Apply to Write for Astrobites!

Several astrobites authors will be retiring soon and we’re looking for new graduate students to join the astrobites collaboration. Please share the information below with your graduate student colleagues and consider applying if you will be a graduate student during the 2013-2014 academic year.

Interested candidates should fill out the online application and include a PDF of a sample astrobite by the application deadline of October 1. Please send us an email at [email protected] if you have any questions about the application process. Your astrobite should summarize an astrophysics journal article that has not been featured on astrobites. Please do not write about one of your own papers for the sample astrobite. This call for regular authors is only open to current graduate students (including those entering graduate school in fall 2013).

Instructions for Sample Astrobite

Your sample astrobite should discuss the motivation, methods, results, and conclusions of an astronomy journal article. Please pick an article published before January 2013 that was not featured on astrobites. (Astrobites articles published during the author selection process will focus on newer papers, so you do not need to worry that your chosen article will be covered on astrobites.) Please write at a level appropriate for undergraduate physics or astronomy majors and remember to explain jargon. We encourage you to provide links to previous astrobites or other science websites where appropriate. Your sample post should include at least one figure from the paper with an appropriate caption (not just the original caption). Figures may either be embedded in the text or placed at the end of the sample. Links may either be provided as hyperlinks or as parenthetical citations. There is no length restriction, but astrobites are usually between 500-800 words.

Decision Process & Timeline

The astrobites hiring committee will review submissions and invite new authors to join astrobites based on the quality of their sample astrobites and their responses to the two short essay questions in the application. The names and affiliations of the applicants will be concealed from the hiring committee until after the final list of candidates is selected in order to promote hiring equality. Successful candidates should expect to be notified by November 1, 2013.

• About the Author

About Courtney Dressing

I am a fourth-year graduate student in the Astronomy Department at Harvard University. My research interests include exoplanets, habitability, and astrobiology. I received a master's degree in astronomy and astrophysics from Harvard University and a bachelor's degree in astrophysical sciences from Princeton University. At Princeton, I worked with Jill Knapp to study the magnetic activity of M dwarfs with white dwarf companions and with Dave Spiegel to model the habitability of terrestrial exoplanets. For my senior thesis, I worked with Ed Turner, Michael McElwain, and the SEEDS (Strategic Explorations of Exoplanets and Disks with Subaru) collaboration to directly image young Jovian exoplanets using the Subaru telescope. At Harvard, I am working with Dave Charbonneau to study the properties, frequency, and detectability of small planets orbiting small stars.