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Advances - The Monthly Newsletter for AAAS Members - August 2009

In this issue:

Message to Members: Public Engagement and Science Education

News to Note: Gender Gap Testimony, Local Environmental Engagement, Middle School Teachers Master's Program, Updated Guide to Science Policy Education, Quest for Food Purity, Science in the Summer, Insights for Science Teacher Training, Judicial Education Award, US Response to H1N1 Pandemic, New Zealand Partnerships, Public Access to Science's Historic "Moon issue."

Advancing Science, Serving Society: AAAS Science and Human Rights Program

Science Careers: FLeadership Institute, Coming Events

Announcements: PAAAS 2010 Annual Meeting Poster Submissions, Nomination Deadlines for AAAS Awards, Fall Film Festival Partnership, Project 2061 Workshops
 


 
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Message to Members

Public Engagement and Science Education

Dear AAAS Member,

As members of the scientific community, our shared responsibility to advance science and societal well-being goes beyond our individual endeavors. Collectively, we must strive to improve engagement with the public in addition to education of our young people.

Particularly now, a myriad of science-related issues increases the urgency for public engagement through a respectful dialogue that makes science open and transparent while also considering a range of ethical, moral, and political perspectives. Currently, AAAS's Communicating Science Workshops and website are helping researchers explain their work and its value to nonscientist audiences. AAAS is hosting a series of monthly seminars open to the public covering topics such as how engaged local communities can help protect their environment and provide public input into food safety issues. You'll find additional information at the AAAS Center for Public Engagement with S&T website, http://www.aaas.org/programs/centers/pe.

The challenges of the twenty-first century also make the education of our future scientists and engineers more critical than ever. Current AAAS efforts range from this year's Science in the Summer program for elementary school students in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Master's programs for middle school science and math teachers in Washington, D.C.; from a conference on strategies to support new high school science and mathematics teachers to the launch of a long-term initiative for nationwide transformation of undergraduate biology education. Our education initiatives extend to public policy, including recent testimony before a US House subcommittee on the continuing gender gap in science and engineering and publication of the fourth edition of the AAAS Guide to Graduate Education in Science, Engineering, and Public Policy. Advancing international cooperation in education, AAAS's Project 2061 hosted a workshop with educators from Shanghai, China, to share strategies for the development and evaluation of science curricula. AAAS also leads a coalition that is urging expedited visas for foreign scholars, scientists, and engineers. In addition, AAAS recently was honored with the American Bar Association's Judicial Education Award for a nationwide series of seminars on neuroscience issues emerging in US courtrooms. For more information about our work in education, go to http://www.aaas.org/programs/education.

With the support of our members, we will continue to advance scientific knowledge through engagement and education.


Sincerely,


Alan I. Leshner, CEO, AAAS


P.S. Mark Your Calendars for "Bridging Science and Society," the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, 18-22 February. Seminars include Translational and Personalized Medicine, The History and Future of Laser Technology, and Marine Science and Society. Registration, housing, and full program details will be online in early October.


News to Note


US House Hearing Details Gender Gap in Science and Engineering
Despite substantial gains made by women in science and engineering fields during the past four decades, "the gap is real, the gap persists," AAAS CEO Alan I. Leshner told a House Subcommittee on Research and Science Education. Although the gaps between boys and girls have disappeared in precollege classes such as chemistry, advanced algebra, and precalculus math, gaps persist in high school and college classes in physics, calculus, and computer science. Although women now receive nearly half of the doctoral degrees in the biological sciences, and are awarded nearly half of all M.D. degrees, they lag in Bachelor's degrees in physics and engineering, earning only one out of five. The hearing cited low science and math standards in the K-12 grade level as the largest problem facing education today. Participants urged policy makers to gather better data on effective practices to recruit and train women in scientific fields and to provide funding support. Read more.

Seminar Describes How Local Engagement Can Shape Environmental Justice
A recent seminar, part of a public series co-sponsored by AAAS and the nonprofit Chemical Heritage Foundation, explored citizen participation in protecting the local environment. As an example, an environmental anthropologist cited quick action by residents who used simple equipment to collect air samples for lab analysis following a lightning-strike fire and alarming odors from a Louisiana refinery. Although the analysis revealed hazardous chemicals, and a later air sampling showed a dangerous benzene concentration, refinery officials and regulatory agencies dismissed the findings. Ultimately, the refinery was sold and the new owners established good relations with a watchful community. Read how communities can effectively engage with industries and regulatory agencies and download a report on citizen involvement.

Award-Winning D.C. Science and Math Teachers Credit AAAS Programs
The first graduates from two AAAS-administered programs that guide middle school math and science teachers through their Master's degrees are winning prestigious local and national awards, authoring scholarly journal articles, and participating in international conferences and national curricula discussions. DC FAME (DC Fellows for the Advancement of Mathematics Education) counts 25 graduates and DC ACTS (DC Advancing Competencies in Teaching and Science) has advanced 25 teachers. The rigorous, three-year programs, which are free to successful applicants, lead to professional Master's degrees from The George Washington University. Read about the achievements and the impact on the graduates' students and schools.

AAAS Releases Updated Guide to Science Policy Education
The fourth edition of AAAS's Guide to Graduate Education in Science, Engineering, and Public Policy is now freely available online. First published in 1985, the guide has been expanded to reflect the increasingly critical role of science and technology in the world policy agenda -- climate, energy, infectious diseases, and emerging fields such as neuroscience and nanotechnology. Information includes career path options, a comprehensive list of nearly 50 schools and programs in the United States and abroad that offer specialized graduate programs or studies in science, engineering, and public policy (SEPP), an extensive list of internships, and a collection of useful links. Read more and access information on AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowships.

Public Seminar Explores Quest for Food Purity
Environmental historian Benjamin R. Cohen traced how current concerns about food production practices are rooted in the agriculture, science, and moral debates of the nineteenth century. Continuing a series of public seminars co-sponsored by AAAS and the Chemical Heritage Foundation, Cohen catalogued the struggles of a changing agrarian system during the 1800s and the issues of trust concerning food adulterants such as chicory in coffee and removal of cream from milk, now standard practices. Citing today's more sophisticated challenges involving new classes of chemical compounds in foods and food-related products such as plastic containers, he stressed that basic public concern about ethically acceptable ways to make and sell food remain much the same. Read more.

Kids Get Involved in Science in the Summer
Examining tiny shrimp and prehistoric shark teeth, elementary school kids engage in the magic of discovery during the oceanography course of the GlaxoSmithKline Science in the Summer program, administered by AAAS. For 23 years, the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, program has offered hands-on science activities during two- or four-day courses led by science teachers and held in libraries from late June through early August. Read more about the program and the goal of fostering lifelong appreciation of science and watch a brief video of kids' activities.

AAAS Conference Offers New Insights for Training Science Teachers
The opening session of the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program Conference, organized by AAAS and funded by the National Science Foundation, stressed the importance of science teachers receiving feedback early in their careers. Steve Robinson, an education policy adviser to Arne Duncan, secretary of the US Department of Education, addressed the July conference from his perspective as a biologist, university professor, and high school science teacher. Data presented during the meeting reinforced the idea that new teachers need support systems and feedback, as well as mentoring and co-teaching. Read more about the Noyce program's efforts to tap an underutilized source of future science and mathematics teachers and a study of first- and second-year teachers, presented at the conference.

AAAS Honored with Judicial Education Award
Citing an "innovative and visionary" nationwide seminar series on neuroscience issues emerging in courtrooms and the law, the American Bar Association honored AAAS with its 2009 Judicial Education Award -- the first to be given to a science organization. Nearly 150 local, state, and federal judges have attended nine one- or two-day seminars over the past three years, learning about the limits and potential of emerging neuroscience advances. Topics include developments in brain scanning and imaging; neuroscience perspectives on memory, deception, substance abuse, and violence; and the science of lie-detection technology -- advances that can have profound implications in cases involving child neglect and abuse, crimes committed by drug addicts, and in understanding acts of violence. Learn more about the Judicial Seminars on Emerging Issues in Neuroscience.

Top Officials Outline Federal Response to H1N1 Pandemic
A panel of top public health officials, chaired by Harvey Fineberg, M.D., president of the Institute of Medicine at the National Academies and including Anthony Fauci, M.D., director of the NIH National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gathered at AAAS to discuss US response to the H1N1 swine flu pandemic. The panel voiced cautious optimism about the government's preparedness, saying work with pharmaceutical companies is at "full speed" to produce a vaccine by the beginning of the Northern Hemisphere's flu season this fall. The panel said that the federal government has been aggressively preparing for an infectious disease outbreak for the past several years, closely studying the 1918/1919 Spanish influenza and more recent outbreaks. Read more about the vital role of public communication in containing the spread of a pathogen.

New Zealand S&T Leader Promotes Global Environmental Partnerships
Describing her country as "a great natural laboratory for unraveling the mysteries of our environment," geophysicist Helen Anderson, chief executive of New Zealand's Ministry of Research, Science, and Technology, promoted expanded foreign partnerships during a July talk at AAAS. Noting more than 50 years of cooperation with the United States in Antarctic research, the minister cited a project that also includes British, German, and Italian researchers in the study of Antarctic history and potential for future sea level rise due to melting ice. Read about New Zealand's development of wind and geothermal energy, flood prediction models, biofuels, and efforts to reduce methane emissions from farm animals.

Science and AAAS Commemorate "One Giant Leap for Mankind"
The historic "Moon issue" of Science, published 30 January 1970, is available to the public online in commemoration of the 40th anniversary of the first lunar landing. The special 335-page issue featured an analysis of the first geological samples from the moon, gathered 20 July 1969. Also included were a summary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Science Conference, measurements of the age of the moon, findings of rare Earth elements in the lunar samples of soil and rocks, and general mineralogy from the Sea of Tranquility. Read more and access the full edition, now part of the Science Classic archive.


Advancing Science, Serving Society

AAAS Science and Human Rights Program
Coalition Honors a Founding Father of Global Efforts
The new AAAS Science and Human Rights Coalition, a network of 26 science organizations as members and 15 as affiliates, and including 36 scientists as individual members, was established in January. The coalition opened its second meeting in July with a plenary session honoring the author and activist Richard Pierre Claude whose book, "Science in the Service of Human Rights," is considered a classic in the field. Claude also is a founding editor of the journal Human Rights Quarterly and is credited with helping to bring more scientific expertise to human rights efforts than any other individual. The coalition, the result of a two-year deliberative process, cites his ideas as the basis for its efforts to utilize individual scientists and scientific technologies to promote human rights around the globe. Read more about the meeting's presentations and workshops and the honoree's career and legacy. 

Geospatial Program Aids Afghanistan Study
Using multiple satellite images dating back to 2000, a new analysis by AAAS suggests that a mass grave in Afghanistan had been excavated during late summer 2006, while international peacekeepers were deployed in the nation. Several news reports in May 2002 stated that some 2,000 bodies of alleged Taliban militia members were buried there in late 2001, at the direction of a US ally. After investigating the mass grave since 2002, the advocacy group Physicians for Human Rights asked the AAAS Geospatial Technologies and Human Rights project to assess available images to establish a timeline of visual disturbances, possibly indicating tampering with an area suspected to have been used to bury the victims of a massacre. Other types of information were provided to The New York Times by Physicians for Human Rights, and following a mid-July front page story, President Barack Obama asked his national security staff to look into the 2001 deaths of Taliban prisoners to assess whether the United States contributed to possible war crimes. Read more and view the image analysis. 

The AAAS Human Rights Program has been promoting the use of science-based solutions to human rights problems since its founding in 1977. These include forensic and genetic sciences to identify victims of mass atrocities, electronic encryption technologies to protect human rights communication, and since 2005, geospatial technology to document human rights abuses. Find out more about the program.


Science Careers


AAAS's online career job and advice site, Science Careers, has a new look and new features that make it easier to advance your career, whether you're seeking a new job, advice on career advancement in your chosen field, or ways to stay current on industry trends. Some of the features you'll find on the newly redesigned site include:

- Enhanced job searching
- Relevant job e-mail alerts
- Improved resume/CV uploading
- Search by geography
- Multimedia section

Visit ScienceCareers.org today. Your future awaits.


Summer Leadership Institute AAAS collaborated with the Society for the Advancement of Chicano and Native American Scientists (SACNAS) to present a five-day Summer Leadership Institute, 28 July to 1 August. The Institute provided 30 scientists with training to enhance their leadership skills. The intensive five-day course featured small group exercises, keynote speakers, leadership development planning, networking opportunities, and extensive community building among the participants. Speakers included: Dr. Alan Lesnher, CEO, AAAS; Dr. Joseph Francisco, President-Elect, American Chemical Society; and Dr. David Burgess, Professor of Biology, Boston College. http://www.sacnas.org/leadershipSummer.cfm


Upcoming Events

Creative Job Searching, Careers Away From the Bench
Thursday, 3 September, OSU, Columbus, Ohio
Event Information 

Managing Your Relationship with Your Supervisor Networking and Career Fairs
Tuesday, 6 October, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina
Event Information

Managing Your Relationship with Your Supervisor
Wednesday, 7 October, UNC Postdocs, Chapel Hill, North Carolina
Event Information

Work-life Balance
Saturday, 17 October, SACNAS National Meeting, Dallas, Texas
Event Information
 
Penn State College of Medicine Career Day Keynote: Careers Away From the Bench
Monday, 19 October, Hershey, Pennsylvania
Event Information
 
Careers Away From the Bench
Tuesday, 20 October, Society for Neuroscience Meeting, Chicago, Illinois
Event Information
 

Science Careers Featured Jobs:


Assistant/Associate/Full Professor
Emory University, Atlanta, GA 

Adviser
McKenna Long & Aldrich, LLP, Washington, DC 

Sr. Mass Spectrometrist-Proteomic Core Facility
EMBL, Heidelberg, Germany 

Announcements




Call for Poster Submissions AAAS 2010 Annual Meeting: "Bridging Science and Society"
Student Poster Competition: Deadline Wednesday, 14 October
The competition, to be held Saturday, 20 February in San Diego during the AAAS Annual meeting, is open to college undergraduate and graduate students only. Winners receive a cash prize, a framed certificate, and a one-year AAAS membership including a subscription to Science. The names of first-place winners and honorable mention entrants will be published in Science. For more information, go to www.aaas.org/meetings.

General Poster Session: Deadline 14 October
This session offers an opportunity for doctoral candidates, postdocs, and professionals to present research to the broad community of scientists attending the 2010 AAAS Annual Meeting in San Diego. The poster session will be held Sunday, 21 February. For more information, go to www.aaas.org/meetings.

Who are some of the headline speakers at the AAAS Annual Meeting?
Peter C. Agre, Presidential Address, AAAS President and Nobel Laureate, Director of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute, Baltimore, Md.
Marcia McNutt, Plenary Lecture, President and Chief Executive Officer, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Moss Landing, Calif.
Karen Emmorey, Neural and Cognitive Underpinnings of Language Across Modalities, Director, Laboratory for Language and Cognitive Neuroscience, San Diego State University
Robert Fraley, Sustainable Solutions for Doubling Crop Productivity by 2030,
Executive Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, Monsanto
Larry Goldstein, The Future of Stem Cell Research, Director of Stem Cell Research, University of California, San Diego
Thomas Hillman Jordan, Earthquake Science, Director, Southern California Earthquake Center, University of Southern California, Los Angeles
Steve Palumbi, Marine Species React and Adjust to Climate Change and Ocean
Acidification
, Director, Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, Calif.
Steffanie A. Strathdee, Infectious Diseases Have No Passport, Chief, Division of Global Public Health, University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine


Nomination and Application Deadlines for 2009 AAAS Awards

AAAS Philip Hauge Abelson Award: 1 September
For more information see http://www.aaas.org/aboutaaas/awards/abelson/.

AAAS Award for International Scientific Cooperation: 1 September
For more information contact Linda Stroud at (202) 326-6659, e-mail lstroud@aaas.org.

AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility: 1 September
For more information contact Deborah Runkle at (202) 326-6794, e-mail drunkle@aaas.org.

AAAS/Subaru Prize for Excellence in Science Books: 1 September
For more information contact Heather Malcomson at (202) 326-6646, e-mail hmalcoms@aaas.org.
AAAS, Science Partner with Fall Film Festival
AAAS and Science continue to encourage public engagement with science as presenting sponsors of the nonprofit Imagine Science Film Festival this October in New York City. Selected short films will bring fascinating and entertaining science concepts to the movie-going public at theaters, exhibit spaces, and education centers in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, New York. Learn more about the 15-24 October festival. 

Sign Up for 2009 Atlas of Science Literacy Workshops
Project 2061 continues a popular workshop for K-12 educators and adds an innovative new workshop for informal science education.
"Using Atlas of Science Literacy"
Durham, North Carolina 14-16 September
Washington, D.C. 19-21 October
Scholarships and Early Bird rates are available, but registration is limited. For more details and a registration form, go to our workshop information page.

Join the AAAS President's Circle
The coming years represent a unique opportunity for science and the nation. To stay at the forefront of these opportunities, AAAS needs increased individual support. With philanthropic contributions totaling $500 or more, you will be recognized as part of the AAAS President's Circle and will join a select group that receives periodic briefings on key issues. Please visit us online or call +1 (202) 326-6636 for more information.



About AAAS


AAAS News & Notes appears in Science in the last issue of each month.
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Meet Up at Upcoming Events

AAAS/Science will have a booth at the following events. Stop by to take advantage of our special show renewal rate and pick up your member pin.

American Chemical Society Fall,
16-20 August, Washington, D.C. USA

Human Proteome Organization Annual World Congress,
26-30 September, Toronto, Canada

American Society of Human Genetics,
20-24 October, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA

Society for Neuroscience,
24-28 October, Chicago, Illinois, USA


Additional Meetings and Announcements

Next Generation Antibodies for Cancer Drugs,
2 September, Geneva, Switzerland
In the life science industry, companies across the world are looking at targets to find innovative treatment regimes in the field of oncology. Antibodies hold the most promise to treat cancer due to its capabilities to activate the immune system. Our distinguished speaker panel will present the best strategies to successfully commercialize your scientific discoveries in a competitive business environment.

The NIH Director's Wednesday Afternoon Lecture Series, 16 September 2009-30 June 2010, USA


OIST Winter Course - "Evolution of Complex Systems," 07-12 December (Registration through 20 September), Okinawa, Japan

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