Getting the Most Out of AAS Meetings: An Orientation Guide for Students and First-Timers

AAS meetings are semi-annual gatherings of the entire American astronomical community. For a comprehensive guide on everything you need to know on attending your first AAS meeting, we've provided an orientation guide and a recommended schedule for first-timers.

Harlow Shapley Visiting Lectures Program

The AAS Harlow Shapley Visiting Lecture Program brings distinguished astronomers and astronomy educators to schools and communities across North America to share the wonder of the Universe and inspire people to bring science into their lives. Applications for the 2026 program are open September–October 2025. 

Student Resource Guides from AAS Education 

The AAS Education Committee has curated undergraduate and graduate resource guides — living documents meant to serve as a centralized access point for students to learn about different resources that can assist their educational journey, to foster learning, support career development, and streamline research.

An online database of astronomy education resources

The AAS Education Committee has curated a set of astronomy education resources from around the web. The database is filterable and sortable along a variety of criteria. Check it out and see if you find anything useful!

AAS Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion in Astronomy Graduate Education

At the January 2017 AAS meeting in Texas, the AAS Council (now the AAS Board of Trustees) approved the creation of a Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion in Astronomy Graduate Education, which has now published its final report.

AAS-EPD Mini-Grant Program

Proposals are invited from US-based AAS members for small grants to provide education-related mentoring and professional-development experiences for fellow members. Friends and members of the astronomical sciences community are welcome to give to the Ojars J. Sovers PhD Memorial AAS Scholarship / Grant which helps fund the AAS-EPD Mini-Grant Program.

Online Workshops for Educators

AAS and the American Physical Society have partnered together to offer a series of interactive online workshops for astronomy and physics educators on effective and inclusive teaching, mentoring, and department leadership. These workshops are led by expert facilitators from the Physics & Astronomy Faculty Teaching Institute, the Effective Practices for Physics Programs initiative, and the Equity in Graduate Education consortium. This series of workshops is funded by an American Institute of Physics Venture Grant.

National Osterbrock Leadership Program

Astronomy departments at US universities have a new opportunity to train graduate students in leadership skills thanks to a collaboration between the AAS and the University of California, Santa Cruz, funded by a gift from the Peter and Patricia Gruber Foundation. The first two grants in this program have been awarded to Columbia University and the University of California, Irvine.

AAS Responds to Increased Online Instructional Needs

As increasing numbers of institutions are quickly moving to online instruction in the wake of COVID-19, the AAS would like to support astronomy educators who have suddenly found themselves in this challenging situation. We are aware of many efforts in the community to disseminate techniques for remote teaching and learning as well as online curriculum materials. Our goal in the coming days is to provide short “triage” videos and other materials from experts in online astronomy learning, a curated list of practices and curriculum materials, and links to existing crowdsourced efforts by the community.