Date: Thu 02-Sep-2021
Speaker: Jonathan Williams, Joe DeMartini, Carrie Holt, Erica Hammerstein
Title: "Grad Panel for Incoming Students: What to know about the department, UMD, and College Park”
This will be a chance for the incoming first-year graduate students to ask any questions that may have not been addressed yet. Also, this is a time for the current upper-year graduate students to offer any advice about finding an advisor, tips for classes, advice about TAing, working at Goddard, general College Park area help, etc. Graduate students and undergraduate students are welcome; faculty and postdocs will not be attending.
Date: Thu 09-Sep-2021
Speaker: Igor Andreoni, Shmuel Bialy, Tad Komacek, Weizhe Liu, Liz Tarantino, Sylvain Veilleux
Title: "Panel: Applying for Postdoc and Fellowship Positions"
The panel, consisting of current postdocs, fellows, faculty, and members of post-doc hiring committees, will answer questions and discuss applying to postdoctoral positions in astronomy, the transition between graduate school and postdoctoral studies, or general tricks and tips about these positions.
Date: Thu 16-Sep-2021
Speaker: Stuart Vogel
Title: "Training for Mentees and New Mentors in Department's 1st-year Mentoring Program”
Presentation and discussion of training materials for the Department of Astronomy Faculty Mentoring Program for first-year graduate students.
Date: Thu 30-Sep-2021
Speaker: discussion by all
Title: "Fostering Inclusive Advising Relationships in Astronomy”
In light of the recent announcement of charges filed against the University of Florida and its Astronomy Department for racism, harassment, bullying, and retaliation: we thought it would be helpful to hold a discussion at BANG! about how to foster a healthy advising environment here in our own department, guided by the below articles, as well as some of the resources for inclusive advising listed here (seminar web interface does not provide for links; see email to department for links).
Date: Thu 14-Oct-2021
Speaker: Dr. Mia Bovill
Title: "Universal Design for Neurodiversity"
Studies suggest that at least a half of scientists are neurodiverse. In addition, the COVID 19 pandemic has illuminated ongoing issues with mental health and accessibility in astronomy, and all of academia. However, biased diagnostic criteria, cost and access to resources and societal stigma continue to form often insurmountable barriers for our neurodiverse colleagues to receive the support they need. In this talk, I will apply the concepts of universal design to create an astronomy community which is not only easier to navigate for those who are neurodiverse, but for us all.
Date: Thu 28-Oct-2021
Speaker: Mike Gill, Jithin George, Corbin Taylor, John Vernaleo
Title: "Transitioning from an Astronomy PhD Program to the Software Industry”
Four (or five) alumni of the Maryland Department of Astronomy will give perspective on the transition from astronomy to the software industry and answer audience questions.
Date: Thu 04-Nov-2021
Speaker: Kimbra Cutlip
Title: "How to communicate your work to a non-scientific audience without feeling like you are dumbing down"
Good science ommunication is all about your objective: Who needs to know what, and why? What’s the message and who benefits? We’ll talk about strategies that can be used in everything from explaining your work to friends and family, to speaking for public audiences and writing foundation grants. Then we’ll delve into the anatomy of a press release and talk about how you can work with public information officers to ensure your work is presented in the most professional, accessible, and interesting way possible.
Date: Thu 18-Nov-2021
Speaker: Molly Simon (ASU)
Title: "Data At Your Fingertips: The Use of Citizen Science in a Variety of Different Undergraduate Classroom Contexts”
With the expansion of big data, many research teams across a variety of disciplines are left with more data than they have time to analyze independently. Citizen science is an invaluable method that involves crowdsourcing aspects of the data analysis process, enabling research teams to solve problems involving large quantities of data more efficiently while simultaneously taking advantage of the inherently human talent for pattern recognition and anomaly detection.
Zooniverse (https://www.zooniverse.org/), is the world’s largest online platform for citizen science.Since its inception in 2007, the Zooniverse has hosted over 350 projects with over 2 million registered volunteers globally.In this talk, I will discuss a new set of online science investigations intended for undergraduate non-science majors that utilize contemporary data from projects active on the Zooniverse platform. I will highlight two separate investigations that focus on the topics of transiting exoplanets and climate change, respectively. Results from pilot testing these investigations with over 2,300 students indicate that the implementation of these investigations leads to higher reported student self efficacy with regard to data literacy and the ability to make meaningful contributions to scientific research.
Date: Thu 02-Dec-2021
Speaker: Patrick Banner and team
Title: "2021 UMD Astronomy and Physics Mental Health Survey”
The team spent the semester analyzing the survey responses collected last summer and are very excited to share the results with us! This will be followed by a guided discussion, so to make communication easier in person attendance is strongly encouraged if possible.
