American Astronomical Society’s Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy (AAS/CSWA)
Website Updates

By Amy Simon-Miller

June 2002

Amy Simon-Miller received her Ph.D. from New Mexico State University and was a planetary science
researcher at Cornell University for many years, working mainly with the Galileo and
Cassini missions. She is currently an astrophysical researcher at Goddard Space Flight Center in
Greenbelt, Maryland. She studies giant planet atmospheres and is a member of the Cassini CIRS
team. Dr. Simon-Miller is a member of the AAS/CSWA and has recently become the CSWA
web page and Women in Astronomy Database webmaster.

JUST IN TIME for spring, the CSWA has decided to do some cleaning of its website!
We are in the process of overhauling all the pages and updating links, while removing
outdated information. All of the pages have been moved to our main site on the AAS servers:
http://www.aas.org/~cswa.

The largest change has been in the Women in Astronomy Database (WiAD). The original database,
designed in 1997 by Lisa Frattare, received overwhelming interest with nearly 200 entries
posted over the past five years. The design was such that new entries and modifications were
emailed directly to the database administrator who had to manually add/change the entries.
Many of the entries are out of date, and it is impossible to maintain the database in its current
format. We have instituted a new database that should streamline entries and modifications.

Check out the new database information at: http://www.aas.org/~cswa/WIAD.html. Women
may register as database users and then add or modify their own information at any time. In
addition, a guest account will allow anyone to search the database to look for speakers or job
applicants and to do statistical searches. Virtually any information or keyword can be used for a
search, and you can also sort alphabetically by any of the information areas.

The previous database will remain open as a source for searching, however, we encourage
women to submit information to the new database. Once it becomes populated, the old
database will be taken off-line. Please encourage colleagues, students and other females in your
department to submit information to the new database so that it too, may become a useful
collection of and for female astronomers.

The Related Links page has also been updated. It now includes links to organizations,
articles and meetings relevant to women in astronomy and other physical sciences. Please
feel free to submit suggestions for links that should be included.

Finally, we wish to thank Lisa Frattare for her many years of service as the CSWA webmaster
- her hard work has been truly appreciated!

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