Universities Space Research Association‘s Dr. Joan Schmelz has been elected Fellow of the American Astronomical Society (AAS), joining a distinguished group of professional astronomers and astronomy educators. This year, the AAS is honoring 22 members for extraordinary achievement and service by naming them AAS Fellows.
Dr. Schmelz was honored “For her significant record of service and leadership within the AAS including Vice President of the AAS, chair of the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy, and editor of the AASWOMEN newsletter and STATUS magazine; for her work as an advocate, fighting sexual harassment in astronomy and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM.”
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She has served as director, astronomer, and diversity advocate at Universities Space Research Association (USRA). She has been the Interim (2015-16) and Deputy (2015-18) Director of the Arecibo Observatory, the Associate Director for Science and Public Outreach at SOFIA (2018-19), the Director of the NASA Postdoctoral Program (2019-22), and the Director of the Science and Technology Institute (2021-22). Before joining USRA, she was a program officer at NSF’s Division of Astronomical Sciences (2013-15) and a professor at University of Memphis for over 20 years.
Her published published papers span a a variety of astronomical topics including magnetic fields, gas dynamics, and physical properties in stars, galaxies, interstellar matter, and the Sun using data from ground- and space-based telescopes. Her recent work on High Velocity Cloud Complex M was part of a press conference at the 241st meeting of the AAS. In 2023, she completed the Spectrum Slam, a peer-reviewed paper in every major band of the electromagnetic spectrum.
She was one of the first people in the astronomy community to talk and blog about topics that have become central to diversity unconscious bias, stereotype threat, and impostor syndrome. Her 2011 blog post, Coming Out of the Shadows, described her own experience with sexual harassment. As a result, young women from across the country began contacting her about their own situations. These conversations – which formed the basis of what is now called the whisper network – helped shine a light on the abusive behavior that had always hidden in the dark. Schmelz was honored in 2015 as one of Nature’s Top Ten people who made a difference in science for her work fighting sexual harassment.
SOURCE: PR Newswire