CfAlogo CfA WIS-Chats


  • WIS-Chat is the CfA Women in Science discussion group for early career (grads and postdocs) women to sit and chat with female scientists. These chats are an opportunity learn about the inspiring lives of successful scientists and gain pearls of wisdom about dealing with gender issues in astronomy, networking, career advancement etc. We generally have light refreshments too!

  • Cecilia Garraffo and Elaine Winston are organizing these meetings, email Cecilia or Elaine with ideas and/or questions.

    Schedule of WIS-Chats

    • Monday, April 25, 2016, Fishbowl, 4:00 pm: Women in Science COFFEE The first Women in Science Coffee! It is meant to be a friendly space to bond with other women in science and share common experiences. We will have Prof. Illaria Pascucci, who is visiting from University of Arizona, as a guest.


      • Monday, April 11, 2016, Pratt, 1:00 pm: Professor Anna Frebel, MIT Anna was a Fellow here at CfA and left to become an Assistant Professor of Physics at MIT. She will discuss her experiences in finding a faculty job and the gender issues facing women in the work place.


      • Wednesday, March 3, 2016, B-105, 3:00 pm: Dr. Marta Volonteri, Directeur de Recherche, Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris. Marta is the fifth participant in the Stephen S. Murray Distinguished Visitor Program supported by the Chandra High Resolution Camera Team. Marta's research interests includes studying the cosmological aspects of the assembly of million solar masses black holes in the center of galaxies, and their connection to the evolution of cosmic structures and the high redshift universe. Her web page, with more details, can be found here.



      • Thursday, December 9, 2015, Fishbowl (P-G01) , 2:00 pm: Elena Gallo and Anna Ijjas , Elena Gallo is an Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan since 2010. She obtained her PhD from U. of Amsterdam in 2005, then she joined University of California, Santa Barbara as a Chandra Fellow until 2008, when she was awarded a Hubble Fellow which she spent at MIT 2008-10. Her research interest is very broad, including planet-induced magnetic coronal and chromospheric variability in extrasolar hot Jupiters; sources of relativistic jets in the Milky Way Galaxy, black hole X-ray binaries, jet power and black hole spin; and Low-luminosity super-massive black holes in the nuclei of nearby galaxies (the AMUSE surveys).

        Anna Ijjas is a theoretical cosmologist whose research explores the origin, evolution, composition and future of the universe. She obtained her bachelor’s degree at the University of Munich in 2009, a PhD in the Philosophy of Physics at Munich in 2010, and a PhD in Physics (cosmology) in 2014 from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics. She won a Thyssen Research Fellowship, which she spent at the Center for Astrophysics at Harvard in 2012-3. She is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton Center for Theoretical Science at Princeton University. Her recent work has pointed out problems with the standard big bang picture arising from recent cosmological observations and has proposed an alternative, the anamorphic picture, which replaces the big bang with a big bounce that transforms the universe from a previous phase of contraction to its current phase of expansion and cooling.

        Link to Past WIS-Chats can be found here.

        Return to CFA-WIS home page here.

        Last modified on 25 April 2016.