TRIBUTE BY PROF. C.M.I. OKOYE, HEAD OF DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICS & ASTRONOMY, UNIVERSITY OF NIGERIA, NSUKKA.

The news of the death of Prof. S. E. Okoye on 18^th November, 2009 was received with shock by the staff of the department, especially by those who passed through him as students and those who were his colleagues.

Professor Okoye joined the services of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka in 1970 as an Associate professor of physics and was promoted to full Professor in 1976. He became the Head of Department of Physics during 1978-1981. it was during his tenure as Head of Department that the name of the Department was changed from Physics to Physics and Astronomy. It was also during this period that he formed the Astrophysics Research Group that later metamorphosed into the Space Research Group.

Professor Okoye trained a number of postgraduate students some of whom are now Professor in the University of Nigeria and other Nigeria Universities. As a world renowned Professor, he has left indelible marks in the annals of the history of the department.

On behalf of the staff of the Department of Physics and Astronomy I send our condolences to the bereaved family and wish his soul eternal rest in perfect peace.

EULOGY FOR MY FATHER BY ENGR. OBINNA K. OKOYE – SON

Losing a loved one is probably one of the most difficult feelings any human being can experience, so much more if it is a parent. No words can express how I feel right now.

How do you come to terms with the loss of your beloved father? How do you find happiness again? How do you move forward despite your aching heart, emptiness and sadness? It’s like I’m in the midst of a nightmare that doesn’t disappear when I wake up. However, deep down I can still feel my father’s presence ….his voice, his laughter, his wits…. His spirit still lives.

Dad taught me many things. Most importantly, I learnt from him how to live and cope with the harsh and difficult challenges in life. On numerous occasions, he told me to always “aim for the stars and you will reach the skies…. Aim for the moon and you will likely reach the stars”.

Each time I remember that quote, it serves as a source of motivation to always strive to be the best in whatever I do.

Dad was very meticulous and organized. He cared very much for his family and would very often inconvenience himself so that his children would enjoy the best things of life. He was kind, considerate and compassionate.

I also came to realize that the most important thing that daddy had was us, his family.

Dad was a great source of inspiration, not only to his children or his family but to many who came across him one way or the other. He strove to educate others in the hope that they opened their minds to new possibilities.

He was a voracious reader. He invested a lot of his funds on books. He had a library of books covering various disciplines from Astronomy to Bio-technology, Economics, Literature, Biology, Politics and Medicine.

Dad, you exhibited great courage, resilience and strength through the numerous battles and difficult challenges you went through. The race is finally over and now you have gone to rest in the bosom of our Lord.

Adieu Daddy…… I will miss you very much.

EULOGY FOR MY FATHER BY MR. AMECHI OKOYE – SON

So much more than a Dad

To those who knew him he was “Sam”,

To many others he was “Professor Okoye”,

To his siblings and relatives he was “Akalaka”

To me and three others he was “DAD”

He was the biggest man I have ever known; or ever will.

He traveled his allotted time on Earth with energy,

Courage, determination and faith that is so rare in most individuals

He was a true hero.

Daddy was kind, caring and generous

He was also my friend

On the last day we spent together, we spoke about our plans for the future. Things we could and should do and ho we would do them.

Ala, he was called back home.

Although aged 70, I think we lost dad in his prime.

For he so much wanted to do

Daddy is touted for being Africa’s foremost black astrophysicist. But his greatest achievement was not his qualification

Rather his sheer bravery and willpower

Like the Leo sign he was, Daddy was a Lion

He swam seas and maneuvered oceans full of sharks and whales

Yet, he still emerged at the other side of the water.

Let us, therefore, not just mourn the absence of the flame,

But also celebrate how brightly it burned.

I love and miss you terribly, daddy!

May our good Lord grant you everlasting peace

Amy Bobo

On February 2^nd 2010, the First Announcement for IAU Symposium No, 277 (Tracing the Ancestry of Galaxies – on the Land of our Ancestors) to be held in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso on December 13-17, 2010, was sent.

While enthusiastic responses were received, a message was also suggesting that we were organizing “scientific tourism” in Africa and even one department had already decided not to let their students and post-docs attend the conference. It was in fact a good thing that this person came forward since it gives us the opportunity to put this meeting in context.

As far as the science goes, I think the scientific rationale given speak for itself (see www.iaus277.org )

But the question to answer is why hold such a meeting in Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso, which on the Human Resources Index  (HDI) of the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) is classified 177/182 countries.

see: http://hdr.undp.org/en/media/HDR_2009_EN_Summary.pdf

In fact, five years ago, I was asked (I didn’t get the idea, myself) by the Minister of Education and Research in Burkina Faso (who got his degree at the Université de Montréal) if I would like to come and set up an Astrophysics program at the Université de Ouagadougou that would eventually become a center of Excellence that could deserve the Western Africa sub-region. This is an approach now used in many fields. Since resources are limited, the idea is not to develop departments of everything everywhere but to develop a new research activity in one country that could then deserve the whole sub-region.

We define the program in 2006 and the Science Council of the University accepted it at the beginning of 2007. I got great support from my University in Montréal. However, one of the problems with teaching sciences in Africa is that usually the level of the courses is OK (most of the faculties get their formation in Europe) but the labs are empty. So we thought that if we were going to set up a program, we would also build a small Observatory (25cm + CCD + appropriate filters and computers) for teaching purposes such that the practical work could be done on that telescope.

The first undergraduate class was given at the end of 2007 to ~100 students and the teaching Observatory was inaugurated by the Prime Minister on November 26, 2007: http://astro.univ-ouaga.org/. The first graduate course (Msc) was given at the beginning of 2009 to ~20 students. A full graduate program with 8 courses has been set up. The idea is to provide (with the help of many colleagues from around the world) the teaching for 4-5 years while we are forming 4 Burkinabè PhD (2 have started in Montréal, 1 will be going this year to Université de Provence and hopefully another one to South Africa) that will then take over the program once their degree will be completed (they are assure to get a position at the University de Ouagadougou).

While data mining allows to get good data sets for thesis even when you don’t possess your own telescope, with the Marseille people, we submitted a project to the OAMP in order to move the Marly telescope (EROS project) from Chile to Burkina Faso. It was accepted in December 2008 and the Marly telescope was put in crates last October in La Silla. It left Valparaiso on October 31st, arrived in Tema, Ghana on December 15 and the container was unloaded last Friday in Ouagadougou. With the help of many people (especially UdeM, LAM & OHP people) we hope to have the refurbished telescope operational end of 2011. Collaborators from the LAM and the LAE (Laboratoire d’Astrophysique Expérimentale in Montréal) will provide state-of-the-art instrumentation. This will help forming the students in BF and not loosing them to northern countries, which often happens when they get their formation overseas. We are in the final stages of the drawings and are getting help from the World Bank to build the infrastructures. The only money missing is for the solar energy power and the geothermal air-cooling demanding much less power than the conventional systems (a class of engineers is working on the project in Montréal). Hopefully, we’ll soon find the money for this part.

The main reason to hold the meeting here is to mark the beginning of Astrophysics in Burkina Faso and the construction of the Research Observatory. For the people here, to receive 200-250 among the best Astrophysicists in the world is a great motivation. Parallel to the scientific meetings we are also organizing, during the week of the conference, public talks for the students, special workshops for secondary school students and Astronomical Exhibitions in a central location.

I hope this helps to put this meeting in the context of the project initiated 5 years ago.

As a member society of the American Institute of Physics (AIP), the challenges facing the acoustics community reflect those in other fields of physics. Throughout physics, as promising intellectual talent is lost to higher-compensating professions, extra emphasis should be placed on effectively nurturing those inspired by positive role models to mitigate this pipeline leakage.

Therefore, in an effort to advance the discussions from diversity to inclusion in the science of sound and noise, the Acoustical Society of America (ASA) committees on education in acoustics and diversity in acoustics:

http://www.acosoc.org/diversity

are co-sponsoring a special session on diversity issues in acoustics education to be held at the joint ASA/Noise-Con meeting in Baltimore, Maryland:

http://asa.aip.org/baltimore/baltimore.html

This special session will be held at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront (conference room Dover C) from 8:40am on Thursday April 22nd, 2010, with invited speakers intended to expose a wide range of viewpoints followed by a panel discussion to identify efforts that the AIP, and all its member and affiliated societies, should take to foster a culture of inclusiveness among their students and professional members.

The list of invited speakers include Dr. Catherine O’Riodan, Vice President of the AIP Physics Resources Center, to describe existing AIP programs to work with students and to reach the general public. Dr. Rachel Ivie, Assistant Director at the AIP Statistical Research Center, will reveal the latest statistics and trends on academic degrees and employment in acoustics. These figures will be compared against those in other scientific and engineering fields.

In a research study with the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP) and the National Society of Hispanic Physicists (NSHP), University of Maryland psychology Professor Sharon Fries-Britt examined the perception of the interactions of underrepresented STEM students with faculty. The findings of this study indicate that their interactions with faculty in the classroom and in advising sessions are critical. When those interactions are positive, students benefit tremendously. However, in many instances, they are negative and the interactions can cause barriers to their engagement in the learning process and in how they feel about pursuing science.  Several examples will be shown of unhelpful comments and attitudes that have been experienced and that inadvertently discourage students from pursuing higher academic degrees. An awareness of sensitivities is essential in increasing their retention rate.

Dr. Theodore Hodapp, American Physical Society (APS) Director of Education and Diversity will describe a new program that aims to significantly increase the number of underrepresented members receiving doctorate degrees in physics. He will also share ideas for potential partnerships and efforts that we can take within our communities, universities and workplace.

Prof. David Bradley will describe joint efforts by the Vassar College Physics and Astronomy Department and the Bronx Institute at Lehman College to establish a hands-on, inquiry-based acoustics workshop series for urban, low-income, ethnic minority students from New York City public high schools. Since today’s iPod generation is strongly attracted to music, acoustics represents an attractive gateway into the world of physics. Therefore, the described partnership exemplifies solutions that promise to fill the physics pipeline with increasing number of qualified underrepresented students.

Dr. Daryl Chubin, Director of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Center for Advancing Science & Engineering Capacity, will focus on the legal climate for increasing participation of underrepresented groups in physics education and profession. An understanding of the legal climate is paramount to the development of effective and legally sustainable diversity and inclusion programs.

Howard Ross is one of the nation’s leading diversity training consultants and a nationally recognized expert on diversity, leadership and organizational change. Howard is past chairman of Leadership Washington and a former director of the Greater Washington Board of Trade. He also was the 2007-2008 Visiting Professor of Diversity for Bennett College for Women in Greensboro, North Carolina. In an effort to find strategies to improve the way organizations are addressing diversity, he conducted extensive research that lead to the need for three major paradigm shifts in diversity efforts:

http://www.acosoc.org/diversity/RDpaper.pdf

“These include a movement from the classic United States-based approach which focuses too heavily on race and gender and an assimilation model of diversity, to one that incorporates a deep understanding of Globalism and the impact of major changes in population demographics around the world, global business, and interactive communication and networking. A shift from the “good person/bad person paradigm” of diversity which has developed and permeated a corrective mindset about diversity; a “find them and fix them” approach which escalates the “us vs. them” way that people approach the issue and makes it more, rather than less difficult to address. We have to move away from the event-based way we have approached diversity, a pattern that has given us many specific activities, but not enough emphasis on systems thinking and culture-based change, to one that is strategic, systemic, and culture-based.

The wide range of perspectives in this special session promise to feed into a lively panel discussion that harnesses the information shared by these invited speakers into solid inclusion programs for implementation by the ASA and other AIP member and affiliated societies. An open invitation is extended to attend and become part of the conversation and to the solution to this national challenge.

On Wednesday October 7, 2009, the White House hosted a star party. For those of you unfamiliar with star parties, these are nights when groups of astronomers (often, in fact usually, amateur) plan to take a bunch of telescopes out to a common location and just take a look at objects in the night sky. The White House star party was planned by NASA and the White House’s Office of Science and Technology. (see //www.whitehouse.gov/blog/White-House-to-Host-Star-Party/). My understanding was that the plan was to bring 150 DC local area middle school students, 20 telescopes, a couple portable planetariums and other astronomical activities together for a night of stargazing and learning. But really, when you throw in 4 or 5 astronauts, including the first woman, the first Black woman astronaut, a man who has walked on the moon and the new head of NASA, and the First Family, the evening is not just educational, it is thrilling for everyone involved!

Me at the White House's first star party.

About 3 weeks ago the head of National Optical Astronomy Observatory’s outreach and education group asked me if I might be interested in participating a White House Star Party IF it was to happen. I, of course, thought, what is he kidding? I would love to have the opportunity to visit the WH, last minute, whatever! Even with a small child at home, there was no way I’d be too busy to participate in this gig! When I got the word a week before the event and was told to keep it quiet until the official press release went out, I was fine with that. However, even our computer guy said to me in the hallway, “What are you grinning about?” Man… was I grinning that much, I couldn’t tell, but I wasn’t surprised.
On October 6th as I flew from Tucson to DC, I was more than a little worried that the weather was not going to cooperate for this event. I crossed most of the country from Arizona to Chicago to Washington, DC and the whole way the skies were socked in with clouds… high, thick clouds. Like with professional astronomical observing, I knew that this chance at a star party was a one shot deal! If it were cloudy the on-sky observing would be canceled! I went to bed thinking it was pretty touch and go and that maybe I wouldn’t end up observing at the WH after all.
Amazingly, I awoke to beautiful clear skies and a perfect clear day! After lunch I headed to the WH with my colleague from NOAO, Stephen Pompea. We were ushered to the South Lawn where we started setting up our telescopes. We were told that there was to be a “press event” at 4pm. But we didn’t really know what that meant. At 4 a few press came out onto the lawn following a few people in small packs. Who were these people? I had no idea.

Charlie Bolden, head of NASA, with middle school students as we wait for President Obama to speak.

As it turns out, Dr. Mae Jamison and Sally Ride were two of the people strolling across the lawn giving interviews. I was able to speak to both of them and give them copies of the Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy newsletter, Spectrum. The committee is one of the standing committees of the American Astronomical Society. Dr. Jamison in particular was very interested and exchanged cards and information about her own foundation to promote minority women in science and technology, particularly aero/astro fields.

After the dinner break, we returned to get the telescopes set up on our ‘assigned’ astronomical objects. For those in the know, this is not usually how star parties work. But the entire event lasted < 2 hours, so we were assigned either Jupiter or M13, a globular cluster, instead of having the chance to slew around to interesting sources with a few students.

Back at the telescope after dinner.

The sun was setting as the students arrived. They walked around a bit but the schedule was such that they were not to begin the evening events until after President Obama gave his welcoming remarks. As that time drew near, the anticipation of the students grew. Each time the doors to the South Lawn opened, there was a burst of enthusiasm that then faded to disappointed sighs each time it was not the President… despite the fact that at one point it was a group of astronauts crossing the stage!
When Obama finally arrived he was greeted with cheers and frantic waves from the crowd of kids at the front of the audience. At the end of the speech, there was a telescope set up for the President and First Lady to have a look at an “interesting object”. The chosen source was a double, double star system about 150 light years away. Again for those in the know, you might ask, “Why pick a faint system of 4 stars when brighter ‘Gee whiz!’ sources were clearly up in the sky?” Yes, I agree, it seems painfully clear from the President’s and Mrs. Obama’s reactions that they were unable to see anthing in that eyepiece and no wonder with the bright lights around and the faintness of the source. My guess is that the source was chosen for the angle of the telescope. Given the trees and the building in the background, the only place to point the telescope was either to the south, down the lawn, or straight up! There wouldn’t be much of a photo-op with the President looking from behind the telescope out into the crowd, so find something, anything, that would be at about zenith at 8:10pm.

The First Lady looks for the double, double star.

After the ill-fated presidential observing, I returned to my telescope to show the kids Jupiter. I found that it was not hard to get kids excited about looking through a telescope that is on the White House South Lawn. The kids were great even those who had seen Jupiter several times before. Most of the kids are from a large metropolitan area (DC, Maryland, Virginia) and many didn’t realize that you could see Jupiter without the telescope! “Is that Jupiter there?” they said pointing was a common remark.
As the middle schoolers cycled through the activities, I occasionally found myself without an audience. During one such time, I suddenly saw a mass of people moving in the darkness. They were walking toward me, but not to me or my telescope. I heard some whispers of, “Here comes the President.” At that moment I was divinely inspired to shout out, “Jupiter over here!” and the mass altered its angle and headed my way. The President reached me first saying, “So what do we have here?” as he bent low to see into the eyepiece. “It’s Jupiter,” I said, “You should sit down to view, I have it aligned that way.” Obama sat down. I was only vaguely aware of anyone but the First Family and a few guys with video cameras. I started my shpiel, “You should see a disk and…” “What are the dots lined up there?” the President interrupted. “Yes, those are the 4 Galilean moons…” I continued with naming the moons, explaining their orbits, pointing out the stripes of clouds across the planet’s face and describing the distance in the time it takes the light to travel. “That means the light left 30 minutes ago,” said the President. “Indeed, that’s right!” I encouraged. Sasha got the next turn to look. “Now come over here and don’t touch it!” her dad lightly scolded, seemingly with experience as his guide. I commented to the President that I was from the South Side of Chicago, Kenwood. “We know Kenwood,” he said looking toward Michelle, “We live over by the synagogue there.”
As Michelle sat down, a cloud had rolled in. She was able to see the disk, but not the moons very clearly. As they started to leave, they both shook my hand, “Nice to meet you,” Ms. Obama, who had been very quiet, said. And then they were off.

Chatting with the President while Sasha looks at Jupiter. Not the best picture with the President, but it is all I got!

Later on that night a boy came wandering toward my telescope. “You want to see Jupiter?” I asked him. “Sure.” He said and politely sat down. This time I was able to complete my shpiel. “Do you see…,” I continued. He politely answered yes to every question but clearly was not very engaged. Since Jupiter was one of maybe 3 targetted sources on display, I suspected he had had his fill, so I didn’t take it as a sign of disinterest. “Where you from?” I said, since he was making no effort to leave. “Silverspring, MD, “ he said pacing around looking at the ground. Then he turned to look back to the White House and said, “How COOL is this that we get to be at the White House!!” “WAY COOL!!” I answered.

AEWs have a wavelength of approximately 3000 km and a frequency of 3-5 days.  In a given summer season, nearly 100 AEWs will emerge from West Africa, but only 10% will be associated with hurricanes in the US.

While AEWs are associated with some of nature’s most devastating weather to the Western Hemisphere (Hurricanes Georges, Mitch, Katrina), these disturbances bring life-giving rains to West Africa and its people.  A wet season is often associated with higher than normal number of Atlantic tropical disturbances.

The processes linking AEWs in West Africa to Atlantic Hurricanes are poorly understood, in part because of a poor observing system in West Africa.  There are only 3 stations – located in Dakar, Senegal, Bamako, Mali, Niamey, Niger — where daily measurements are made of the entire troposphere, and there are no comprehensive field campaigns, i.e., coordinated measurements of atmospheric and meteorological variables at a range of altitudes over many square miles over some period of time.

One of the largest and most extensive international field campaigns for examining AEWs was the GARP Atlantic Tropical Experiment (GATE) field campaign with its command station in Dakar Senegal in 1974.  But in 2006, for only the second time in 32 years, a large-scale field campaign, the African Monsoon Multidisciplinary Analysis (AMMA) took place in West Africa and the extreme eastern Atlantic.

Some of the low-pressure zones measured during this field campaign eventually developed into tropical cyclones (Debby and Helene).  So this new data set is providing new insights on tropical cyclone genesis in the extreme Eastern Atlantic as well as the linkages to Saharan dust and rain processes over the continent.

After a synthesis and analysis workshop in June 2007, students from the US and Senegal presented their results at the January 2008 meeting of the American Meteorological Society in New Orleans.

Rainfall measurements will continue in Senegal, and a solar power array is being commissioned to continue long-term measurements of infrared and solar radiation, aerosols and tropospheric ozone.

Future endeavors include: increasing measurement capacity in other parts of Senegal and in Guinea.

“These improvements are critically important for capacity building and the collaborative work at Howard University and the University of Cheikh Anta Diop,” says Dr. Gregory Jenkins, leader of the US-based work and chair of the physics department at Howard.

Additional Photos

Drs. Gregory Jenkins and Amadou Gaye (Cheikh Anta Diop University) with US Ambassador Janice Jacob (top) and Sengalese Research Ministers Kene Gassama Dia During the 2006 field campaign (image)

Dr. Adrienne Stiff-Roberts was recently awarded one of the Presidential Early Career Awards for Scientists and Engineers (PECASE).

The PECASE awards were commissioned by President Clinton to
honor and support the extraordinary achievements of young scientists and engineers at the outset of their independent research careers. These Presidential awards are the highest honor bestowed by the United States government on outstanding scientists and engineers just beginning their independent careers.

Dr. Stiff-Roberts is an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University. Her research involves the design, fabrication, and characterization of opto-electronic/photonic devices, particularly those in the infrared spectrum.  She also does research on multifunctional sensors featuring hybrid nanomaterials.

She is a graduate of Spelman College and the University of Michigan.
Professor Nadya Mason wins Denise Denton Award

Dr. Nadya Mason is the 2009 winner of the Denise Denton Emerging Leader Award.   Dr. Mason is currently and assistant professor of physics at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.   She is co-chair of the NSBP Condensed Matter and Materials Physics Section.

Given by the Anita Borg Institute for Women and Technology (ABI),  the Denice Denton Emerging Leader Award is given each year to a junior non-tenured faculty member under the age of 40 at an academic or research institution pursuing high-quality research in any field of engineering or physical sciences while contributing significantly to promoting diversity in his/her environment.  The Denice Denton Award is underwritten by Microsoft.

Dr. Mason’s research focuses on electron behavior in low-dimensional, correlated materials, where enhanced novel interactions are expected to give novel results.  She is particularly interested in the effect of reduced dimensionality and correlations on electron coherence, and uses novel fabrication techniques to study quantum properties of carbon nanotubes, quantum dots and wires.   She has several publications in top-flight journals including Nature, Science and Physical Review Letters.

In addition to her research, Dr. Mason is a spokesperson for increasing diversity in physics and for creating a climate in academia that embraces and supports minorities and women.

She is a graduate of Harvard University and Stanford University.

NASA will be remembering the former NASA Administrator Fellow this October at the 2009 Women in Astronomy Conference*, which is dedicated to Dr. Brown. Although she is no longer with us in person, Dr. Brown’s spirit will continue to inspire us all for a long time to come.

*Students, please note that there is travel funding available to attend this conference. See the website for more information.

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.

While visiting Cardiff, I met Dr. Seymour Mauskopf who was visiting a mutual friend. Dr. Mauskopf is a historian of science at Duke University. We had a discussion of the program in the History and Philosophy of Science at Duke. It is a certificate program and a graduate concentration. It is similar to how I am trying to set up the program in Cultural Astronomy at the University of Arizona. I got the feeling that Dr. Mauskopf now thinks that at some point Duke should have built this up to a full graduate degree program. I suggested that to build a program you had to have someone willing to see it through from start to finish including getting funding for students and building a viable network where graduating students can get postdocs. I used the term “empire builder”. He felt that such a person has yet to join their faculty.

Our conversation got me thinking about what a postdoc in cultural astronomy could be. If I keep my current model of graduate students having a traditional major and a minor in cultural astronomy, then they can get a postdoc in their major as long as their work fits in with the current intellectual debates. If they focus only on cultural astronomy, people in their field may not see their work as relevant. Unlike in the physical sciences, the goal of the first postdoc is to transform the dissertation into a publishable book. Because my dissertation is in astronomy & astrophysics, when I began my first postdoc at UCLA I had to start with doing research before even considering writing a book. As a result, I had a rather long postdoc and finished writing the book in 2004 after being a professor for two years. However, the book has still not been published - this is my book on navigation by the stars. Meanwhile, I have begun several other projects and am actively collecting data while my book bounces from publisher to publisher looking for a home. I had hoped to have a second book completed on new research by this point of my career, but it hasn’t gone as smoothly as I expected. However, African Cultural Astronomy – my unexpected book – is quite an achievement which I am proud of: It is an edited volume that is also a textbook written for undergraduates and available from Springer. Also unlike in the physical sciences, postdocs are expected to teach at least one class per year. And, a postdoc can be taken at any time even after getting tenure.

More on postdocs, I had several conversations with postdocs in astronomy in Leiden, Garching, and Cambridge. The mood was somber. Because of the economic crisis worldwide, most academic astronomy positions have been frozen or withdrawn. The hiring freezes are into the foreseeable future, so those astronomers starting postdocs are facing the real possibility of having to do three or more postdocs before applying for an academic or even any kind of permanent position. They will have to adopt a holding pattern and go into survival mode. This is the time for NSF to increase its support of postdoctoral fellows especially of women and minorities if they want them to remain in astronomy. Women and minorities are disproportionately impacted during cut backs and lay offs in general, but every effort should be made to keep this from happening to our fledgeling astronomers. If NSF was really farsighted they could set up joint professorships where NSF will pay their salary for three years with the guarantee that the University will pay the last three years which will get people through to tenure and overall help universities at the very least replace retiring professors. Attaching women and minorities to it would gently force astronomy departments to finally diversify. OK, maybe not so gentle.

The solstice 2009 went well. I witnessed several rituals and spoke to many people about the 2010 Cultural Astronomy Field School which will take place June 2010. It looks like in 2010 there will be a large group at dawn, and Morris dancing at sunset. I learned that a group does rituals at midnight on the solstice (the night before), too. During the day, the rituals included smaller groups compared to the dawn activities. In general, those folks that I spoke to about having students witness their rituals in 2010 were enthusiastic. I was surprised at how amenable people were to the idea considering that they choose to do rituals at this much smaller and less well know stone circle rather than at Avebury and Stonehenge. It looks like all the elements of the 2010 Cultural Astronomy Field School are in place, it is time to set a price and start advertising!

I returned to the USA via San Francisco in the middle of the week, and drove via Los Angeles back to Tucson. This morning my husband and I met with Lisa Boags, the head of Boags Productions. Hubble’s Diverse Universe is the name of our film on African American and Hispanic American astronomers funded by a NASA Education and Public Outreach grant. Everyone in the film is a member of NSBP and NSHP. We chose to work with Boags Productions because they did a fantastic documentary on the Tuskegee Airmen. They are doing a great job on our film which will premiere on July 11 & 12th at the Museum of African American Technology in Oakland, CA. Lisa Boags, George Carruthers, and I will be available for Q & A after the viewing the film. This morning we went over the science section of the film which is 15 minutes of the 45 minutes. We suggested a few more HST images and animations to include. The film is one of the IYA2009 projects for the Cultural Astronomy and Storytelling group.

This may be my last blog this year for NSBP and I hope NSBP students have learned a bit more about cultural astronomy, useful information about astronomy and being an astronomer, and what a few of us NSBP members are up to. I will end with a big IF: NSBP member Hakeem Oluseyi and I are waiting to hear if we have gotten a NASA E/PO grant to do solar physics experiments in the Marshall Islands during the July 22, 2009, total solar eclipse. IF we get the grant we will take student assistants and make a documentary film about the whole experience including: 1) the solar physics experiments, 2) the experiences of minority students traveling to an amazing location to do a high pressure task, 3) Marshall Islander cultural astronomy including folklore and navigation, 4) local people’s responses to the eclipse, and 5) profiles of the scientists. We hope to hear from NASA this week.

Don’t forget to celebrate the International Year of Astronomy 2009. The Universe: Yours to Discover!

Dr. Jarita Holbrook is a research scientist in cultural astronomy at the University of Arizona. She received her undergraduate degree in physics from Caltech and the Ph.D. degree in astronomy from the University of California-Santa Barbara. She was a postdoctoral research scholar in history of science at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin. She is the co-editor or the recently published volume, African Cultural Astronomy.