A group of 12 intrepid hikers met on a mild Saturday morning in early November in the Morgan Territory Wilderness. From morning till noon we kept up an easy pace with informal networking and chatting. We took our lunch break on an oak-studded hillside and finished the hike in mid-afternoon. We’re hoping to offer one group hike a month, weather permitting. This is a way to get to know a few members better, and get some exercise. Once it stays light in the evenings, we’ll resume the weekly Monday night Dish Walks.

On December 4^th 2001 the chapter meeting at Xerox Parc featured a talk by our local pharmacognoscist, Dr Marilyn Barrett. Her message – that there is science, as well as folklore and tradition, behind botanical medicines – was delivered to a crowd of over 60 people. Marilyn urged us to read claims on labels carefully on herbal products. The FDA has published standards for botanicals but they are not considered to be drugs. They are dietary supplements and are considered safe, unless proven otherwise. Manufacturers may make nutritional claims (e.g. ‘promotes a healthy immune system’) but are not allowed to mention disease. Some products contain too little of an active ingredient to be effective. Botanical manufacturers are not required to follow GMP. Several companies may create products with the same name, that actually contain vastly different amounts of the active ingredient, or that contain different combinations of ingredients. Some may be effective and others may be less so. Marilyn is currently working on a book that will include a database of 42 botanicals, with data from 350 clinical trials. The clinical trial data has been reviewed and evaluated by medical specialists who determined how convincing the evidence is. This was a fascinating talk, and an enthusiastic audience kept the speaker engaged with questions afterwards until our meeting time was up.

At the November chapter meeting Dr. Emily Morey-Holton answered the question "Does Gravity Shape Life?" with a resounding "Yes!". Dr. Morey-Holton is Chief of Gravitational Research at the NASA-Ames Research Center in Mountain View. Her main research interest is in calcium and bone formation and loss; she has published over 250 papers and abstracts on aspects of calcium metabolism, bone growth, and bone biomechanics. In her talk, she gave us a broad overview of what happens to life when gravity changes during space flight and painted a compelling picture of how gravity shapes living systems, from cells to humans.

Dr. Morey-Holton reminded us that gravity has been a constant 1g throughout the evolution of humans from horizontal to upright postures. In reduced gravity water moves differently, air and water do not separate, there is no convection so things do not mix and heat does not dissipate, and shape changes instead of volume. These different physical behaviors of air, water, and matter in reduced gravity affect human physiology. For example, the movement of blood and lymph in the cardiovascular system is affected. Fluid is shifted toward the head, thirst receptors in the neck are satisfied, and astronauts stop drinking. Also, due to decreased loads in space, astronauts lose mass from the muscles and bones that do the most weight-bearing on Earth. The muscle and bone mass is regained upon return to normal gravity, revealing the plasticity of the human body.

AWIS NEWS

The Palo Alto AWIS Chapter holds elections every March for the offices of President, Vice-President, Secretary, Treasurer and Member-at-Large. The one-year term of office was voted in by members in 2001 – prior to that the terms were 2-year). A poll of the current Board indicated that most will run again for a second term of their current office. However our President, Annette Lewis, will step down.

I found this an excellent and worthwhile conference (worth the long lines at San Francisco airport, the sniffing dogs at O'Hare airport, the anxiety of flying into the almost deserted National Airport in DC and the moving of the Congressional Reception out of the shut-down Rayburn Office Building on Capitol Hill).

The plenary speakers and the workshops covered well the topics in the conference title. Before the Congressional reception we heard 8 past AWIS presidents (covering 1974 to 1997) reminisce about their time in office, describing AWIS's accomplishments set in the current events and the way women scientists were treated at the time.

The keynote speaker of the Science and Policy plenary session was Rita Colwell, Director of the National Science Foundation (don't miss any opportunity to hear Dr Colwell speak, she is amazingly clear and paints the big picture of science; she is standing second from the right in the group photo). She said that women have a role to play in shaping the future of science, with so few constraints on what we can do in science we have the responsibility to decide what we should do. In the same session we heard from four more women scientists at or near the top of important institutions: Lura Powell, Director of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory; Maxine Singer, Director of the Carnegie Institution; Kate Hadley Baker, Director of Geoscience, British Petroleum; and Katie Olsen, Chief Scientist, NASA.

One had to choose one workshop out of four to participate in on the Friday afternoon, I chose Leadership Skills in the Workplace where I learnt that six parameters to pay attention to if you wish to become a leader at work are: be an expert in your specific field, flexibility, planning, continuous improvement, balance and communication. Furthermore you need to be decisive. This very helpful workshop was led by AWIS member Katie Smith from the San Diego chapter and Gen-Probe Inc.

The scrumptious Anniversary Dinner was held in the members’ room of the National Academy of Sciences where we honored the life of the late Nina Matheny Roscher, AWIS member and the 1998 recipient of the Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring.

During the Saturday morning session on AWIS Unity, our "own" Ellen Weaver (recently retired from San Jose State University. She is seated second from the right in the group photo.) gave the keynote speech in which she defined unity as developing chapter strengths, improving connections between chapters, between chapters and the national office and with international women in science. She encouraged discussion about these topics, especially how to link with other organizations with similar missions, such as the Math/Science Network.

We then heard from the current president of the Association for Women Geoscientists, Margaret Toscano, who described their history and how since last year they have been (deliberately) running with no paid staff and how that freed up their $50,000 per year income to spend on services and programs. They are benefiting from an experienced volunteer manager and actively involved Board members.

Willie Pearson Jr, Chair of the School of History, Technology and Society at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Yolanda George, Deputy Director, Education and Human Resources, American Association for the Advancement of Science gave us their perspectives on unity and how it relates to getting more women into science.

Once again I was forced to choose between three interesting-sounding afternoon workshops and I chose "Research Findings on Women and Girls in Science and Technology" led by Ruta Sevo from the Human Resource Development division of the National Science Foundation. Her group grants over 10 million dollars a year in the NSF Program for Gender Equity in Science, Mathematics, Engineering and Technology (SMET). Over the years they have funded over 250 projects, typically with between $100,000 and $900,000 over 3 years. Even so they don't have enough money to fund all the high-scoring proposals. She told proposal writers that we must have read the research on women and girls in SMET and to go beyond quoting the plain statistics. Our proposals must show how we have understood the research results and built our proposed activity to take account of them. The strategies we intend to use in our projects must take into account previous research results on what works for recruiting and retaining girls and women in SMET.

Our very full Saturday concluded with a session on the challenges and successes of AWIS chapters with input from 4 chapters of varying sizes and success: San Diego, East Bay (=Berkeley and Oakland), Philadelphia and Washington DC. The San Diego chapter sounded the most similar to the Palo Alto chapter, their biennial "Women in Bioscience" conference is their major project. They fundraise from local companies for this conference and actually make a sizable profit! The Philadelphia chapter covers a wide geographical area and finding a convenient meeting place was difficult, they have started holding joint meetings with other organizations, such as one for minority scientists and engineers. The Washington DC chapter suffers from a logistics problem too—their members work in downtown DC but hardly anyone lives there, and they scatter into the cities all around DC at the end of the workday, so for now they are not having meetings. The East Bay chapter was spawned from the Palo Alto chapter and is trying to replicate some of our programs, but finding volunteers to run the committees is a struggle. Nevertheless they have well attended bi-monthly meetings.

The conference concluded on Sunday morning with a panel on "Service and Careers" and an open discussion on AWIS’s next decade. Ted Greenwood, a program director at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation told us how much he admires AWIS’s work and effectiveness, and that Kitty Didion, our national executive director, has taught him all he knows about women in science. Mr. Greenwood described the barriers he sees to women being scientists and to being promoted to the top of their ladders, and how he has come to believe that our scientific institutions need to change fundamentally to accommodate the realities of family life. He thinks that we need permanent part-time career tracks and the Sloan Foundation is currently designing a program to address this idea, no doubt involving large grants to people and/or institutions who try to set up such career tracks, – keep an eye out for it.

The current AWIS president, Linda Mantel (standing in the middle of the group photo), reviewed what the Board sees as indicators of AWIS’s success: a large, diverse and connected membership; that AWIS is a player on the national scene- people call AWIS when they are working on a "women in science" project, need to be educated about women in science or want nominations for women to sit on important scientific committees; and that AWIS has a national office and finances to sustain its staff and its national programs. AWIS has already achieved these 3 points to a certain degree and over the next 10 years we hope it will gain even greater success in achieving its mission of being dedicated to achieving equity and full participation for women in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.

INVITATIONS

The Programs Committee is responsible for putting on the monthly chapter meetings. This includes reserving the meeting space, inviting the speaker, bringing the food, and facilitating the meeting. This year’s committee has worked hard to plan the fabulous Fall programs we all have enjoyed. It is now time to turn our attention to the Spring and Summer programs. There will be a planning meeting held on Saturday, January 12^th from 2:00 to 4:00 pm at the home of Kam Dahlquist, committee chair. We always welcome new members. If you have an idea or speaker in mind for a future program or if you just want to help out, please join us. Contact Kam Dahlquist at kdahlquist@gladstone.ucsf.edu for more information and directions to the meeting. And THANK YOU to the current members of the committee: Susan Bernhard, Fong Yi Bih, Marina Gelman, Babette Heyer, Anna Jaklitsch, Christine Jesser, Virginia Kalogeraki, Tina Mah, Angele Maki, Cindy Schultz, Lynne Sopchak, and Silke Thode.

The NCC (Northern California Chapters) 8^th annual winter workshop offering career development skills training, to be held on Saturday March 9, 2002. This year’s trainer will be from ‘Women Unlimited’. The workshop will be held at Genentech in South SF. The workshop flyer, and registration information is available in this newsletter, at chapter meetings, and on our website. If you would like to help with this workshop, please contact Mary Alice Yund at yund@worldnet.att.net to volunteer.

The Mentoring Committee will host a winter wine-and-cheese social for Mentors on Monday, January 14^th, 7p-9p in Menlo Park. RSVP required. You are invited to attend this event, that will reward past and present mentors for contributing their time and energy to the Mentoring Program – nurture connections between mentors, and provide an opportunity for networking. To join us for the social, please RSVP by email to Susan at susan_bernhard@baxter.com to receive directions.

It’s time for the first call for Recognition Award nominations. Nominations are due in mid-February and the awards will be presented at our Annual Awards Banquet on April 24, 2002 at Genentech.

Each year NCC-AWIS presents awards to three women who have combined pursuing their own careers with support of other women in science. Two awards go to women working in research in industry or academia. One award goes to a woman who is well established in her career, and one to a woman who is just starting out in her career. A third award is given to a woman who uses science away from the bench, for example in teaching.

To nominate a woman who merits recognition, send a letter of nomination to Mary Alice Yund, 723 Woodhaven Road, Berkeley, CA 94708. Questions about the nomination process? Contact Mary Alice at (510) 525-1715 or yund@worldnet.att.net.

Lots of jobs listed at Abbott, Visit the website at: www.abbott.com/career/career_center.cfm to find out about opportunities at this Morgan Hill company.

GeneEd is still looking for post-doctoral fellows, graduate and medical students to work on a contractual basis. Visit www.geneed.com to learn more about this exciting e-learning company. Please send any responses to Dr. Salil Patel at salil.patel@geneed.com or Dr. Blesila Castro at blesila.castro@geneed.com, (415) 861-7627. The latest scoop is that GeneEd is hiring a full time staff scientist as well!

Opportunities abound! McKinsey and Company, a management-consulting firm is offering the opportunity to try management consulting through their internship program. You can learn more and submit an online application for an associate internship at www.careers.mckinsey.com/us-phdmasters. With additional questions, please contact Jessica Johnson at Jessica_Johnson@mckinsey.com.

Full Time Teaching Position at The Tech. The Tech Museum of Innovations is looking for a full time Teacher Professional Development Director. If you are a capable and confident leader with some classroom teaching exposure, contact jobs@thetech.com or visit the Tech Museum’s web site for more details. http://www.thetech.org/about/jobs/.

Of interest

The new Washington Wire is now available at http://www.awis.org/wire.html. Take advantage of this and other online resources available at the AWIS web site!

Job Hunting Resources

Peninsula Professional Network. This is a free networking and job search program for unemployed professionals. Groups meet on Peninsula. Call the Millbrae office (650) 652-7858 M-F 8:30a-4:30p for more information.

EastBay Works Career Center, 1875 Willow Pass Road, Concord. Free workshops, topics vary. Call (925) 646-5555 for details.

San Mateo County Employment Center. 271 92^nd Street, Daly City. Free workshops, skill testing. Call (650) 301-8440.

Career Action Center. 10420 Bubb Road in Cupertino. www.careeraction.org or 408-253-3200. The Career Action Center has a library of information on Bay Area companies plus internet access, videotaping, career coaches, workshops, salary surveys. Day use or member.

The Board would like to thank outgoing Newsletter Editor, Vicki Basham, for her tireless efforts to make the newsletter beautiful to look at, lively to read, full of timely information about chapter events and local news. Vicki has inspired us, during a year of many personal changes, with her dedication to the newsletter. We would also like to thank Mirella Bucci, our new Managing Editor, for volunteering to take over and provide this essential service to our members and prospective members. Please continue to send your newsletter goodies to her by email at mbucci@leland.stanford.edu. Mirella is currently enjoying her 3^rd year as a post-doctoral fellow at in the Biological Sciences department at Stanford University.

I am thrilled to present my first newsletter at the beginning of this new year. I hope you enjoy receiving it and reading it as much as I enjoyed putting it together. I’d like to thank all of you who submitted your great articles and news. Please feel free at any time to email or call me with your suggestions, your submissions and your advice. I look forward to many more great AWIS newsletters! Here is a picture of me so that when you see me at meetings, you will give me your goodies!

Team Communication and Leadership Coaching Basics

· Welcome!! The Meeting is free. You don’t need to be a Member to attend.·

Directions from the North:
Take Hwy 280 SOUTH, exit at Page Mill Rd and at the bottom of the ramp turn LEFT and head towards Palo Alto. Turn RIGHT onto Coyote Hill Road. Xerox PARC is on the left, just past the crest of the hill. Enter main door and look for signs to the Auditorium.

Directions from the South:
Take Hwy 280 NORTH, exit at Page Mill Road, turn RIGHT at the bottom of the offramp and head up hill towards Palo Alto. Turn RIGHT onto Coyote Hill Road. Xerox PARC is on the left, (follow directions above).

ALTERNATE: Take Hwy 101, exit at Oregon Expressway heading west towards Stanford. As you cross El Camino, Oregon is renamed Page Mill Road. Follow Page Mill Road WEST, cross Foothill Expressway, and take a LEFT on Coyote Hill Road. Xerox PARC is on the left, (follow directions above to Auditorium).

LOCAL (from Stanford): Take Foothill SOUTH towards Los Altos, and turn RIGHT at Page Mill Road heading WEST. Turn LEFT onto Coyote Hill Road. Xerox PARC is on the left, (follow directions above to Auditorium).

Building 58 Auditorium
Bayer Corporatio

800 Dwight Way
Berkeley, CA

6:30PM
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7:00PM MeetingBegins