their fair share of African American B.S. physics graduates; producing at least 75% fewer African American baccalaureate degree recipients than they should (5 vs 20).  This number will become even worse once the physics programs at TSU and PVAMU disappear.
     
    In October 2000 the THECB adopted the “Closing the Gaps” plan with strong support from the state's educational, business and political communities. The plan is directed at closing educational gaps in Texas as well as between Texas and other states. It has four goals: to close the gaps in student participation, student success, excellence and research.  This plan with respect to physics is being betrayed by the elimination of the two physics programs at the two leading state HBCUs, particularly when one of them, TSU, has started to make significant gains in all four directions.
     
    The TSU physics program was created in 2004 through the separation of physics from the computer science department.  In 2005 its new chair was hired.  He revamped the program, replacing the old faculty with research driven faculty of national/international standing, representing some of the top universities in the world.
     
    A new curriculum, with workforce relevant physics tracks (including in health physics), was approved by the THECB in 2008. Since 2007, approximately $1,000,000 dollars was leveraged through the Office of Naval Research and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in support of the current health physics program.  Another $1,000,000 has been raised through federally-funded, and state-supported, research grants (NSF, NASA, DOD, Welch Foundation).  On September 1, 2011, TSU won its first $5,000,000 NSF CREST Center grant.
     
    TSU Physics has the only health physics program in the greater Houston area.  Health physicists are particularly needed in a city known for its Texas Medical Center complex, one of the world’s largest collection of medical research, diagnostic, and treatment centers.  By 2012, five of TSU’s seven graduates will have pursued the health physics track.  According to salary data from the Health Physics Society, certified B.S. health physicists can expect salaries of $106,000.
     
    TSU-Physics produced its first two students in May 2010, representing 40% the total African American physics B.S. degree recipients in TX.  State records show that for each of the last six years, the overall production of B.S. degrees in Physics, awarded to Blacks, by State schools, has been no more than five (5).  In May 2010, TSU produced 40% of these, with both graduates eventually going on to graduate studies at the University of Houston (UH). One is enrolled in the Ph.D. program in environmental engineering; the other is taking graduate physics courses.  
     
    By May 2012, TSU-Physics will have produced four new B.S. graduates, two of them African American.  By May 2013 it will produce six more (five of them African American).  The State of Texas considers any undergraduate program that can produce five graduates per year as programs performing at State expectations. Thus, clearly, TSU will be in compliance within the next two years.
     
    The principal critique by the THECB for cutting TSU-Physics is that there are too many low enrollment (i.e. less than ten students) upper level classes. As part of its appeal to the THECB, TSU-Physics was prepared to join the Texas Electronic Coalition for Physics, primarily involving small physics programs within the Texas A & M University system. Programs such as that at Tarelton State University (i.e. Texas A & M – Central Texas), the lead institution within the Consortium, pool their students with the other consortium members and teach common upper level courses through videoconferencing resources.
     
    Georgia’s Atlanta University Center, comprised of Morehouse, Spelman, and Clark Atlanta University, have historically contributed to the Georgia Institute of Technology performance as one of country’s top producers of Black engineers, by feeding them well prepared African American students.  This is a model that can be realized in Texas via Texas Electronic Coalition for Physics. 
     
    However, the THECB also cut these programs. They will only allow this consortium to stay, supposedly, provided only one institution awards the B.S. Physics degree. Clearly the THECB has no appreciation of the importance of mentoring physics majors, and the importance of some sense of ownership in the physics program by students and faculty. Without formal B.S. degrees at each institution, it is difficult for departments to receive grants, etc., thus precipitating a systematic demise of any such physics effort.
     
    Altogether the THECB decision is short-sighted and abandons tax-payer investments already made.  In the case of TSU-Physics these investments have already paid off, and the program is the verge of meeting the key THECB enrollment metric.  The THECB decision jeopardizes Texas’ overall economic prosperity and African American participation in it specifically.  And if the Texas model spreads to other states, the nation’s security will surely be put at risk.
     
     

    NSBP and sister societies respond to National Science Board regarding broader impacts criteria July 20, 2011

    Posted by admin in : History, Policy and Education (HPE) , add a comment

    Merit Review Task Force
    National Science Board
    Room: 1225N
    4201 Wilson Boulevard
    Arlington, Virginia 22230, USA

    Dear Merit Review Task Force,

    Thank you for the opportunity to comment on the proposed revised text for the Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts evaluation criteria.

    Members of the National Technical Association and other minority professional organizations are very concerned about the potential negative impact of the proposed changes to the Merit Review Criteria. We are particularly, concerned about the reduced visibility to the importance of STEM diversification.

    Firstly, the proposed changes to the broader impacts text can lead one to infer that diversity is an option and not required since one of the national goals addresses it explicitly. It appears to allow PIs to choose other goals and be evaluated without addressing diversity. Diversity appears to become an option rather than central to all programs and projects and activities, as stated in the existing criteria.

    Secondly, utilizing the broad base national goals as the core principles makes it very difficult to develop a clear framework to benchmark or measure the creativity, educational impacts and potential benefits to society of the programs, projects, reviewed. Each national goal embodies a multiplicity of challenges that are interrelated and dependent on other goals. Several goals address education, while others address workforce which are essential to the development of global competitiveness, yet another goal. Measuring impact at the goal level can become problematic. It is easier to identify underlying issues/causes that should be addressed to advance national goal(s) rather than focus on the goals themselves.

    We recommend that NSF make it clear that its commitment to diversity is unchanged and indicate how diversity will be factored into the evaluation of all programs, projects and activities regardless of which national goals are addressed.

    To advance the frontier of knowledge and achieve global competitiveness, a well trained American born workforce is imperative. Given the projected population demographics, the eligible workforce will shift more to people of color who are underrepresented in STEM. It is more critical than ever that NSF support programs that address workforce development and STEM education improvements to ensure America realizes its STEM related national goals. Whereas, linking programs to national goals is important, it is crucial to first define the national problems that need to be resolved to realize national goals and support research/models that resolve these issues.

    Based on these facts, we urge the Merit Review Task Force to focus on criteria changes that identify categories of problem/ issues it will support to advance national goals and at the same time support its commitment to diversity.

    Sincerely,

    National Organization of Black Chemists and Chemical Engineers
    National Society of Black Physicists
    National Technical Association

    Professional Self-Image and Astronomy November 12, 2010

    Posted by AstrOBloGs in : Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASTRO), Cosmology, Gravitation, and Relativity (CGR), History, Policy and Education (HPE) , add a comment

    by Dr. Jarita C. Holbrook

    My cultural astronomy project on navigation focused on why people today continue to navigate on the ocean using celestial bodies. A glaring question was why are people not adopting the Global Positioning System (GPS). There are many factors, many that are obvious such as batteries, as to why the GPS is not used in all navigating communities. However, after doing various calculations and listening to what the navigators said, I identified a new factor which is professional self-image. The question became: How do the navigators in this community image themselves to be in terms of their skills, the way they act, their values, etc.? I was most interested in the skills aspect of this question.

    For my navigation study, I focused on three communities; and their professional self-image was different in each of these. Each community had a set of navigation skills and abilities that they considered to be essential to being a navigator. For example, on the Kerkennah Islands in Tunisia, the fishermen need to have a mental map of the seafloor features around the Islands to be able to pinpoint their location. Translating the relative depth of water to a specific location was a skill that the fishermen were proud of being able to do.

    After my five years of studying navigators, I proposed a new hypothesis:

    There are skills and abilities that are an essential part of the professional self-image of navigators, when a new technology is positioned to replace that essential part there will be rejection and/or resistance before adoption if adoption occurs.

    My study of the United States Naval Academy (USNA) revealed a case of resistance and struggle between celestial navigation and the GPS. It is even more interesting because the GPS was developed by the Navy! Among Navy Officers, all are required to take celestial navigation classes and get certified (get a badge/pin) in celestial navigation, marking it as an essential skill. When it was proposed to remove celestial navigation from the USNA curriculum, there was struggle and resistance. At the end of my study, it was still being taught at the Naval Academy but in a stripped down form. The GPS is used by the Navy but so is celestial navigation, one is used to test the accuracy of the other. However, it is the old fashioned celestial navigation that is used to check the GPS!

    There are many efforts underway to diversity Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines. Many efforts have had little or limited success. I have been on the Gender Equity Conversation Task Force run by the American Physical Society (APS) this past year doing site visits to physics departments in the United States. In conjunction with my film “Hubble’s Diverse Universe” I have visited several astronomy departments as well, where the bulk of our post film discussion focused on diversifying astronomy. I am currently studying the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme in South Africa, which is also meant to diversify astronomy. Not to forget that I too am a PhD astrophysicists and have done time in some of the best astronomy and physics departments in the USA. I had struggled with and continue to struggle with the professional self-image of astronomers. I have to mention that the French sociologist Pierre Bourdeau studied academic culture (Homo Academicus) and I could couch much of my thinking about the professional self-image of astronomers around his term “doxa”.

    Focusing on diversity, I have been busily identifying those factors that are part of astronomers’ professional self-image that impede if not halt progress towards diversifying astronomy. As an aside, consider that women and minority scholars in the USA tend to create their own success at the margins of disciplines. One reason may be that the professional self-image within disciplines is inflexible (concrete, frozen, rigid) leading to no possibility of diversity and no chance of success for diverse members.

    As an example of this within astronomy, in the discussions that followed viewing my film, in some cases the audience spent a great deal of time ‘othering’ minority students: they are only interested in money (read they come from poor backgrounds), they are more interested in less intellectual fields such as engineering (no offense, these were not my words!), and they would not want to make the time-investment necessary to become an astronomer. These comments were instructive to me on another level: I’ll not be sending my children nor my students to them, even my non-minority ones!

    I have developed a series of activities to be done by students and astronomy professors around professional self-image to bring some of the factors hindering diversity to the forefront in an effort to identify and nullify unconscious biases. Thus far, I have done the student exercise twice in South Africa. It was fun and the students (who were black and colored South African) could see why they felt uncomfortable, unsupported, and abandoned by their professors. It gave them a morale boost building their resilience to survive in the astronomy environment. However, the students cannot change astronomy culture – the professors can. I hope to test out my professional self-image exercises sometime soon among astronomy professors.

    This is my last week in South Africa. I traveled to Pretoria to see NSBP’s Charles McGruder, the International Astronomical Union President Robert Williams, and Astronaut and MIT Professor Jeff Hoffman give a joint public lecture to promote astronomy. Astronaut Hoffman helped fix the Hubble Space Telescope way back when the images were still out of focus. His presentation was moving, especially since I had done the “Hubble’s Diverse Universe” film which is a minority tribute to the Hubble Space Telescope. Afterward, I gave him a copy of my film – bold of me? Robert Williams I knew from my visits to the Space Telescope Institute; he was surprised to find me in South Africa. I was surprised that Charles had not told him that I would be there. Dr. Williams talked about some of the major findings of the Hubble Space Telescope advancing astronomy and astrophysics. Dr. Charles McGruder and I have a long history. He and I are both Caltech grads, except he graduated the year that I was born! I did not meet him until I was working on my master’s in astronomy. At the time it was wonderful to connect with an African American astronomer who also had survived undergraduate life at Caltech (in 2006 I met a third Dr. Alphose Sterling). Dr. McGruder spoke about the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) and what it would mean if it were placed in Africa. South Africa has put in a bid to host the SKA, and dishes would have to be placed in other African nations as well, which would bring astronomy to new places in Africa. Australia is competing with South Africa for the SKA.

    Back in Mafikeng, Dr. Thebe Medupe and I are putting together a proposal to host the 2014 Oxford Conference on Archaeoastronomy in South Africa in Mafikeng. We got letters from each of the major hotels with quotes of their estimated room rates – two days of work! Our last task is to get a letter of support from North West University then I think we are ready to go. The proposal will be presented at the Peru conference in January. I am nervous about it because I will not be traveling to Peru, I will be in Seattle at the American Astronomical Society meeting (AAS). We have tossed around ideas for the theme of the conference. Our favorite thus far is: “Astronomy, Indigenous Knowledge, and Interpretation.”

    Dr. Medupe and I have been planning the future of the Timbuktu science project and the Astronomy document collaborative project. Both focus on documents written in Arabic found in Africa that contain astronomy content. The Timbuktu project has been running for several years, I started building a larger collaboration last year starting with Egypt. Many African nations have archives of Arabic documents; these have not been analyzed for their astronomy content. The larger collaboration would identify those archives that have astronomy documents and then set up teams to analyze the documents. I am building the collaboration as a collaboration, not as me and a bunch of Americans going and doing everything. I want local partners who are willing to work as co-Investigators. It has been slow going because with each new partner we have to write joint grant proposals to get funding. It would certainly be a lot faster to simply send in a team, but I feel strongly that true partnerships will make the project sustainable and benefit more people including leading to training more local (African) students.

    African Cultural Astronomy November 6, 2010

    Posted by AstrOBloGs in : Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASTRO), History, Policy and Education (HPE) , add a comment

    by Dr. Jarita C. Holbrook

    It has finally started to rain in Mafikeng, South Africa. I was here teaching a class on African Indigenous Astronomy to undergraduate students at North West University. My host is Dr. R. Thebe Medupe who is the Chair of the Department of Physics and Electronics. The class included a series of assignments designed to explore Indigenous Astronomy, the tension between astronomy and indigenous astronomy, the geography of Africa, and astronomy. The final assignment was a constellation identification quiz. Using a green laser pointer, each student has to correctly identify ten things in the night sky. However, not all of my students have been able to arrange to be on campus at night to take the quiz. Now it is raining….Class management environments such as D2L and Moodle are great for automating quizzes, homework assignments, etc. The North West University equivalent is Efundi. I am thinking of using Stellarium and other star charts to design an online constellation identification exercise instead of the quiz. I spoke to two students about it, and they are in favor. I will start working on Friday morning.

    Next year is the 6th Science Center World Conference that will take place in Cape Town, September 4 – 8, 2011. Two weeks ago Mike Simmons of Astronomers without Borders www.astronomerswithoutborders.org contacted me about helping to create a session focused on Cultural Astronomy. He had just read the latest Communicating Astronomy to the Public Journal Issue which I edited (www.CAPjournal.org). The issue focuses on International Year of Astronomy 2009 activities that included a cultural astronomy component. Mike wanted to build on that idea for the conference panel. Working with Mike and Chris Phillips of the Imiloa Science Center in Hilo, Hawaii, we finally settled on a unifying panel theme for the conference: Indigenous Astronomy and the Public. I have to write the description for our submission. We will have speakers talking about the Indigenous Astronomy of Hawaii, Iran, and South Africa! However, they all haven’t said “Yes”, yet.

    I just had a two hour Skype session with the host of Chapter, Verse, & Volume, Heru-Ka Anu. He is doing a review of “African Cultural Astronomy”. The volume came out this week in paperback…but it is the same price as the hardcover! In the interview which he will edit down to one hour, we talked about the text, African American astrophysicists, thinking like a scientist, Benjamin Banneker, and the disenchantment of the night sky in Africa. I’m not sure what will be in the final, but it will air this Sunday at 8 pm EST. www.blogtalkradio.com/herukaanu.

    I am writing a short paper on African Cosmology this weekend. Next week Astronaut Hoffman is visiting Pretoria and I am going to be there along with NSBP’s Charles McGruder.

    Herschel Space Telescope Opens Eyes July 10, 2009

    Posted by CGrBlogs in : Astronomy and Astrophysics (ASTRO), Cosmology, Gravitation, and Relativity (CGR) , add a comment

    The newest addition to the space telescope crew is the Herschel, which is designed, deployed and run by the European Space Agency. Herschel, which can see in the infrared, is joining our much-beloved Hubble (which observes in the visible) and Spitzer (which can see in the infrared). After a month of preparation in space, Herschel opened its eyes in June. Today a sneak preview of the images it will be taking was released:

    You’ll notice that the image on the left is from Spitzer. Thanks to the hard work of optical engineers and atomic and condensed matter physicists, technology is improving, and the higher quality image from Herschel is the result. We here at Vector say to Herschel: Welcome! And to its hard working team: Thank you :-)

    But improved technology isn’t the only exciting element of Herschel’s release into the wild. Herschel is also the first major telescope to be named for a female astronomer. It is named for Caroline and William Herschel, the award-winning brother-sister team who lived in 18th and 19th century Germany and England. As time goes on, we hope to see more and more recognition of the contributions of people traditionally underrepresented in science. Kudos to ESA for making strides in this area.