You want to quantify a car accident, the lifespan of a battery, the thermonuclear workings at the core of the sun? She spent the summer after her junior year as an intern at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory, in Virginia. The freshly minted PhD who hired her said that what distinguished her application was that she played the violin; he did, too!
She asked what they meant. Into the stacks Urry fled once again, and when she emerged this time, she was both a physicist and an astronomer—an astrophysicist—for life. Observational astronomy is, if anything, even more data driven than physics. It provides the data behind the math behind the principle. She spent the summer inspecting charts of radio sources in the sky and looking for corresponding objects in visible-light photographs.
She settled for physics, and chose Johns Hopkins. When that fellowship was up, in , STScI hired her as a full-time astronomer. The universe was her oyster. The world, however, was something less. Urry gave him an are you crazy? All men? The statement might have been slightly hyperbolic, but only slightly.
When she was a student, some of the seats beside her had indeed been filled by women. But now, she realized, those women had drifted away from science. That there had been discrimination in the past, but now we just need everybody to step up. Was that really a reflection of the quality of the people? Around the same time, a colleague complained to her that the administration at Berkeley had pressured a search committee to hire a woman over more-qualified men. A few months later, Urry was talking to a search committee member who laughed at the idea.
No, the department had invited the candidate to apply; she was by far the most qualified. Urry decided that if the system was going to change, somebody was going to have to change it. He gave his blessing to a Women in Astronomy conference; it was held in Baltimore in and attracted about attendees.
Sheila Tobias, a feminist scholar, was hired to write a draft. Join now. Blog Grace on the Margins. Yale conference continues 'Journey of the Universe' Nov 21, Mary Evelyn Tucker, at podium, opens a panel on Earth jurisprudence at the Nov.
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However, that the language in my home is Swedish helps a great deal. Every year at the press conference there are three people at the podium: the Secretary General of the Academy, the chairman of the physics committee this year it was Hans Hansson , and a third member of the committee who has a particular expertise in the fields being recognized by the prize. Thus, for obvious reasons, the person in my role is not revealed until the press conference begins.
First thing in the morning we reported to the entire academy and there was a discussion and a vote. Then we called the persons being awarded the prize. And then we made the announcement at the press conference a. The members of the committee were then detailed to an array of press meetings and interviews ending at p. I then gave a colloquium from the Nobel room in the academy to all the physics departments in Sweden 3 to 4 p.
Then we had follow ups with members of the press. The live announcement is followed worldwide. He believed that if we could see the cosmos as a symphony and Earth as a living planet, we would discover our own role in these unfolding processes.
It was Berry's deepest hope that we were shifting out of the Cenozoic era and into what he called the "Ecozoic" period; that is, a time when human beings would reclaim their creative orientation to our planet. Berry described himself as a "geologian," or "a human being who emerged out of the eons of Earth's geological and biological evolution and was now reflecting on our world," Tucker and Grim write in their introduction to the new book Thomas Berry: Selected Writings on the Earth Community Orbis, Born William Nathan Berry, he chose his religious name after St.
Thomas Aquinas, whose belief that all beings participate in the being of God was deeply influential in Berry's early thought. Also influential later in his career was Teilhard de Chardin's grand vision of the role of human beings in cosmic evolution.
Teilhard's belief in "dynamizing" human action for transformation inspired Berry's own hope that all human people would participate in the transformation of a healthy Earth community. But Berry was also realistic about the growing degradation of Earth, and, in the s, was one of the earliest thinkers to foresee the magnitude of destruction that would result from our unbridled consumption of Earth's resources. The diversity of sessions at the conference was a testimony not only to the breadth of Berry's own great work, but to the ongoing evolution of his ideas.
Teilhard's legacy could be heard in the opening panel on Saturday morning, which featured, among others, John Haught and Franciscan Sr. Ilia Delio, two of the finest interpreters of Teilhard's thought in contemporary times. This was followed by a panel called "Views of the Divine," which considered the ways in which we might understand God's presence in all of creation.
Speaking out of the Greek Orthodox tradition, John Chryssavgis, a theologian and adviser to the Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I on environmental issues, reflected, "It has always been a source of great comfort to me that Orthodox spirituality retains a sacramental view of the world, proclaiming a world imbued by God and a God involved in the world -- a sacrament of communion.
Themes related to pollution and the scarcity of natural resources was the focus of Saturday afternoon, beginning with a panel called "Seeds, Soil and Food.
Miriam MacGillis, who is often credited with bringing Berry's ideas to women religious decades ago, offered a powerful reflection on the sacredness of seeds, a topic that has become crucial as the integrity of seeds continues to be threatened by Monsanto, a leviathan-like agrochemical corporation.
Women religious were well represented throughout the weekend, with other members of the Dominicans and members of the Immaculate Heart of Mary community and the Sisters of Charity in the audience. An entire panel was devoted to the looming water crisis throughout the world and the ethics of water rights. Both panels, Tucker believes, have ramifications for the church's sacramental life. A session on eco-justice concluded the day, with panelists detailing their faith-based ecological activism.
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