Feeling Productive

 

This year AIP is trying really hard to make sure we have enough resources for LGBTSTEM day, coming up on July 5th, and as such, I have worked really hard creating resources for this. Though every department is too, to be fair. Since my last post I have an almost completed guide done for Luis Alvarez, which got put on  hold for now, Made a persons of interest list for LGBT physicists, created a selected reading guide, an annotated bibliography of those sources, created a new exhibit for Alan Turing to celebrate Pride month in the library,  and developed and finished 2 teaching guides on 2 physicists. The first one I did was on Alan Turing, the father of modern-day computers. it was really interesting learning about him and his life, though also incredibly sad. The way he died was disheartening, but it was nice to be able to say we have come very far since then. In my research, I found the agent who fired him for his homosexuality in his lifetime, the National Physical Laboratory, is now one of the sponsors for the LGBTSTEM Day events. Progress for sure. It was also really amazing to see how many people talk about him now, and how many things are named after him! The law which pardons gay men from their "crime" of being gay in history past is even called the Turing law. At the end of this lesson plan, I added a list of modern-day resources for the queer scientist in STEm, and it was incredibly heartwarming to see all the things out there. There are multiple organizations for social events and pushing for equality as well as out lists of people in the field who are out in their sexuality. There are even conferences just for LGBT people in STEM, namely the oSTEM conference, which I am hoping to go to this November. As someone who identifies as bi/pansexual myself, this means a lot to me, to be working on some of the first historical documentation of LGBT scientists. Maybe after this, I will work on writing a book. Who knows?

The second lesson plan I worked on was for Sally Ride, which I was unpleasantly surprised to find we had very little information on in the library here, but that means I get to help pick out the books we buy to fill the void! She was an interesting woman overall, as well as a closet lesbian. She was outed, with her permission I should add, by her partner after her death. She also worked a lot in outreach programs later in her life, which was really inspiring to me. I fell very often that many people treat my work in outreach as a cute hobby that I do in my free time from my research. and that is very invalidating of the importance of this work. This is the work that inspires people to push themselves harder to get into science, to make the effort, to try, because even though it is hard, and they will struggle, having that one role model they can connect to? That let them know it is possible. That is what is important.

Tomorrow night I was planning on throwing a big dinner for the interns again, and I am hoping that goes well. 
Friday all the interns are planning on going to the Cassini briefing downtown after work to see all the things Cassini did in its lifetime, which I am really excited for! 
After we are planning on going to see Incredibles 2 which is going to be really fun, I have looked forward to seeing it for a while :)

Then Monday I will be back to work, but that night I am having a small party for my birthday with the Interns! I am hoping to keep it chill land just bake a cake a have some wine and play board games :)

Lots of fun things for sure. I am curious to see where my work will go from here, but I should probably get back to it now. I am going to send an email to my advisor, who is out-of-town, to check my work, and if he likes it, it will be a featured piece for LGBTSTEM Day. Very exciting.

Ok, bye for now guys!