A collection of some of our bites that go beyond our usual paper summaries.
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
#BlackInAstro Series
- #BlackInAstro: How Can We Support Black Astronomers? by Astrobites (3 Jun 2020)
- #BlackInAstro: Black Representation in Astro/Physics and the Impact of Discrimination by Astrobites (12 Jun 2020)
- #BlackInAstro Experiences: KeShawn Ivory by KeShawn Ivory (19 Jun 2020)
- 1981: Barbara Williams becomes the first Black woman to get a PhD… by Jessica May Hislop (20 Jun 2020)
- #BlackInAstro Experiences: Ashley Walker by Mia de los Reyes (22 Jun 2020)
- #BlackInAstro: Not a Lack of Science Aspiration, But a Lack of Career Inspiration? by Luna Zagorac (23 Jun 2020)
- #BlackInAstro Experiences: Cheyenne Polius by Cheyenne Polius (24 Jun 2020)
- #BlackInAstro: Black Women in Astronomy and Physics by Kate Storey-Fisher (25 Jun 2020)
- #BlackInAstro Experiences: David Zegeye by David Zegeye (26 Jun 2020)
- #BlackInAstro Experiences: Ayanna Jones by Mia de los Reyes (27 Jun 2020)
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Indigenous Astronomy
- Visions of the past by Dan Gifford (17 Mar 2011)
- Additional Arguments that Aboriginal Australians Observed Variable Stars by Avery Schiff (26 Oct 2018)
- Maunakea, Western Astronomy, and Hawai`i by Ellis Avallone (2 Aug 2019)
- A Tale of Two Observatories: Astronomy and Indigenous Communities in the Southwest US by Mia de los Reyes (16 Aug 2019)
- #BlackInAstro: A Glimpse Into African Cultural Astronomy by Briley Lewis (28 Aug 2018)
LBGTQ+ in Astro
- LGBT+ Inclusivity in Astronomy by Mia de los Reyes (25 May 2018)
- Beyond the Binary: Gender in Physics Education by Mara Zimmerman (4 Jan 2019)
- Queer Figures in Astronomy History by Kate Storey-Fisher (5 Jul 2019)
- All Genders Are Statistically Significant: Expanding Gender Equity Studies in Astronomy by Briley Lewis (7 Nov 2019)
Women in Astro
- What Women Want? by Elisabeth Matthews (27 May 2017)
- #MeToo, Grad School, and You by Thankful Cromartie (12 Oct 2018)
- Why are women leaving astronomy? by Nora Shipp (31 Dec 2018)
- A Study in Stereotypes: What People Think of Physicists vs. Biologists by Briley Lewis (5 Apr 2019)
GRE
- The verbal GRE: dirty secrets on its role in grad school admission by Zachary Slepian (18 Sep 2012)
- The impact of the Physics GRE in astronomy graduate admissions by Leonardo dos Santos (9 Sep 2016)
- Drop It Like It’s Biased: A Step-by-Step Guide to Dropping the GRE by Kate Storey-Fisher (15 Nov 2019)
Inclusive Practices
- Bringing Equity and Inclusion to Your Workplace by Kelly Malone (7 Oct 2016)
- Building an Inclusive Astronomy Community by Gourav Khullar (25 Dec 2017)
- Thinking Beyond ADA Compliance: How to Make Astronomy Accessible by Briley Lewis (6 Sep 2019)
- Distance Learning Can Make Astronomy Education More Accessible by Laura Martin (6 Oct 2019)
Day-to-day work
Mental Health
- Research is Hard by Emily Sandford (10 Nov 2017)
- Taking Care with Self-Care by Jamila Pegues (24 Nov 2017)
- Overcoming the Imposter Syndrome by Stephanie Hamilton (2 Mar 2018)
- What Does “Success” Mean to You? by Caitlin Doughty (17 Aug 2018)
- Graduate School Taking a Toll On Your Mental Health? You’re Not Alone. by Haley Wahl (23 Aug 2019)
- Get those monkeys off your back! by Stephanie Hamilton (1 Nov 2019)
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Reading Papers
- Journal Articles in Astronomy by Dan Gifford (19 Apr 2011)
- Tools for Reading Papers: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 by Michael Hammer (19 Dec 2017, 9 Mar 2018, 6 Sep 2018)
Conducting Research
- It’s REU Season! Here’s How to Make the Most of it by Dan Gifford (14 Jun 2011)
- A day in the lives of astronomy grad students by Astrobites (11 Jul 2011)
- Getting Out of a Research Slump by Susanna Kohler (21 Sep 2011)
- Intro to Astro – Confessions of a Novice Research Student by Ruth Angus (13 Oct 2011)
- Getting Started in Undergraduate Research by Josh Fuchs (21 Feb 2013)
- A week in the life of an astronomy postgrad researcher – more average than you might think? by Amber Hornsby (16 Feb 2018)
- What to Do When You’re Stuck by Emily Sandford (11 May 2018)
- Five tips from five years in grad school by Sanjana Curtis (23 Nov 2018)
- Practical tips for setting up a research project, or “Things I wish I had known when I started my PhD”: Part 1 and Part 2 by Joanna Ramasawmy (14 Dec 2018, 15 Dec 2018)
Presenting Your Research
- How to Attend your First Conference by Caroline Morley (12 Oct 2011)
- Talking about our Research by Brett Deaton (3 Sep 2014)
- Speak your science: How to give a better conference talk: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3 by Emily Lakdawalla (10 Feb 2018, 17 Feb 2018, 24 Feb 2018)
- Conference survival guide for students by Philippa Cole (20 Jul 2018)
- Fixing academic posters: the #BetterPoster approach by Oliver Hall (28 Feb 2020)
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Teaching
- Will you use Astrobites in your course this Fall? by Nathan Sanders (11 Jun 2017)
- How TAs Make a Difference in the Classroom by Briley Lewis (15 Nov 2019)
- Improving the Effectiveness of Graduate STEM Education by Caitlin Doughty (13 Dec 2019)
- Making your classroom accessible for diverse learners by Nick Young (21 Feb 2020)
Outreach
- Pack a Spacesuit for Camp this Summer! by Shannon Hall (23 Jul 2012)
- A new look at outreach and the American Astronomical Society by Allison Strom (20 Jan 2013)
- AAS Astronomy Ambassadors and You by Meredith Rawls (13 Sep 2013)
- Astronomy Camp: A Lesson in Asking Questions by Jenny Calahan (19 Jul 2019)
- The Pulsar Search Collaboratory: Making Pulsar Science Accessible to High School Students by Haley Wahl (1 Oct 2019)
- Experiencing a dark tour of the universe by Emma Foxell (25 Nov 2019)
- You should get Twitter…for science! by Briley Lewis (17 Jan 2020)
- Outreach for Astronomers: Letters to a Pre-Scientist and MIT Astrogazers by Briley Lewis and Kaitlyn Shin (6 Mar 2020)
- Flipping the Paradigm: How Maunakea Scholars brings Astronomy Research to the Classroom by Ellis Avallone (10 Apr 2020)
- Tweeping up with the Astronomers: Sharing Your Science with Twitter by Haley Wahl (21 Apr 2020)
- Beyond the Lecture Hall: Making the most of a university astronomy club by John Weaver (5 Jun 2020)
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Travelling
Observing at Telescopes
- My Observing Run at the Magellan Telescopes in Chile by Ian Czekala (17 Jan 2011)
- Everything I need to know about observing I did not learn in kindergarten by Elisabeth Newton (31 Mar 2011)
- Observing on Mauna Kea: Dawn in Cambridge, Mass by Elisabeth Newton (18 Aug 2011)
- Observing the “supernova of the generation” with Keck by Lauren Weiss (29 Aug 2011)
- Queue Observing at Gemini North by Caroline Morley (30 Oct 2012)
- Astrobites on the Ice: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5 by Kirit Karkare (12 Dec 2012, 28 Jan 2013, 4 Feb 2013, 5 Mar 2013, 1 Apr 2013)
- Engineering at the SOAR Telescope in Chile by Josh Fuchs (18 Feb 2014)
- Living the ‘Magellan’ life : Observing at a Chilean masterpiece by Gourav Khullar (4 Feb 2016)
- Students on the Hunt for Black Holes by Ana Torres Campos (22 Aug 2017)
- A day (and night) in the life of an observational astronomer by Rosanna Tilbrook (24 Apr 2020)
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Attending Conferences
- AAS 217th Meeting: Part 1 and Part 2 by Elisabeth Newton (11 Jan 2011, 14 Jan 2011)
- AAS #218: Boston or bust by Elisabeth Newton (26 May 2011)
- An Overview of the Extreme Solar Systems III Conference by Gudmundur Stefansson (22 Dec 2015)
- Roundup: #aas227 #hackaas Hack Day by Meredith Rawls (23 Jan 2016)
- The SPIE Astronomical Telescopes + Instrumentation Conference (#SPIEAstro) in Edinburgh by Gudmundur Stefansson (8 Jul 2016)
- SPIE Astronomical Telescopes and Instrumentation 2018 by Amber Hornsby (22 Jun 2018)
- SPIE From the Perspective of a Non-Instrumentalist by Samuel Factor (25 Jun 2018)
- Cool Stars 20 by Samuel Factor (3 Aug 2018)
- Extreme Solar Systems IV by Samuel Factor (27 Sep 2019)
Attending Workshops
- A Summer Schooling by Katherine Rosenfeld (5 Aug 2011)
- NRAO, EVLA, VLBA, ALMA, AIPS, CASA by Ian Czekela (29 Sep 2011)
- Fringes, Phase centers, and Fourier Transforms: The 13th NRAO Synthesis Imaging Workshop, Part I by Chris Faesi (9 Jun 2012)
- Gravitational Lensing in the Canary Islands by Alice Olmstead (25 Nov 2012)
- Adventures in Astrostatistics: Astrobites at SAMSI: Part 1 and Part 2 by Ben Montet (2 Nov 2013)
- KICP Workshop on Outreach and Education by Korey Haynes (20 Jun 2014)
- SciCoder Recap by Meredith Rawls (2 Jul 2014)
- The Extreme Precision Radial Velocities Workshop by Gudmundur Stefansson (13 Jul 2015)
- Illuminating teaching, and the art of going where you want to go by Zephyr Penoyre (17 Mar 2017)
- Communicating Science Like a Boss by Lauren Sgro (16 Mar 2018)
Current Events
COVID-19
- Astrophysical Classics: What did Newton actually discover in quarantine? by Kate Storey-Fisher (31 Mar 2020)
- COVID-19 in Fall 2020: A Concerning Situation for Students by Briley Lewis (17 Jul 2020)
- Hello, world! Virtually welcoming new grad students by Rosanna Tilbrook (24 Jul 2020)
Applications and Career Paths
REUs
- So You Want to Apply for an REU… Here’s How by Ben Montet (5 Jan 2013)
- It’s REU Application Season! by Astrobites (8 Jan 2018)
NSF GRFP
- Applying for the NSF Graduate Research Fellowship by Astrobites (11 Sep 2011)
- Applying for the NSF: Our own experiences by Astrobites (2 Oct 2011)
- Writing Your NSF GRFP Essays by Ashley Villar (17 Sep 2015)
Graduate School
- Why I Chose Grad School by Amandeep Gill (1 Jul 2011)
- Applying to Graduate School: Part 1 and Part 2 by Dan Gifford (4 Sep 2011, 6 Sep 2011)
- How to Apply for Grad School in Europe by Yvette Cendes (13 Jun 2014)
- Applying to grad school in the US: a timeline by Elisabeth Newton (28 Aug 2014)
- Taking the leap from engineering into astronomy by Astrobites (20 Mar 2016)
- A guide to different grad programs by Mia de los Reyes (7 Jul 2017)
Gap Years
- Careers, Like Space Missions, are Tricky: How a Master’s Degree Can Help by Holly Capello (17 Jul 2011)
- Postponing the Next Step: a Decision to Defer by Gabriele Betancourt-Martinez (19 Feb 2012)
- When Graduate School Isn’t in the Immediate Future by Shannon Hall (10 Dec 2012)
- Taking a Gap Year – Part 1 by Astrobites (31 Aug 2014)
- What If I Am Not Accepted Into a PhD Program (U.S.)? by Jessica Roberts (31 Aug 2018)
Non-academic Careers
- Careers In Astronomy: What am I Doing with my Life?? by Maria Drout (8 Sep 2011)
- Why I left research for education by Alice Olmstead (20 Mar 2013)
- Alternative Careers: Leveraging your Astronomy Degree for Data Science by Ben Cook (1 Jun 2016)
- Taking the Leap from Astronomy to Engineering by James Mason (18 Nov 2016)