by William Balmer | Jul 28, 2023 | Career Navigation, Guides, Personal Experiences, Teaching
As graduate students in astronomy progress through their degree-granting programs, they evolve from students into teachers, mentees into collaborators, and occasionally from advisees into advisors. Taking on a younger student to advise them on a research project may seem difficult, stressful, or daunting, and that’s because it can be. But it can also be an incredibly enriching, exciting, and fun experience for you and your student. Advising students, to many, is one of the most rewarding aspects of doing research, but it’s one that many graduate students may not experience over the course of their Ph.D., in part because it can appear so intimidating.I won’t claim to be a great expert on the subject, but this summer I advised my first undergraduate researcher on a project, and my hope is that this Astrobite can serve as an encouragement to others who might be interested in taking on that kind of responsibility during their Ph.D.Your opportunity to advise a research student varies dramatically depending on your employing institution, research group, and funding situation. You might work in a large lab, where older graduate students are expected to supervise younger graduate students; you might be your advisor’s only student; you yourself might be funded through a teaching assistantship, a large grant, a fellowship, or a variety of these; your institution might have money set aside for PIs to take on undergraduate summer students. The point is, most student projects aside from undergraduate theses or unpaid internships require funding in order to compensate the researcher for their work, and often the source of this funding is beyond your capacity to influence.In my...
by Sumeet Kulkarni | Jun 8, 2023 | Career Navigation, Current Events, Interviews, Personal Experiences
We interviewed @ASU planetary scientist and #MarsSampleReturn principal scientist Meenakshi Wadhwa who will be giving a plenary talk today at #AAS242!
by Sumeet Kulkarni | Jun 7, 2023 | Career Navigation, Current Events, Interviews, Personal Experiences
Learn all about beautiful planetary nebulae with Joel Kastner at his plenary talk at #AAS242 this afternoon! We interviewed Kastner about his journey into astronomy here:
by Emma Clarke | Jun 7, 2023 | Career Navigation, Current Events, Interviews, Personal Experiences
Today we interview astrophysicist Kathryne Daniel for her plenary talk at #AAS242!
by Junellie Gonzalez Quiles | Jun 7, 2023 | Career Navigation, Current Events, Interviews, Personal Experiences
Learning about the Origin of Rocky Planets and their Atmospheres: We interviewed astronomer Dr. Klaus Pontoppidan about his upcoming plenary talk at the #AAS242!
by Junellie Gonzalez Quiles | Jun 6, 2023 | Career Navigation, Current Events, Interviews, Personal Experiences
Learning about Galaxy Evolution over Cosmic Time: We interviewed astronomer Dr. Julia Blue Bird about her plenary talk at the upcoming #AAS242!