{"id":3569,"date":"2012-08-02T16:46:07","date_gmt":"2012-08-02T20:46:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=3569"},"modified":"2012-08-03T00:23:36","modified_gmt":"2012-08-03T04:23:36","slug":"first-female-pakistani-phd-in-extragalactic-astrophysics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/?p=3569","title":{"rendered":"First female Pakistani PhD in (extragalactic?) astrophysics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Mariam Sultana, reportedly Pakistan’s first PhD in astrophysics<\/a>. (Or in the subfield of extragalactic astrophysics, according to another news site<\/a>. Either way, it’s a laudable achievement.)<\/p>\n

I knew women scientists have an especially difficult time in very conservative Muslim countries.<\/p>\n

I didn’t know astrophysicists (presumably, both male and female) had to pass an extra hurdle: apparently, illiterate Islamists don’t know the difference between astrophysics and astrology. The practice of astrology, like other forms of fortune telling, is considered haraam, a sin against Allah.<\/p>\n

Am I ever so glad that I live in an enlightened, secular country.<\/p>\n

One of Dr. Sultana’s (I am boldly assuming that Sultana is her last name, though I am well aware that Pakistani naming conventions do not necessarily follow Western traditions) examiners was James Binney, whose name is well known to anyone involved with galactic astrophysics; the book colloquially known as “Binney and Tremaine” (the real title is Galactic Dynamics<\/em>) is considered one of the field’s “bibles”. (Darn, I hope no religious fanatic misconstrues the meaning of “bible” in the preceding sentence!)<\/p>\n

I wish Dr. Sultana the brightest career. Who knows, maybe I’ll run into her one day somewhere, perhaps at the Perimeter Institute.<\/p>\n<\/fb:like>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Mariam Sultana, reportedly Pakistan’s first PhD in astrophysics. (Or in the subfield of extragalactic astrophysics, according to another news site. Either way, it’s a laudable achievement.) I knew women scientists have an especially difficult time in very conservative Muslim countries. I didn’t know astrophysicists (presumably, both male and female) had to pass an […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3569","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-physics","category-41-id","category-3-id","post-seq-1","post-parity-odd","meta-position-corners","fix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3569"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3581,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions\/3581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spinor.info\/weblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}