Ferah M.

*Women receive substantially lower "potential" ratings despite receiving higher performance ratings
*Differences in potential ratings account for half of the gender promotion gap
*Women’s lower potential ratings do not reflect future performance: women subsequently outperform male colleagues

We are releasing seven new science publications today, based on our Q1 data release earlier this year. All revolve around galaxies, from dust to interactions to active centers.These are accompanied by two new image collages drawn from the same release.

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🔭 #astronomy #space #ESA

What we know, final edition of the night:
[Now in 3 parts]

—Prop 50 wins
—VA Dems flip Gov, LG, AG
—Dems gain leg seats in VA, NJ, & MS
—Dems defend NJ-Gov
—Dems win NJ+VA trifectas
—Mamdani wins
—PA Dems win state supreme court
—ME anti-mail voting measure loses
—GA Dems flip 2 statewide offices

Warning. ⚠️ If you are writing an NSF GRFP, new this year, you need official transcripts to apply. Beware. They will not review applications without official transcripts. ‼️

Much of Virginia: anxiously watching not the Gov or Lt Gov race because we all know the fracking AG is what we need to worry about at this point.

So pretty!!🤩

As a theoretical cosmologist, I'm frequently asked "what is the benefit of the work you're doing for people's lives?" Nothing I work on makes money or cures disease.

There are a few different answers one can give, at various levels of "convincing" / "actually relevant to why the work is done."

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Educational Program Coordinator II - East Lansing, Michigan, United States Position Summary The program coordinator will maintain the planetarium, present live shows, and create new planetarium visualizations. In addition, this position will assist customers, assist in educa...

If any of you fine folks are planetarians in (or want to be in) mid-Michigan, the Abrams Planetarium is hiring a full-time-staff position for the first time in 11 years!! Come work with the astro, scicomm, and informal ed folks at MSU!! 🔭 🧪 (reskeets welcome) careers.msu.edu/jobs/educati...

Postdoctoral Researcher in Extragalactic Astrophysics Haverford College invites applications for our full-time (37.5 hours per week), fixed-term (2 year appointment), exempt, benefits-eligible Postdoctoral Research in Extragalactic Astrophysics opportuni...

I'm hiring at Haverford - a 2 year NASA funded postdoc to work on Galaxy Zoo with Roman Space Telescope Data: www.haverford.edu/human-resour... 👩‍🔬🔭

A dwarf galaxy from the EDGE simulations which has formed a bright clump - a star cluster - within it

Today, our EDGE simulations are in Nature with the brilliant @astroeth.bsky.social paper on the formation of globular clusters, the clumps of ancient stars that have puzzled astronomers for centuries. Turns out to happen all by itself when you crank up the resolution. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

A Stellar Revolution: How Open-Source Tool MESA Changed the Way We Study Stars A Stellar Revolution: How Open-Source Tool MESA Changed the Way We Study Stars on Simons Foundation

Great article from the Simons Foundation about the open source MESA stellar evolution code, which has a had a huge impact on astrophysics over the past 15 years.
I had not heard that the code's architect, software guru Bill Paxton, had passed away in July.
www.simonsfoundation.org/2025/08/12/a...

But also looks at its impact on the CGM! Click the link & learn more!

The paper not only explores RT’s impact on structural parameters, dark matter, and star formation (see the plot in this tweet)

Oh look! Another Nbody Shop paper has hit the arxiv! 🔭🧪 arxiv.org/pdf/2508.19396 — this paper re-explores the simulated dwarf galaxy sample “the Seven Dwarfs” but this time includes on-the-fly radiative transfer (RT)

GMU President Refuses to Apologize for Diversity Efforts, Lawyer Calls Ed. Dept. Claims ‘Absurd’ In a 10-page letter, Gregory Washington’s lawyer says the Trump administration conducted an incomplete and haphazard investigation full of “gross mischaracterizations.”

This is how a real leader acts. A real leader does not quit and run.

www.chronicle.com/article/gmu-...

The Destruction of NASA Would Be a Blow to Our Collective Imagination As NASA grapples with major proposed budget cuts and losing some of its most brilliant minds, America’s willingness to look outward is also at risk.

The Destruction of NASA Would Be a Blow to Our Collective Imagination www.wired.com/story/the-de...

Trust me, y'all need to watch this video

Call for Astronomy, astrophysics and space science Editors at the Journal of Open Source Software (JOSS) blog.joss.theoj.org/2025/08/call...

New Publication at the Open Journal of Astrophysics: "Spectroscopic Analysis of Pictor II: a very low metallicity ultra-faint dwarf galaxy bound to the Large Magellanic Cloud" by Andrew Pace (U. Virginia, USA) and 32 others based in the USA, UK, Canada, Chile and Spain

doi.org/10.33232/001...

Donate to Help me Evacuate my Kids from Gaza war, organized by Duha Latif "Nothing is more precious to a person than their homeland, but when your country bec… Duha Latif needs your support for Help me Evacuate my Kids from Gaza war

Via a friend who has been in touch with this family for a year: www.gofundme.com/f/help-ameer...

New Romulus paper just dropped, led by Anna Wright!

Images and surface brightness profiles of simulated LSB galaxies.

Learn more about this fantastic work led by Anna Wright in the paper! @michaeltremmel.bsky.social

Turns out these LSBs form through mergers in which the secondary galaxy is co-rotating and aligned with the primary’s gas disk!

In this paper we use the Romulus25 sims to study classical low surface brightness galaxies (LSBs) - including properties like SFR, HI content as well as their formation mechanism.

The Merger-Driven Formation of Classical Low Surface Brightness Galaxies in Romulus25 We use the Romulus25 cosmological simulation volume to study a large sample of late-type gas-rich galaxies with low central surface brightnesses known as classical low surface brightness (LSB) galaxie...

New paper from the always fabulous Nbody Shop: arxiv.org/abs/2507.21231 🧪🔭

While I have everyone's attention, the genocide happening in Palestine -- in Gaza AND the West Bank -- is a crime against humanity.

Please raise your voice in defense of Palestinian lives. They are depending on us to remind those with power that they have a right to live.

E.P.A. Is Said to Draft a Plan to End Its Ability to Fight Climate Change

This is utterly, utterly horrible. We have barely a few years to contain this in any meaningful way. Weather patterns are changing and eco systems are already straining.

Everyone who voted for Trump or sat out, this is on you. I don’t care what your reason is.

www.nytimes.com/2025/07/22/c...

85% of Gaza’s population have entered the "fifth stage" of malnutrition — the most critical and dangerous phase, which is often irreversible even if food becomes available in the future.

I think this is the most horrifying post I have ever read.

No more political operatives on George Mason University's Board of Visitors! Dear Senator, Thank you for your continued leadership in protecting Virginia’s public universities from political interference. Your actions have been critical in safeguarding the integrity and indep...

Virginia residents!! Tell Virginia Senate Democrats to say NO to six more extremists Gov Youngkin has nominated to GMU's Board of Visitors. Send your letter using this link: actionnetwork.org/letters/no-m...

For STEM Professionals - Letters to a Pre-Scientist Pen Pal Program Overview We encourage STEM Professionals of all kinds to get involved with Letters to a Pre-Scientist! STEM professionals send and receive letters throughout a school year from ...

Letters to a Pre-Scientist is recruiting STEM pen pal volunteers for the upcoming school year! STEM professionals send and receive 4 rounds of letters throughout a school year with a curious middle school student. prescientist.org/volunteers/