GHC 2006: Summing up [07 Oct 2006|08:16pm] What a conference! Blow after blow to my cozy worldview, shaking up how I think about myself. Introductions to resources I didn't know I could ask for. I have had ideas all along about what I wanted, and I've worked on being clear about that, but after being here the world seems like a bigger place. Go to this conference at least once. Go when you're just starting out, to begin to connect to the community of women scientists and to see what possibilities await. Go when you're starting to look for work, because this is a fantastic place to make and work connections. If you can, go in between, because these are people worth seeing again. -Anna, GHC Live Blogger and newest fan. 3 comments|post comment

GHC 2006: Teaching with Robotics [07 Oct 2006|01:11pm] This was another one of those unimagineably cool sessions. And I almost left to have lunch. Oh, cool. The "Feral Robotic Dog" project, which turns forgotten toys into agents of social change. The website has instructions for modifying the toys ("exploiting the distribution system of major toy companies to work social change"), upgrading brain and body. Turning them into chemical sniffers?!? With noses that detect environmental toxins and software that guides them to seek out high concentrations, these dogs have been released into parks (built?!? and run by local students) to find out whether the toxic clean up has been effective (paraphrasing, sorry: "It makes no sense! But school have little money and toxic waste dumps are cheap, so they naturally go together." But people are dying.)         The dog release is "mediagenic" and so the kids end up talking with the media about the project, talking about the environment, and the information about the environment is in the hands of the people it hurts. Want to check out your neighbourhood park, find out if it's safe? Modify a dog and release it yourself, see what you learn. Natalie (who had trouble with the presentation because of the stupid wireless, but is an extremely compelling speaker) also has a goose project, where robotic geese are used to "harass" the local goose population. Not just for fun (but because of the fun, a lot of data can be collected: "get kids to run them. No one has more patience for goose-harassing than middle school kids. And they're cheaper than grad students. And amazing linguists. . ." more on that later), but to learn about the geese. Because the robotic goose can communicate with them with prerecorded (and imitative? I didn't catch that) calls, and the response of the live geese recorded, and then translation can be attempted.         Anyway, if you're nervous about goose-to-english translation efforts, through the experiments the kids also found the nesting site of the geese, where they noticed that all the eggs were broken. Which led them to investigate why, and to find out that the pesticides used by the park were harmful, and eventually led to the pesticide use changing. So again, robots as agents of social change, catalysts for discovery and information dissemination. Amazing! Okay, now Maya. She's working on the social context robotics should have: for health, for happiness. To address real social ills. ("I realized I don't want my child to be able to say 'Mommy works on killer robots,'" so she stopped getting defense funding and starting working with the national health organization---harder, but better.) Ah! Too much to summarize! But this woman is amazing---she's got projects for helping children with autism (robots as socialization tools), for those who have had strokes (walking companions, exercise aids), and more. She's working on lesson plans from kindergarten through university, getting people interested in and comfortable with right at a young age. Brilliant! The ideas are almost suffocating me, there's so much good that could be done. Just, go look up this woman! Last and not remotely least, Cathryne Stein on BotBall. I didn't know about this competition (probably because it's national), but the focus is autonomous student-built robots. Oh, that's right up my alley. And, of course, it has worked brilliantly, really changing some peoples lives.         Again, the interesting note, that women in mixed groups do not do as well as women in all-girl groups. Are more likely to be put off by competition, and rely more heavily on the support of the teacher (if I'm remembering right. I really need to look into this.) Conjecture: it's because we fall into roles. I can see that having happened to me, and it never before occurred to me to consider my gender. But I tend to follow and administrate and take minutes . . . and that is not remotely all I can do. This bears further thought. Wow. Robots can change the world, but really it's the people behind them. I am in awe of these women. - Anna, GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Getting Started with Robotics [07 Oct 2006|12:20pm] The burning question on everyone's mind. How do I get started, how much will it cost me, and how hard will it be? [ETA: Of course the answers are: there are lots of options, it depends, and it depends.] Acroname is looking to build off-the-shelf components, so that robots can become as ubiquitous as laptops. Or I'm reading that goal into what he said. But he has a point, that one of the reasons computers are accessible is that there are stores everywhere, you can build your own but you don't have to, and there's lots of places to---not just go for help, but hand over your problem to. Hmm, robot repair. Not sure we'll ever get so standard that that is possible. "Robot" is almost as general as, say, "communication technology." Can a telephone repair person fix a walkie-talkie? Why should an AIBO repair person know what to do with the CanadArm? I'm digressing, this is not what Steve is saying. A robot component and ready-made store is cool. Yup, RoboCup Soccer. Not as interesting to me, though what the school has achieved is very cool. Illah has a few minutes---he organized a very cool track today. We even get to play with robots in the break! Oh, neat. "A hot glue gun is to robotics as duct tape is to everything else." Just servos, cardboard, and hot glue necessary to make a robot. Remote control next step up, and brainstem next after that. Well, I like autonomous robots much better than tele-operated (I know I've been very subtle about my bias so far) so I need the brain stem. Wonder where you can get one from? Apparently, a VCR. Hmmmmm. Ah! Resources! A whole website (google TERK) with how-tos and demos. Will be hunting through that with my husband, trying to convince him we want to turn our kitchen into a workshop. Again. Let's see, if we only ever eat out . . . Back to the robot demos! -Anna, GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Careers in Robotics [07 Oct 2006|11:39am] I missed the beginning of Carl's bit, and came in on a robot with a reconfigurable face. I wish I had heard more about the reason behind that, though it has something to do with not having the build a new robot from scratch every time you want a little change. But couldn't that apply to every decision you make? Now Julia from NASA. NASA's mandate to explore means more of a focus on robotics, but mainly tele-operated. She says they're looking at the continuum between tele-operated and fully autonomous robots (the Mars rovers were, I think, fully tele-operated---what delays!) and "trying to get the point where I give the robot and goal and the robot tries to accomplish that." I don't know what I think about that. It seems to me to skip right over the problem of communicating between different representations, and just assuming that I can specify a goal in a comprehensible way. But how is that possible, given the difference between the sensory and motor capabilities of the robot and how different they are from mine? It's common enough in AI, and the drive overall seems to be to translate the low-level sensory-motor stuff into an objective/human representation. But I don't like it, and I want to figure out how communication can work, and how we can understand or exploit a radically different representation. Maybe sorting this with robots could give us clues to sorting it with animals. Maybe. Now I'm getting radical. NASA won't buy it. Justifiably so, of course! But they "don't like non-determinism." So, no ties with NASA for me. If they do move towards autonomy . . . well, I think it will be a very long time before they do. On the surface of a distant planet, having spent billions of taxpayer dollars to get there, may not be the best time to hand over control to the robot. Especially not given the current state of autonomous research! But I will steal the "there's no GPS in space" line for next time when I'm talking about localization and someone says, "that's solved, we have GPS." Neat, Elena looks into knowledge representations. How to represent knowledge is one of pesky questions that underlies most of my thoughts about AI. I'll have to ask her about it [ETA: she says I can email her for some interesting papers, excellent!]. Oh, NIST is working on standards and performance measures. For RoboCup? Or using RoboCup to create standards? RoboCup Rescue should be pushed more---nice social context, much more compelling than soccer for many people. I thought of getting involved in that, but . . . didn't. Like so many things. I'm not totally clear on what the standard measure are, but there were some neat test-beds. Lots of issues in test-bed design, which she doesn't have time to get into. Hmmm. More material to look at if I do get into robotics. -Anna GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Keynote Speaker: Helen Greiner [07 Oct 2006|09:53am] Robot day. I have cyclic patterns, and one of the stops on the circuit is "I should try stuff on robots." So I talk about it for a while and think about it for a while and then decide that the stuff I do works so rarely trying to make it work on robots is just going to be an exercise in frustration. On the other hand, it would be cool. iRobot is building robots so that people don't have to do the dirty and dangerous jobs. "When a robot dies, you don't have to send a letter to its mother." Helen says, "There are two classes of people: people who don't believe robots exist, and people who believe these robots (cue movie clips) exist." Hee. It's the same thing, watching people's reactions when I say I work in Artificial Intelligence. It's either scary AI or mundane AI, and I'm really trying the "understanding the nature of intelligence" kind of research. It's interesting that the military robots are really being blown up. One of the detriments to robots replacing people in violent situations, that I have heard, is that the robots are more expensive than humans (development, building, materials vs. training time). But iRobot, it sounds like, is focussing on affordable as well as---well, things that work. So you can send the robot out as the canary in the mine and maybe it gets blown up, and that's okay because the robot is cheaper than training. Saving lives is a good thing, though I'm ambivalent about killer robots (potential future killer robots: as far as I know, iRobot doesn't have any). This is really cool. They are working on autonomous robots. One of the things that I have missed in this conference is connections to my field. Autonomous agents are not in high demand at most places I have talked to. Machine learning can be skewed or "provides a good background" for other tasks, sure. But my first love is the idea of understanding how to build an independent mind. The other thing that is cool is my husband is a designer, and I could see working on a robot together. But there's high possibility it will drive me nuts. The complexity is enough to drive anyone insane. It might be a hardware bug, it might be a software problem, it might be the interface, and it's really hard to know. This is SOO COOL! She just showed a video for the original military prototype. They're throwing it around (on to cement), it's falling off a wall, climbing stairs, and fording streams. The video about the company is fantastic. I went up to talk to Helen after the talk (there was a long line!) and wasn't perfectly coherent. However, I have her email address, I have vague ideas, and I am thinking of coming up with a formal proposal. I think my lab should work with them, and since we have our own funding my impression is that it's more possible than if we were looking for them to support us. This deserves further thought. post comment

GHC 2006: Anonymous Advice Session for Junior Faculty [07 Oct 2006|09:42am] In the spirit of anonymity, I didn't take notes during this session, so I'm just going to quickly sum up. This was one of my favourite sessions. When I walked into the room, I was staring at the backs of rows of chairs. Right at the far end of the room in front of the stages was a ring of women. I debated leaving: after all, not junior faculty. But I crept in anyway. I tried to sit quietly outside the circle of occupied chairs, but was quickly waved in and took my seat with a whispered check that I was allowed. And then, we were off. Questions ranged from dealing with problem students, uncommunicative tenure boards, and contacting program chairs. Conversations were lively and encouraging. The overwhelming message is to build your support networks: AKA get mentors, plural. Go outside your department, if you have to (you will probably have to). Have lunch with people inside your department. Have lunch with your mentors. Have lunch with program chairs. Be persistent. All these are things that have come up over and over again, but hearing them in that circle, from women who are now where I will be in a few more years, had incredible impact. These are the woman who not only pay lip service to the need to support other women, to find a mentor, and to help others up, but when the questions of "How do I get on a program chair?" and "How do I find a mentor?" came up were jumping up from their chairs, volunteering business cards and contacts. (That's most notably Sally McKee. She rocks.) It's given me the courage to sort out exactly what I am going to do, not just a research plan but as a person, a woman, an academic. And I am definitely going to keep building connections. I'm used to going it alone and never realized what an extent I take that to. But there are resources, there are people who have dealt with the things I am dealing with whose wisdom I will not pass up. -Anna, GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Balancing Your Career and Family [06 Oct 2006|02:57pm] Three women, three stories about how they have managed. Quite a range, although the organizer said they could not find someone who stayed out of the workforce for 5 years or more and then returned. On the other hand, at the Treasure Hunt Gala I met someone who went back after 12 years, successfully. She was very inspiring. All these women have been inspiring, all in different ways. My head is full of success stories and pain stories. I can't summarize them very well, because it's all things we know: different things work for different people, you can make your family and career work together almost no matter what, and someone out there shares your story. It's just a matter of finding them and hearing them. -Anna, GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Coaching Geeks: Observations about Ways That We Hold Ourselves Back [06 Oct 2006|10:57am] It goes against my nature to sit in the back (I'm short-sighted and eager), but it's just more suffering for the cause of live blogging. Tragic, it is. Further random observations: this is the second time I have arrived in time to catch the introductions. Go me! This is the first session I've been to that provided slides. Helpful. Unrelatedly, I need a bigger bag: the quantity (and quality, or fun-ness) of swag at this conference is very high, and it's bad to have full hands. On to the talk, by Susan from Sudo Coaching, who works with people transitioning from being techies to being managers. And "sudo" in her company name is the command. Very nice, it even makes sense, given that she coaches people to rise through the ranks of power in businesses. Coaches: someone to talk to confidentially. It's like business psychotherapy, which makes me wonder about the nature of language and how the titles we chose affect reality. And how our reaction to terms (cf "female-friendly") reveals so much about our culture. And then I pull my attention back to the speaker. Oh yes, we all feel like impostors. It's a syndrome? Okay, impostor syndrome. There's a website, even. One guess what the address is. I love intuitive domain names. I hope the woman who asked about this in the personal power session is here. Self-sabotage: I know the dreaded "should" and my blasted internal critic (that's the catchphrase from creative writing: I've also heard "internal censor" and here it is "gremlin") very well. Looking at the list of "at risk" groups, I have to wonder who isn't at risk? People who are doing things their family has done for generations, that is typical for their gender, that they learned a long time ago, whose parents don't push, in a well-developed field. I guess there's some of those. My perspective is skewed, as a computer scientist. What do you mean some people know what they are doing and are working with technology that has been around for hundreds of years? The problem with lists like "10 Ways to Feel as Bright and Capable as Everyone Else Knows You Are" is that the elements of it do or don't resonate depending entirely on what's happening with you right now. And 10 things is too many to deal with at once in a thorough way. The dreaded "should" again. I should do this, I should do it perfectly, I should do what he/she wants, I should do things that help my CV, my tenure application, my career. I'm trying to focus on "want" and "need." Especially need, which I redefine as specifically the things I need to do to stay sane and healthy. Trying to adjust, rather than trying to change the situation. Those that know me may not believe this, but yes, I think I do need to speak up more. Maybe more effectively and less antagonistically, but I give up too quickly on some things. The most insidious give up, as a research scientist, is in understanding someone's ideas and critiquing your own. I have absorbed some things, and parroted them, that I do not really understand and possibly, if I looked deeper, don't believe to be true. That is death to my integrity as a scientist. Shape up! Geek dominance as primal display. A quote from Leading Geeks: "groups of mostly men compete for dominance based on decidedly nontraditional criteria." Now I have this image of a vi/emacs flamewar, my-code-can-beat-up-your-code, and I'm such a l33t hacker I scorn l33t-speak as a peacocks displaying colours, rams butting heads, and gorillas thumping chests. We really are animals at heart. I have to say, the idea of "praise buddies" makes me want to run screaming for the hills. I wonder what that says about me? That my tolerance for self-help is not infinitely high, for one thing. I could put nastier spin on it (I must be insecure, competitive, unfriendly) but that wouldn't really be in the spirit of this session, would it. Tool for deciding what to do: draw a Venn diagram of skill, interest, and business need. If something falls into the intersection of all three (you can do it, you want to do it, and the business needs it), then it's a high priority. If it isn't in any, it's an unequivocal no. Rank according to this system. I think I am going to use this for prioritizing paper projects. There can even be a few more---that "business need" one splits up further. Does it help me finish my thesis? Does it help me expand my background knowledge? Does it help my ultimate research goals? Look how me-centric academia can be! It's great. I have heard the idea of "negotiation as collaboration" abused, in the emotional-blackmail sense. "I'm not manipulating, I'm working for a situation that benefits us all." When you combine any of this stuff with psychological dysfunction it doesn't really work. So that aside, this is a fascinating view of negotiation. Really trying to find a solution that fits you both, that's a good ideal. Negotiating on behalf of others---this is relevant for the start-up package negotiations, because what you get is going to directly affect your students. Knowing the background, finding out what is going on with other people before entering into negotiations ("shadow negotiations"), is important for the collaborative aspect. How can you know what is reasonable and helpful if you don't do your research? -Anna, GHC Live Blogger and self-help addict. post comment

GHC 2006: Sally Ride [06 Oct 2006|09:56am] "Extremely unusual eloquence for an astronaut." Hee. [ETA: Double hee, because it was about the very eloquent quote that I can't remember at the moment but would recognize immediately, but in fact Sally herself is extremely eloquent.] Cards on the seat for questions. That's a cool idea. The room is far too big for questions from the audience to be audible (and there are no floor microphones), and it counters the shyness factor. But maybe I'll reserve whole-hearted adoption of this technique until I hear how the question answering part really works. It's less interactive. Finale was right, she's a great speaker. Space flight. Wow. To get into space, we use the equivalent of a BF rock. Fuel, fuel, and more fuel, blasting as hard as we can make it forces the shuttle high enough to get into orbit. (I know it's more precise than that, and requires a lot of technology, but I'm marveling at something else at the moment.) We haven't mastered the perfect technology for getting into space; we've hit it with what we have (or really what we have had for hundreds of years, not even our most "advanced" technology) and we made it. Liquid hydrogen and liquid nitrogen flooding into the engines to violently erupt, a spark igniting solid fuel to create an explosion that flings a hunk of metal, air, and humans into space. This is a testament to our ingenuity and determination. Cool pictures. The eye of a hurricane: immense power. Contrails from above: the Lisbon airport on a typical day. Clouds so thick they have almost tangible texture, from the burning of the Amazon rain forest in Brazil. The atmosphere is a very thin shell, holding our air in, catching the light of the sun and throwing it in a sabre's curve over the edge of the earth. The night ground from the space station is dotted with, not stars, but cities and towns. In fourth grade, 2/3rds of the kids (about even girls and boys) like science. The number of girls (and boys? I didn't catch it) liking science drops from there. From my experience, early-grade science teaching---really, all early-grade teaching---is focussed on making learning interesting and accessible. That fades, and by the time we get them at the university, it's almost (in some departments) antagonistic. Outreach efforts: Science fairs (the fun kind), booklets about careers, a parent handbook (?!?). A parent handbook, acknowledging the "subtle pressures" they put on their children, particularly their daughters. Oh, I can see that. Parents have tremendous influence over their children's future, and even the subtlest incomprehension ("Why would you want to do that?") will have some effect. Of course, with some children, that will convince them to rebel. But more often it's the other way around. More statistics. Computer Science is the only area where the number of females has gone down. Sally thinks a lot of it is image, role models, and keeping up children's interest. I think there's even more needed. I'm not disputing the impact of mentors---for some people, that's the reason they are where they are. But there's something more pervasive and subtle that is discouraging people from technology. Aha! They have a question screener. Good questions being asked, excellent answers. "This really is rocket science," so it's not simple to figure out how to get ordinary people into space. Ride, Sally, ride. Someone asked "Seriously. Do you or have you ever owned a mustang?" No, she is not that Sally and yes, that song has followed her everywhere. "They keep remaking it!" -Anna GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Peter Freeman's Welcome [06 Oct 2006|09:49am] I am just pointing out, because I'm a little grumpy this morning, that women have always had the ability and strength to succeed. Now we might have a critical mass and influence as a group, but it's questionable to say "now you have the X, Y, and Z to succeed" without being careful about what you're implying. Especially in a room chock-full of women who have worked hard all their careers to be agents of social change. Then to follow it up with "we want to increase the potential not just for A, B, and C" (fill in with minority of choice) recalls the knee-jerk charge of reverse discrimination. Anna, grumpy feminist [ETA: Peter Freeman seems like a fine person and I know the NSF is highly regarded and working hard to promote women and minorities in the sciences. So, I really am picking at straws here, and it's not really about Peter.] 1 comment|post comment

GHC 2006: Female-Friendly Education: Increasing Participation or Watering Down? [05 Oct 2006|06:29pm] This is a chilly room. On the plus side, I am both sitting at the back and have power. I didn't think my laptop would make it through another session. I wonder what feathers these are supposed to be. Interest in education? This also marks the first session I've actually heard the introductions for. This was quite a session. I have a lot to think about from here, so I am going to blog about it after I have a chance to process it some more. Fascinating stuff! -Anna GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Maintaining Personal Power [05 Oct 2006|05:25pm] New solution to the disruption typing is/might be causing. I'm just going to sit at the back. If it bothers people, they can move closer. Hey, I recognize one of the panelists from the last talk I was at. I keep looking at people's ribbons, trying to spot my fellow-bloggers. I missed the informal meeting, probably because I got there late. Not unusual for me. The question presented to the panel is "how do you maintain personal power." Note that "personal power" is not defined. Sometimes we need a lack of definition, though. Narrowing it down too much might restrict things people have to say/need to hear. Aw, listen to me. I'm so imprecise! Not sure what the first woman's answer was, except at the end there it was "always have a goal in mind." And now, the second person pointing out that companies that survive "have core purpose." Hmmm, I'm sensing a theme. Sure, I believe that. Find out if you align with the company's core values. That's a good point. It requires knowing what you value and knowing what the company values. That can be tricky. Values are a little different than goals, though. Depends on how precise you're being. Heh. Choose your commitments well so that you don't become overextended. Words to live by. I've heard that a few times here, too. I wonder how many years it will be (and how many dropped commitments) before I've thoroughly learned that lesson? "I'd trade my lake of experience/For just one drop of common sense." "Decide what is important for me to do, what impact I want to make." Decide this, then know yourself and know what you're good at. I'm working on that. Both. "Once you know that, make your plan." Goals again! Long-term and milestones. Some comments on "dealing with a male-dominated world." First time it's come up, really. Recognize issues---some you won't know about. Try to learn what is an issue. Most of the time it is unconscious (cf. the mental picture of a researcher is not female from the morning talk). Determine how you are going to respond. Sometimes, ignore it and go on. Other times, point it out and proceed, other time force change. Pick your battles. Sometimes it makes me so tired, thinking of all the things that I could be/should be doing. Baby steps, though. Anna, GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Building and Managing a Strong Research Group [05 Oct 2006|04:08pm] I'm not precisely an assistant professor (hah!) but I am pretty interested in what I'm getting myself in to and, possibly, in finding out things I can do/suggest to help my research lab thrive. Oh, I'm in the same boat as about half the audience. Great! Lots of funding sources. Not so much my problem now. When the need arises, I will have to investigate options that are relevant to me. The funding source affects the work, in level of hands-off-ness, reporting responsibilities, Even more important than a list of funding agencies is information on how to find out what funding sources there are. And what do I need to do to prepare for this point? There's a worry in being too focussed on what-I-need-to-do-to-succeed. That can kill your love for what you do, if all you look at is the tenure application. Still, it probably doesn't hurt to be aware of what to do, and use it to inform choices between things you love. Recurring themes in the conference as a whole: networking is important. What isn't a recurring theme: poor-discriminated-me. Very cool. You should both have single PI and multiple PIs proposals. Then you can show both independence and the ability to do teamwork. If you do collaborate with a senior colleague, you should be the leader. But she isn't explaining why. Is it for the experience? Is it something to do with perception? The acceptance rate for proposals is about 5%. So you probably will get rejected. Don't take it personally, do pay attention to the feedback. Ooh, this is the part I'm really interested in. "Advising Students." Have a try out, something like doing a project together for a semester. Then you know if you fit. "How do I get my students to produce?" - mentoring hierarchy - clear expectations         - two actually give a document with expectations, I must look that up. - set goals/milestones This assumes, of course, that you have a clear idea yourself about what your expectations, goals, and milestones are, and that you know what you want from your students. I wonder if my supervisor could say he that? I wonder if I have a clear idea for myself? Well, I know I'm working on it. Something to aspire to. Ask your supervisor (as a PhD) if you can supervise a master's student. That would be good experience. Something to think of once I get further in my program. Go to the important conferences every year even if you don't have a paper. Talk to people. (Networking again) Volunteering again. Speaking again. "Things I did wrong:" went to the talks in conference, taking notes and listening. More important is to stand in the hall and talk. But that is the hard part! I would really rather hide somewhere, taking notes and thinking. Meeting people, remembering names, and worst of all carrying conversations is work! But the message is coming through loud and clear that it is the most important work we can do. And I believe it completely. Everything I have gotten in life has been through people I know---not to say I haven't deserved things, but it was the combination of being the right person, a hard worker or whatever, and someone knowing about me. So yes, networking is crucial. And this is a heck of a place to network---the focus of the conference is meeting people. Anna, GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC: ADVANCING Women in Computer Science [05 Oct 2006|02:54pm] Given my abstract-less state last night, I didn't realize that this was specifically about the NSF's ADVANCE funding program, and thought it was more like (I hope) the BoF on Female-Friendly education will be. So I was disappointed in mostly hearing a list of things various ADVANCE-funded institutions have done rather than an in-depth discussion of what might work, what has worked, what doesn't work, and the philsophical/sociological issues underlying it all. Still, there were some interesting tidbits. And I learned a bunch of new acronyms. A few of the most significant things came up in the question period. A lot of the female-friendly programs these places instituted (negotiation help, child-care resources and leave, lower teaching load when starting out, and mentoring are the ones I remember) were, in fact, instituted for everyone. I think that is tremendously important---these are not special initiatives for a select few, but important improvements for everyone, that make the institution a better/more productive/more human place. That kind of change is sustainable, whereas something like "Women get more start-up grants" wouldn't be. And sustainable change is what we need if we're really going to help the disparity in our field. Also a good point, that making the tenure extension for faculty-that-have-children mandatory and setting up universal mentorship programs remove (or at least severely lessen) the stigma associated with seeking help. Anna, GHC not-quite-Live-at-the-moment Blogger post comment

Trying again [05 Oct 2006|02:27pm] I'm new to this, so bear with me. I realized I should clarify that "this conference" is "The Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing," "my school" is the University of Alberta in Edmonton, AB, Canada, and my name is Anna. I am a Master's student in computer science. I'm just going to assume most of you reading this are from the conference, too. A few caveats: I have no idea how this program is sorting the entries, and I'm posting them in skewy order. I will try to clean that up. I really am doing the blogging live, so apologies for stream-of-consciousness, out-of-context nonsense. I'll try to keep it to a minimum. (Not the words, but the incomprehensibility!) Onward, again! Anna, GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Introductory post [05 Oct 2006|12:50pm] Just a brief introduction here, and if you want more of a bio there's some info on my school webpage. I volunteered to blog for this conference because (a) I like writing, (b) I like thinking, and (c) I'm going to be taking notes on my laptop anyway, and the "Web Volunteer" ribbon makes me feel legit. Onward! post comment

GHC 2006: Making Waves: Navigating the Transition from Graduate Student to Faculty Member [05 Oct 2006|11:12am] Rats. The job market is super competitive. Okay, I know that it's not really an option to be inflexible. I will move where I need to (modulo the two-body problem). But you have to be the best out of 400? And can't be picky about teaching/research/area. "Apply to places that you may not want to go. . . " oh, with regards to location. Yup. And you can always not accept, but you can't accept-on-second-thought if you don't apply. Standard job-hunting advice. I'm not supposed to take notes, but I'm going to on this one. This is info I need recorded. This is interesting to note: things that I should DO now, so that I CAN emphasize them on the CV, etc. years down the road. CV (three pages):         - emphasize research, publications, teaching         - list invited talks         - community service (program committees, review panels) Teaching statement (two pages):         - explain teaching philosophy (I suppose that means I need a teaching philosophy. S'okay, I do want to teach) References:         - choose someone who will write something nice. :-) Make sure you know what their view of you is.         - timely (oh, Dale's out) Research statement - state your research problem -why is it important -what is your approach -what is novel -how can you extend? The notes on the research statement are, I think, important for myself for doing research---not just to share with someone else. These are questions I want to know the answer to, and if I don't it is possible I am just trailing along on someone else's research (or a hair-brained idea of my own that I need to think about more thoroughly). And it is important (to me) to keep the big picture in mind. "Do what I say, not what I do." The thing is, that is usually good advice. More constructively phrased as "Don't make the mistakes I've made." Interviews. Yeck. Good point: oral communication is different from written. Be concise!!! And comprehensible to people outside of your area. Always think about your audience. The institution is likely to be concerned with how you fit there. "Rhetorical goals:" a talk for a conference is not the same as for a job. Practice. Go ahead of time so that you can relax. This is good in theory, but more than half the times I've arrived early so that I can make sure everything works the person with, say, the access key to the projector wasn't early. So I was setting up well into the talk. It makes me nervous about relying on any technology. But of course I always do. Huh. You might be assigned a topic that you are not familiar with, so that they can see how you deal with that. This is likely for teaching positions. Talk in layers---you are talking to people who know your work as well as people who do not understand your area. "Always push back on the first offer." Public institutions publish their salaries, and many institutions have the info on the websites in the HR department, and there are studies. This may be more information than I need right now, having a gazillion years left until I'm finished. And there is so much to consider . .. retirement packages, start-up packages, types of teaching, types of research. Wow. At least it comes in stages. Apply everywhere, only thoroughly research the places that offer you a job. It seems like that's a feasible way to do it. What is release time? "If it backfires on you, do you want to be at this institution?" Scary, but true. Do you want to work somewhere, where asking certain questions damage your desirability? Make sure you have questions, and you better have a long enough list that some remain even when they're done their spiel. Responsibilities as a faculty member. AKA (for me) are you sure you want to get into this? You will be teaching something that was not in the cards. And probably something new. "Across the country" . . . this is a US-centric conference, isn't it? Funny. Okay, but I'm not used to it. My thoughts: Hey, potentially good question to ask. "What kind of things do you look for in tenure faculty?" It is important to know what the institution values (really values, not just pays lip-service to). Attending some things is important for your students . . . they can see you as a human. Blogging is humanizing, too, I think (both a pro and a con). Get a file cabinet. Why? Because it's the only way you can keep all the information you need. And record, for goodness sake, everything you do that is relevant to the tenure track. I think this is relevant to scholarship applications at this point. It's surprising how much you forget about things you have done, and it's so much easier to write and note and file a program right after your volunteer service, compared to thinking back over the year or years and trying to remember what you have done. If I were really organized, I would try to summarize the work I had done, immediately after doing it, and file that, too. Maybe I'll be this organized some day. Or I could just add it to my CV as I go along. More notes: What I wish I knew - publish early and often, start networking, select a mentor Biases: "Do not internalize them." "If you are not getting what you need from where you are, go somewhere else." "Don't focus on the unfairness, because you will not solve the problem you are trying to solve." Change things by being successful. Cool! Anna, GHC Live Blogger post comment

GHC 2006: Welcome [05 Oct 2006|09:43am] Enrollment is down, and we're short of computer workers. It's a tragedy, it is. Jan (I think? I was late) says that the industry, to make up for the shortage of workers, is focussing on under-represented groups (women, minorities, people with disabilities). It (the need to do that) actually makes me quite angry. Computer science---what field is better adapted to tearing down boundaries? The biggest physical skill you need is some ability to type. For goodness sake, that is something we should be able to provide anyone. There probably are reasonable explanations. I guess hardware is not cheap, and lack-of-exposure-and-training can explain a lot. It still makes me mad. Computer science has not lived up to its promise---it's about time we changed that. Now Telle. She looks like a nice person. As an aside, I really do like the posters over the years. Consistent style, which happens to be one I like. My only sadness is that the schedule (the physical one, unlike the web one) doesn't have the abstracts, so last night back at my hotel I couldn't figure out what sessions to go to. Some of the titles aren't as informative . . . well, they're helpful, but more information is useful. [ETA I have since realized that the other booklet does have the abstracts. Good to know.] Telle is listing the sponsors now. It is worth hearing about those that are willing to support things like this. It certainly improves my opinion of the companies that come. And have good swag. I remember being tremendously impressed at NIPS, when Google actually brought t-shirts for women. Now that's encouraging. Most conference t-shirts go straight to my husband. Right, I was thinking about last night. Telle was trying sooo hard to get the room to quiet down. The mic was too quiet, but even when it was clear she was talking, conversations never ceased. The potential for sexist jokes! I'm sure it was frustrating for her, but at least the networking continues. ACM president---good speaker. I am assured someone is taking real notes, so I'll just keep blabbing. How crazy would it be if the technological revolution is delayed simple because not enough students are taking it up? I wonder if that has happened in other areas, over history? I wonder what we can do---why aren't people interested in computers? Okay, one reason is that some high schools have abysmal introductory courses. Go Queens! Go any mention of Canada at all, actually. :-) Heck, I'll take a female molecular biologist as inspiration. I'm still boggling about the "computer science is the only field where the proportion of women has decreased" factoid. It better not be the mathiness---I wonder what the proportions are like historically in there? Okay, it better be within the span of one career that we see changes. I'm not about to wait decades to see equity in academia. Aren't advances suppose to be exponential rather than linear (with a limit)? According to what Jan said, we have a decreasing function. That's inexplicable---oh, that's a bad comment. We can't give up looking for an explanation and thus, a cure. Arguments for equality: Ah, I like this thought. We can't afford, in a literal sense, to discourage anyone from a field. Restricting the pool of future workers anywhere to half the population, or 30% (if we infer white, perfectly-abled male statistics) is a foolish choice. And then, perhaps, the different perspective. I can buy that without any commitment to what the differences might be. It can never be a good idea to have a major body of science the sole (or main) purview of one group. Diversity breeds adaptability, I think. And anachronism. The further we go along a narrow track, the harder it will be to seem relevant to future generations. And, finally, justice. This is a pretty compelling list. I am going to have to remember it, next time we get into an argument over why there are equal numbers of male and female washrooms in our grossly imbalanced computer science department (though co-ed would simplify everything). Bloody heck. I hate misapplied biological arguments. Even if you can prove differences in the mean, it's a distribution. And most of the arguments are so poorly laid out! I will not argue, if you have data to back it up. Well, I still might argue with your conclusions. Calling something a "female brain" and "male brain" because there are slight differences in the means (still angry about a systematizing/empathizing survey) is irresponsible. "Only the profoundly unobservant would dispute [that there are innate differences]." Amen! It is not that feminists are against science! It is that for goodness sake, it's not that simple. Women perform more poorly in mixed groups than in single-sex groups? Must look up this study. Oh, now, that is telling, if it holds. She's talking about positive influences in her life, and mentions her father and other supportive men. Very nice to hear. Some of us greatly appreciate the support of men we had met. It's not common at all, really (unlike the stereotype), but I do dislike when feminism or female-empowerment slips in to slamming the other gender. Wow, she's a great speaker. " . . . and an absolute inability to recognize reality." I think I can relate to that. We can ignore the disparities, ignore that it is going to affect us. The problem with this taken too far is that we forget how much it affects others. And ourselves. Okay, now I am getting depressed. I am recognizing reality more than I ever have. She has been challenged for placing women in positions of power? Interesting argument that the fact of her femaleness allows her to imagine a woman fulfilling an important role, whereas it is less likely for that to even occur to a man (and it is important to note here that this is not evil or even willful, and in fact it is a struggle to think outside of norms, and outside of your own boundaries). A simple explanation for why a woman might be more likely to hire women than a man. Not misbalance or inequality. Marriage is more common in science and engineering than other fields? And likely to be married to someone in the same field? I have a two-body problem, but at least a designer and AI researcher aren't likely to be competing for one position. Child-bearing. The one area where it can never be perfectly balanced. Even if my dearest is willing to be main care-giver, he can't actually give birth for me. Of course, we're hardly at the point where the is the biggest issue, but it's interesting to me that there is some biology we can't change. Anna, GHC Live Blogger post comment

navigation [ viewing | most recent entries ]