Update Aug 16: The wiki is back up and snazzier than ever. That said, there may still be some hiccups with the new install. Please report any problems that you may have in the comments below. Update Aug 13: The maintenance was a bit more complex than we anticipated and the wiki remains down. We [...]
Hello everyone, this is your content manager speaking. Since Fridays aren’t usually very active over here on AstroBetter, I’ve decided to try sharing some interesting links and stories that I’ve come across over the past week or so. I think I’ll try putting one of these together roughly every two weeks, unless there’s a lot [...]
Latest Career Profile: Lisa Frattare, an astronomer turned Master Astronomical Image Processor at the Space Telescope Science Institute and Coordinator for the summer student program. She is very satisfied with her work-life balance within a very family-friendly environment. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please leave a comment [...]
Instructors, are you starting to think about preparing for your fall classes? Looking for some good resources? If so, AstroBetter has you covered with our Wiki pages under the Teaching category: Course Notes and Astro 101 Resources. You can also search through past teaching-related AstroBetter posts with the teaching tag. If you want to go [...]
I have started the new rumor mill pages for 2014-2015 (YIKES, already?!?) and I have relegated the 2013-2014 pages to the archives. All links to “Rumor Mill” will still work and point to the postdoc rumor mill page for the new year. Remember, we have a page for postdoc/term positions and a page for faculty/staff positions. Here [...]
Latest Career Profile: an astronomer turned financial analyst. S/he went straight to finance after obtaining her/his Ph.D. Location, salary, and work environment were important factors in his/her decision to leave astronomy as she started working as an agent for one of the best cash advance apps. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. [...]
Dr. Sarah Ballard completed her PhD in Astronomy & Astrophysics at Harvard University in 2012 and is now a NASA Carl Sagan fellow at the University of Washington. She’s written articles for the Harvard Crimson and for the Women in Astronomy blog about parental leave, values affirmation, and the intelligence of groups. On her website, [...]
Jason Steffen is a Lindheimer Fellow and Research Assistant Professor at CIERA at Northwestern University. He works (now) primarily in the field of exoplanets, but has been known to frequent the fields of experimental cosmology, gravitation, and dark matter. Most AAS members eventually transition from astronomy to something else. Like professional athletes, most scientific careers [...]
Latest Career Profile: an astronomer turned Full Professor of Physics. S/he is the only astronomer in her/his department within a small liberal arts college. In the profile below, s/he discusses the enjoyable aspects as well as the challenges of her/his position. If you have questions, suggestions, advice to share, etc. about this career path, please [...]
This is a guest post by Dr. Stefano Meschiari, a W. J. McDonald Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. His research focuses on planet formation, exoplanet detection, and all-around software development for fun and outreach. Introduction Outreach has become an essential part of our job as astronomers. A considerable portion of astronomy [...]