Women in the High Energy Universe

Kimberly Arcand has been a member of the Chandra Education & Public Outreach group since 1998. As the Media Production Coordinator, Kim's role includes oversight of a range of science outreach products and activities, including imaging and astronomical visualization, multimedia and print product development, exhibition creation and coordination, and development of museum/planetarium and broadcast products.

March 8th is International Women's Day (http://www.internationalwomensday.com/), an effort to mark the economic, political, and social achievement of women. From here at the Chandra blog, we'd like to extend that concept to include scientific achievements as well by highlighting our "Women in the High-Energy Universe" (http://chandra.harvard.edu/blog/taxonomy/term/19) series.

Melissa Weiss has been a graphic designer for the Chandra project for over a decade. Her work can be seen throughout Chandra's website as well as its print and multimedia products for students, teachers and the public.

I have to be honest, my career in astronomy happened organically. Part of me wants to say that, as a child, I always looked up at the stars and dreamed of what lay with them. But the reality is that my interests weren't really up with the stars, but down on canvas with paints, pens, and any other tool I could be creative with. Art has always been my passion.

Janet DePonte Evans is the Software Development Manager for the Chandra X-ray Center Data System (CXCDS) group, which provides end-to-end scientific software for Chandra's mission operations. This includes software to manage the scientific proposals, mission planning software prior to an observation, and then the software to reduce and analyze the scientific data returned from the telescope. Janet's group also developed and maintains the Chandra data archive and interfaces that allow scientists to retrieve Chandra data for further study.

Nancy Adams-Wolk is an instrument operations scientist at the Chandra X-ray Center. Her job, among others, is to ensure that one of the telescope’s main instruments – the Advanced CCD Imaging Spectrometer (ACIS) -- is healthy and performing up to its full capacity.

Lisa Paton is the Information Technology (IT) Manager for the High-Energy Astrophysics Division of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). This means she oversees the computer networks and systems that allow scientists and everyone who work on the Chandra X-ray Observatory and other projects to have the technical infrastructure and support that they need to do their jobs.

This marks the start of a new feature in the Chandra blog that we are calling "Women in the High-Energy Universe." The goal is to highlight and promote the many important ways that women contribute to the pursuit of understanding the Universe through high-energy astrophysics. We've asked various women to tell us -- in their own words -- about their experiences and perspectives of their careers. We invite you to submit your own additional questions to these women, and we will attempt to get them answered. In the meantime, let's meet Dr. Nancy Brickhouse, the first one featured in our new section.