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 .217 [[ https://www.science.org/content/article/geoffrey-marcy-prominent-berkeley-astronomer-resigns-after-sexual-harassment-judgement#:~:text=Geoffrey%20Marcy%2C%20a%20prominent%20astronomer,had%20repeatedly%20sexually%20harassed%20women. | Geoffrey Marcy ]] sexual harassment udgement  .217 [[ https://www.science.org/content/article/geoffrey-marcy-prominent-berkeley-astronomer-resigns-after-sexual-harassment-judgement#:~:text=Geoffrey%20Marcy%2C%20a%20prominent%20astronomer,had%20repeatedly%20sexually%20harassed%20women. | Geoffrey Marcy ]] sexual harassment judgement (not named in book)

Life On Other Planets

A Memoir of Finding My Place In the Universe

Aomawa Shields 2023 - Bvtn Lib 520.92 SHI

  • NO INDEX :-(

  • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aomawa_Shields

  • Formal Biography

  • aomawashields.com newer website

  • https://faculty.sites.uci.edu/shields/ \ UC Irvine professional site

  • Rising Stargirls

  • variablestargirl.com older

  • Thesis The Effect of Star-Planet Interactions on Planetary Climate

  • graduated Exeter 1993 18yo hence born ~1975

  • Sc.B. Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences from MIT in 1997
  • MFA Acting UCLA in 2001
  • Ph.D. Astronomy and Astrobiology from the University of Washington in 2014
  • U Cal Irvine in 2017
  • Husband Steven
  • 007 looked up at stars. 8yo, wanted to be a white Dallas Cowboy Cheerleader, then secretary
  • 008 Mother PhD music theory prof at Amherst, estranged from envious family
  • 009 Father also musician, parents invented name Aomawa Lalahie out of vowel sounds
  • 010 parents divorced when Aomawa 2yo / then remarried: brother 10 years younger / remarried again: sister 21 years younger / toured Europe in 2010 and 2019
  • 012 Mother professor, spent salary on expensive clothes, cosmetics, toys, not end-of-month food or trips
  • 013 Grandmother Delphine 1930s math major at Tennessee State U. historically Black college
    • 015 worked with numbers at Miramar Naval Air Station

  • 016 Top Gun film, astrophysicist PhD teacher inspires young A.S.

  • 018 World Book Encyclopedia at home

  • 022 astronomy at Exeter, instructor Chris Harper

  • 030 Exeter chamber orchestra violin, played Truvy in Exeter school play Steel Magnolias

  • 033 parents met at Antioch, band Pyramids?? Idris Ackamoor??

  • 034 A.S. disliked uncertainty ... and jazz
  • 037 Challenger explosion during Exeter Junior year

  • 040 understudy Barbara Morgan Teacher in Space, NSF women and minorities in science and engineering, leading to grants for Dr. Shields

  • 042 graduation, won Perry cup
  • 047 admitted early decision MIT

  • 048 MIT Infinite Corridor

  • 049 MIT course numbers 8 Physics, 12 EAPS Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences

  • 052 trouble with statistical mechanics partition function

  • 052 Advisor Jim Elliot Uranus rings, Pluto atmosphere

  • 053 Mass Ave Bridge 364.4 smoots Oliver Smoot 5 foot 7 inch

  • 057 Jan MIT astronomy field camp to Lowell Observatory, Deidre Hunter

  • 058 IC 1613 irregular dwarf galaxy Wolf-Rayet star DR1

  • 062 Five hour to bottom of Grand Canyon, Phantom Ranch

  • 064 Summer internship at JPL (1994?) Observational Systems Group Mike Shao

  • 064 Apollo anorthosite rocks dated Moon's age as 4.46GY (Earth 4.54GY), ejecta from Mars-sized impactor into Earth

  • 065 Following summer (1995) w/ MIT Ron Remillard classifying hard X-ray sources

  • 065 Following summer (1996) w/ Arecibo Mike Nolan, prep for Hurricane Bertha

  • 068 Burchard Scholar, one of 35 students, yearlong humanities enrichment

  • 069 Acapella group, pi to 15(?) decimal places

  • 070 read plays, "air of pretension",

  • 071 Senior thesis, paper with Bruce Elmegreen The relationship between gas, stars, and star formation in irregular galaxies: A test of simple models Accepted 1997, APJ 1998 Feb 1

  • 072 late summer 1997 Eric Wilcots Linda Sparke U Wis Madison

  • 075 two bedroom bug-infested top floor of house, $600/mo. out of $1000/mo stipend age 22

  • 076 daydreamed of Zora Neale Hurston biopic acting, aced atomic physics, poor astrophysics grades

  • 079 applied to acting graduate schools, failed audition in Denver . 082 invited to (underfunded) UCLA acting program
  • 083 "reached out to Deidre for support" ... Deidre Hunter pp 57-60
  • 084 "pots and pans sent by Nancy" from Madison ... Nancy who? Astronomy grad student at Madison. Why mention name? There are 2.2 MILLION Nancy's in the US.
  • 086 "In graduate school for acting, I came alive" . 87 dept.chair Mel Shapiro 088 screechy violin "concerto"

  • 088 One Song Glory

  • 089 Learned accents and postures and movement .
  • 090 Yearly faculty review, wore blazer instead of sweatpants, admonished, got mad, cry-yelled at instructors
  • 091 showcase before agents
  • 091 one person show for master's thesis project: chalkboard astronomy with famous lines from movies, as if Tourettes
  • 092 Meets Steven ( Last ?) from Nebraska .94 Marry six years after first date .95 smoker, father's emphysema, stopped
  • 098 no work, arguments with Steve, penny pinching and splurges
  • 100 temp jobs, data entry, scanning documents

  • 101 Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg

  • 102 with Kara Literati Cafe . Urth Caffe . Bodhi Tree

  • 103 Natalie retreat Taos Mabel Dodge Luhan House

  • 106 assistant at cultural center in LA

  • 106 needed Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) card for minor role in Nine Lives

  • 108 Premiere at Sundance Film Festival ... .109 looked up at bright star, .110 "silent shockwave"

  • 111 Deidre Hunter suggests jobs posted at IPAC website

  • 111 new job, desk operator for Spitzer Space Telescope

  • 112 pilot episode for Wired Science, 10 more episodes by others, boo hiss

  • 113 Scientist astronaut candidate? Physical trainer Mike, LASIK (no more contact lenses), no PhD, no callback
  • 115 feeling age at 32

  • 116 Dwarf Planets! Eris

  • 116 "... something else was found -- another object, called Ceres ... about 500km diameter"

    • WFT??? Ceres is in the asteroid belt, discovered in 1801 by Piazzi. Which ANOTHER object?

  • 118 Shields says none of this dwarf business Tara Mohr Playing Big

    • yahbut - how many of these small bodies do we expect school children to memorize? 7 moons (including Luna) are larger than Pluto. Eris is 98% as large, and there may be a crapton of larger objects far beyond the Kuiper belt. Pluto had it coming.
  • 119 promoted from help desk to scheduler for Observation Planning and Scheduling Team for Spitzer
  • 120 Neil deGrasse Tyson said PhD was the missing ingredient for street cred
  • 122 Long conversation with Neil at AAS meeting, had already written a letter of introduction for Shields
  • 123 called by UW astronomy department chair, gotten in.

  • 125 used to get Jheri curl, many hours and hard to maintain

  • 127 tired of the Wave Nouveaus, hair stylist recovered "original" hair
  • 131 fall 2009 age 34 returned to grad school (at UW) after 11 year absence, "no end of work" compared to undergrad
  • 132 13 courses in 2 years, dual astrobiology and astronomy, focus on small planets, perhaps with life
  • 133 followed by 6 hour exam

  • 134 asked 'Kartic' for suggestions, who said

    • "Research Teaching Coursework", one may fail, put weight on the other two, reinforce with personal life
  • 134 Kepler telescope. after 2 of 4 reaction wheels failed, mission K2 centered on ecliptic plane, from 2013 to 2018
  • 137 flustered by question about Iapetus rotation during journal club talk
  • 140 officemates Amy and Jillian praised her delivery

  • 141 prof Eric Agol suggested taking a few seconds to respond

  • 141 Support systems: Process Group Therapy, mentorships, theater background as superpower

  • 144 Mary Oliver Don't wait forever, because forever isn't that long.

  • 145 600 to 800 MYA, snowball Earth .146 perhaps too much land at equator, plants sequestering CO₂
  • 146 until subduction and volcanos returned CO₂ to atmosphere
  • 147 but why not ice-albedo feedback? mystery
  • 148-150 Seattle settling in .151-152 Taos retreat
  • 151 "Nefertiti with a Calculator" in UW lit. mag. "Bricolage", not available online
  • 153-160 End of second year, disciplined practice for qualifying exams

  • Advisors Victoria Meadows Cecilia Blitz

  • Dissertation: The Effect of Star-Planet Interactions on Planetary Climate

  • 168 FameLab .169 AbSciCon Planetary Ice as valley girl

  • 170 Nichelle Nichols considered leaving Star Trek, Martin Luther King asked her to stay

  • 172 Climate of earth-sized exoplanets .173 A Pail of Air Fritz Leiber

  • 175 3D GCM Global Climate Models

  • 176 Glaciologist Steven Warren published albedo models for every kind of ice

  • 177 simulated Earth model with different stellar spectra
  • 178 "cooler" stars (more infrared) heat model Earth more than Sol does

  • 178 Most cited first author paper 2016 The habitability of planets orbiting M-dwarf stars

  • 180 Eric Agol Kepler-62f 1.4x earth size habitable zone

  • 183 John Asher Johnson Harvard exoplanets

  • 185 Thesis The Effect of Star-Planet Interactions on Planetary Climate

  • 187 Hike to Little Si Peak 47.49864N -121.75608W

  • 193 mentor Sarah Ballard

  • 195-198 astronomy workshop for "brown" teen girls
  • 200 2014, 15th black woman to earn astro PhD, 160th including physics related
  • 205 M-dwarf stars tidelock habitable zone planets, perhaps life around terminator
  • 206 M-dwarf stars spew XUV . .209 TED Fellow . .215 decide to have kids

  • 217 Geoffrey Marcy sexual harassment judgement (not named in book)

More Later

LifeOnOtherPlanets (last edited 2023-12-16 11:08:34 by KeithLofstrom)