Maria Mitchell Women of Science Symposium: A Different Kind of Women in STEM Meeting

Tess McCarthy • June 27, 2022

Nantucket, MA – The Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association will host its second in-person Maria Mitchell Women of Science Symposium (MMWSS) at the Babson Executive Conference Center in Babson Park, MA from Thursday, September 22 to Saturday, September 24, 2022.

 

The MMWSS is meant to promote and support women and girls in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields while also providing hands-on, intimate spaces for attendees to come together to create real-world solutions that can be taken back to their place of work or education. 

 

Distinguished women scientists will speak at the event along with panelists who are women well-known and respected in the STEM fields. Speakers include:             

 

Nicole Cabrera Salazar, Ph.D. a Latina astrophysicist who is transforming the culture of STEM through her company Movement Consulting;

 

Nancy Gray, Ph.D. the President and CEO of Gordon Research Conferences;

 

Malika Jeffries-EL, Ph.D., Associate Dean of the Graduate School in Arts and Sciences and Associate Professor in the Department of Chemistry and Division of Materials Science at Boston University.

 

Panelists at the MMWSS include:

 

Dionne Hoskins-Brown Ph.D. a Fishery Biologist through the Galveston Laboratory of NOAA Fisheries and an Associate Graduate Professor in the Marine Science program at Savannah State University;

 

Tara Spann Chief People and Strategy Officer for MENTOR National;

 

Sandra Begay a research and development engineer at Sandia National Laboratories;

 

Amy Bower Ph.D. a Senior Scientist in the Dept. of Physical Oceanography at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution;

 

Shawna Young Executive Director of the SCRATCH Foundation;

 

Amanda Hough Massachusetts STEM Teacher of the Year 2019.

 

Women continue to be under-represented in the sciences. According to the 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators report by the National Science Foundation, “Women comprised just 28% of workers in science and engineering occupations in 2010. This under-representation shortchanges the students, the field of science, and the public that benefits from scientific advancement.”

 

The Symposium is named after Maria Mitchell, America’s first woman astronomer.  Mitchell, who went on to teach Astronomy at Vassar College, promoted hands-on learning, and encouraged women to study science. Jascin Leonardo Finger, MMA Deputy Director and Symposium Coordinator states, “This Symposium is designed to serve as a source of inspiration and support and to be a hands-on experience in which all attendees are actively participating and problem solving much in the spirit of Maria Mitchell. We had an incredibly successful Symposium in 2018 with fantastic feedback and now we look to 2022.”

 

The themes that the Maria Mitchell Women of Science Symposium will address are persisting issues that hindered women in science in Maria Mitchell’s time and still affect them today. The Symposium will also address where women are today; how to recruit women and girls into STEM; Diversity, Equity and Inclusion initiatives; how to address the challenges that women still face in STEM; and how to broaden participation and leadership including through mentoring and mental health support. Maria Mitchell believed in learning by doing and the Symposium will continue this philosophy by encouraging all attendees, female and male of all backgrounds and educations, to actively participate, problem-solve, and learn through a hands-on experience.

 

The MMWSS is made possible thanks to the generous support of the American Philosophical Society, Massachusetts Biotechnology Council (MassBio), Vassar College, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, D. E. Shaw Company, Massachusetts Space Grant Consortium, American Astronomical Society, Schwartz Hannum PC, Tupancy-Harris Foundation, Axcelis Technologies, Inc., Massachusetts Technology Collaborative, Mount Holyoke College, Agios, the Simons Foundation, Stinson LLP, and Mass General Brigham.

 

Tickets to the MMWSS are available at mmwss.org and there are some scholarships available for students and teachers. Please visit the website for more information and registration at www.mmwss.org .

 

The event is organized by the Maria Mitchell Association, a private non-profit organization. Founded in 1902, the MMA works to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages.

 

The Maria Mitchell Association is a private non-profit organization. Founded in 1902, the MMA works to preserve the legacy of Nantucket native astronomer, naturalist, librarian, and educator, Maria Mitchell. The Maria Mitchell Association operates two observatories, a natural science museum, an aquarium, a research center, and preserves the historic birthplace of Maria Mitchell. A wide variety of science and history-related programming is offered throughout the year for people of all ages. 

For Immediate Release

June 14, 2022

Contact: Tess McCarthy, Communications and Marketing Intern

marketinginterns@mariamitchell.org

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The Birth of the Maria Mitchell Observatory: Celebrating Over 100 Years of Discovery

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 30, 2025
As we are now complete with the conservation of the historic Maria Mitchell Vestal Street Observatory (MMO), I thought it would be good to post a series of blogs concerning it history and activities, as well as some of the amazing people who have made it what it is over the last 100 plus years. Therefore, over the next few weeks, the focus will be on the MMO. And it is now open for tours – Monday through Saturday 11-1PM. Founded in 1902, the Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association (MMA) had its beginnings in the Mitchell House where Maria Mitchell was born. Over the first few years, the preservation of the Mitchell House, family artifacts, and the collection and display of Nantucket’s native flora and fauna, as well as a small library, were the key components of the MMA. Special “Moon Evenings” were held on the lawn and people observed Nantucket’s night skies using several small telescopes, including William and Maria Mitchell’s two-and-three-quarter-inch Dollond telescope. The popular evenings led to the inevitable – a desire and need to expand based on the demands of the visitors to, and members of, the MMA. In 1906, Lydia Hinchman, a founder of the MMA and a family member, purchased the house and lot adjacent to the Mitchell House. The house – once the home of William Mitchell’s father and mother – was taken down. The MMA began a dialogue with the Harvard College Observatory and its director, Edward Pickering, Ph.D. The connection to Harvard was to become essential to the success of the beginning years of the Maria Mitchell Observatory and continued a legacy of friendship and work – Maria Mitchell and her father worked with the Bonds who once ran the observatory at Harvard and the families were close friends. Besides his assistance, Pickering asked a member of his staff, Annie Jump Cannon, to assist the MMA. This “provided an indispensable collaboration for Nantucket astronomy,” with Cannon spending two weeks on the island in 1906 and 1907 lecturing and teaching. While back at Harvard, she continued to teach the students on Nantucket by mail. Cannon would go on to be recognized as the leading woman astronomer of her generation and as the founder of the MMA’s Astronomy Department. JNLF

Putting Things By

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 23, 2025
An older term, that we seem to not use that much anymore but maybe that’s in part because not many people “put things by” anymore. It is having a bit of a resurgence as people try to return to the garden and focus on local produce. My in-laws used to spend a lot of time – before I knew them – canning and preserving many different things – from jellies to string beans that became “dilly beans.” I, on the other hand, do not can produce. Frankly, I fear messing up the process and making my family sick. So, for now, I stick to making refrigerator jams and pickles. I have made some chive vinegar – that is frankly, amazing, and a brilliant shade of pink! But in any case, Bartlett’s Farm opened for pick-your-own strawberries on June 7 and I made my way over on June 8. My son has been asking for strawberry jam since about February – I told him I wait for fresh and local but he wanted some so badly he was begging for store bought. I almost caved but then I told him – out of season and they taste like cardboard – and also made a LONG journey to get to us. Once people ate with the seasons – now we do not have to with trains, planes, and ships crossing all over. It is also, why, oftentimes, fruit has no flavor. Produce is picked often before it ripens and “ripens” as it ships – or with sprays – and since many varieties have been crossed with others or engineered, we have lost the taste. I remember tasting a peach a few years back from North Carolina – fresh off the tree. After rubbing it to get all the “fur” off, I bit into an exquisite peach that tasted like a peach of my youth. So, Maria was not eating a strawberry in January but she was eating them in June – local and full of flavor. And likely, putting some by as well. JNLF

Maria Mitchell In Her Own Words

By Jascin N. Leonardo Finger • June 16, 2025
June 1851 My Dear Sister . . . . Mrs. Dassel has painted me kneeling at my telescope. It looks like Adeline Coffin and is of course not handsome. If thee was here thee would have Mitchell’s {William Mitchell Barney, son of Sally and Matthew Barney} painted at once. She has a head of a child N. P. Willis that is very lovely. She has taken a room at the Atheneum and put up about a dozen pictures – very beautiful – Isabel is lovely. She has not tried to make a portrait, but a very pretty picture . . . . She is now engaged on Abra’m Quary – he is much flattered by it and it will be a fine portrait. I think we shall buy it or a copy for the Atheneum . . . . She will paint father also for herself – having made a pencil sketch . . . .We like her very much . . . . The above is from a letter sent by Maria Mitchell to her eldest sister, Sally Mitchell Barney. In it, Maria details what everyone in the Mitchell family is up to. She includes some details about Herminia B. Dassel, an artist who came to Nantucket to paint the last Native Americans and also took an interest in the famous Mitchell family. This was of course four years after Maria’s discovery of the comet. At the time of this letter, Maria was still the librarian for the Atheneum and the portrait of Quary that she mentions possibly buying for the Atheneum, she did buy as it hangs in the Atheneum by the front door today. Another Dassel portrait of Quary is in the collection of the Nantucket Historical Association and the portrait of Isabel Draper is currently on display at the NHA’s Whaling Museum – on loan from a museum in Rhode Island. The portrait Maria states she posed for at the start of the letter is in the collection of the MMA. It was given to us in the early 1990s by Sally’s great granddaughter – the granddaughter of Mitchell whom she mentions above as well. Maria and Dassel would become good friends – Maria was named the godmother of Dassel’s daughter. And the sketch of William made by Dassel that Maria states would become a portrait? It likely did come to fruition. It made its way down a side of the family but was unfortunately lost, likely sold as part of a family estate though we do have a photograph of it and one can tell it is the brush work of Dassel. JNLF
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