IN-PERSON

Saturday, 11 January: 8:45 am – 5:15 pm
 

Already into its third year of scientific operations JWST keeps delivering astonishing scientific results to a highly engaged astronomical community. The Space Telescope Science Institute is committed to facilitate data exploitation for both experienced and new observatory users, and to offer different flavors of training, including in-person.

This one-day workshop will offer a JWST Pipeline overview, which will include a summary of known issues, recent and upcoming updates. Participants will then install the calibration pipeline, with all needed reference files, and engage on a series of guided python notebook based tutorials of highly utilized JWST observing modes, which will use publicly available data. There will be time to troubleshoot installation problems, to have a general Q&A, and to discuss specific data issues users may have already encountered. All feedback received from users will be captured and appropriately addressed.

The workshop will be guided by STScI's JWST pipeline experts.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Saturday, 11 January: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Presenting your research effectively to a broad audience is an essential career skill, yet most professional scientists receive little formal training in effective communication. This interactive workshop aims to empower researchers at all levels who wish to improve their own presentation skills. During the workshop participants will (i) learn how to communicate their research in various formats such as conference presentations, posters, journal clubs, and colloquia (ii) receive practical tips on presenting and answering questions with confidence (iii) create a workflow for designing accessible and engaging presentations regardless of format (iv) learn to identify common features of effective communication so they can incorporate them into their own presentations. Participants will have the opportunity to receive tailored one-on-one feedback in this hands-on workshop, and are encouraged to bring a draft of their own presentation(s) to work on. This workshop will be facilitated by a team of experienced professional astronomers with the support of the AAS Committee on Employment.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Saturday, 11 January: 9:00 am - 4:00 pm
Sunday, 12 January: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm

The future gravitational-wave space-based mission LISA has now been adopted by the European Space Agency with NASA as a partner. LISA is a unique data analysis challenge, requiring the development of many new tools and techniques. In this workshop, you will learn to work with open-source LISA analysis tools, starting from the basics and building up to a mock analysis of individual LISA sources. The workshop will cover gravitational waveforms for LISA sources, the LISA detector response function, and statistical tools useful for the large variety of LISA analyses. In addition to working with these tools, we will also place a simultaneous focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion. Teams will work together through case studies and group discussions to develop inclusive practices to carry on through their career.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Saturday, 11 January: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm
Sunday, 12 January: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

NASA’s TESS mission (launched in 2018) provides the community with high cadence, optical time-series across the sky, with nearly continuous observations lasting between 27 days and one year. TESS operations have been extended through September 2025, and so TESS will continue to provide time-series data for users on hundreds of thousands of targets, as well as Full Frame Images of >2000 square degrees of the sky each month. These observations provide valuable resources for a wide range of astronomy; the detection of exoplanets, the investigation of stellar variability, the identification of extra-galactic transient events, the study of AGN, and more.

This two-day workshop is an opportunity to gain a holistic picture of the TESS mission, from proposing to analyzing data. We'll explain how to propose for data (and research funding!) through the TESS General Investigator Program. We'll also present "recipes" to efficiently access and analyze mission data, all of which is available with no exclusive access period. Finally, we'll present the features of TIKE, a JupyterHub cloud service (provided by STScI) designed to improve accessibility to TESS data.

This workshop is ideal for both new and established users of TESS data and TIKE. New users can learn where to get started with obtaining and using data. More experienced users can learn about the 200s observing mode and updated analysis techniques. We strongly encourage participation from scientists at all career stages, working on extragalactic astronomy, stellar astronomy, and exoplanet astronomy. We additionally encourage attendance from anyone interested in proposing for TESS observations.

The workshop will consist of; i) short talks introducing the NASA TESS mission ii) explanations of how to propose for TESS observations and obtain research funding in upcoming proposal calls iii) tutorials on working with TESS data iv) how to work with TIKE and to optimize your script for the cloud v) interactive work-with-the-experts sessions to show you how to work with TESS data and TIKE for your own targets. Please bring a laptop for these in person interactive sessions!

Price: 0.00

IN-PERSON

Saturday, Jan 11: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sunday, Jan 12: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

The Julia programming language can be considered the successor to Scientific Python (SciPy). The language is designed for scientific computing by having built-in multidimensional arrays and parallel processing features. Yet, it can also be used as a general-purpose programming language like Python. Unlike Python, Julia solves the two-language problem by using just-in-time (JIT) compilation to generate machine code from high level expressions. In most cases, Julia is as fast as C, and in some cases faster.

This workshop is divided into introductory and advanced sessions over two days. The attendee can choose to attend one session or both depending on their familiarity with the Julia programming language. The first session is intended to introduce astronomers and software developers to the basic language syntax, features, and power of the Julia programming language, and to show that Julia provides an easy migration path from languages such as Python. It will do so by introducing the novice to the Julia programming language via a set of notebooks that will cover basic language syntax, unicode, mutli-dimensional arrays, data types, data structures, and functions as part of various data analysis scenarios. The second session is for astronomers who have a basic understanding of Julia and want to write high performance Julia code. It will cover interfacing to other languages, developing modules, code optimization techniques, parallel computing, and package management.

Price: 100.00

IN-PERSON

Saturday, Jan 11: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm
Sunday, Jan 12: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

As the astronomical community moves into an era of big data, the paradigm of data processing is changing. We are transitioning from local end-to-end data processing (from taking or simulating observations to publishing the data) to retrieving pre-processed large datasets through database queries. The growing importance of such transactions are evident with current projects such as TESS, Gaia, SDSS, ZTF, HST, and Illustris and will become a necessity to fully utilize the next generation of astronomical surveys, telescopes, and simulations. Interaction with these databases and visualization of these complex datasets will be essential skills. This workshop will introduce participants to selecting information from an online database in an efficient and reproducible way and effectively visualizing the results.

The Astronomy Data Carpentry Workshop will consist of short tutorials alternating with hands-on practical exercises focused on building complex SQL queries using Astroquery, working with the retrieved data as Astropy Tables and Pandas data frames, storing the data locally for future use, and communicating the results with clear and compelling figures using Matplotlib. The workshop will be run by Carpentries certified instructors as well as a team of helpers.

This course is aimed at astronomers at all stages of their education and careers. Participants are expected to have shell and Python knowledge equivalent to the Software Carpentry Python Curriculum (https://swcarpentry.github.io/python-novice-inflammation/): the ability to write a function in Python, familiarity with Python built-in types such as lists and dictionaries, and the ability to navigate directories using the command line. In addition, this lesson assumes that learners have some familiarity with astronomical concepts, including reference frames, proper motion, color-magnitude diagrams, globular clusters, and isochrones.

Registration is for both days and due to the cumulative nature of the workshop, participants are expected to participate in both days fully. Participants will need personal computers and to be able to install software in advance of the workshop. A group list will be compiled approximately one month prior to the workshop to distribute software requirements and provide collaborative troubleshooting. More information on the Data Carpentry project can be found at https://datacarpentry.org and on this curriculum at https://datacarpentry.org/astronomy-python/.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm

Astronomy archives across the world serve petabytes of multi-wavelength images, catalogs, and spectra that can be mined for a diverse range of science investigations. During this hands-on workshop, you will learn how to use Python tools to search for and retrieve data you need for your analyses. We will work through science scenarios that combine multi-wavelength data from a variety of NASA and other missions, such as JWST, HST, Spitzer, Chandra, WISE, GALEX, SDSS, and more! Workshop organizers will also be available to help participants with custom projects.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 8:00 am – 12:00 pm

Managing your research projects, teams, or programs effectively is an essential career skill in academia and beyond, yet most scientists receive little formal training in project management. This interactive workshop aims to empower AAS members at any professional level who wish to improve their own management skills. During the workshop participants will (i) learn best practices and tools for successful project management(ii) listen and learn from seasoned professionals who apply these skills daily and (iii) participate in activities and discussions to jumpstart your journey to project management. Through this workshop, participants will have the opportunity to start implementing some practices in their day-to-day workflow. This workshop will be facilitated by a team of experienced professional astronomers with the support of the AAS Committee on Employment.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

Do you engage students and members of the public in learning about Astronomy and want to make these educational experiences more successful? This full-day workshop will provide activities to help you successfully combine principles of learning, course design structures, and classroom-tested instructional strategies to create learning environments that are

1) Inclusive – and welcoming for students of all backgrounds into a safe and supportive community;

2) Active – engaging students in collaborations that deepen their astronomical knowledge, reasoning abilities, and problem-solving skills; and

3) Effective – resulting in significant learning gains and retention of students.

This workshop is led by astronomy and physics education researchers with the Center for Astronomy Education (CAE) and the Physics and Astronomy Faculty Teaching Institute (FTI) who have spent the past 20 years studying how to best support learners in introductory science courses. Come learn how to effectively facilitate whole-class and small-group discussions, implement in-class voting, tutorials, ranking tasks, and other active-learning curricula, and how to motivate students’ understanding of the role of science in society. We have specifically designed the workshop to provide participants with a safe and supportive environment that increases their agency, fosters open discourse, promotes reflection on their identities, beliefs, and local context. This workshop is appropriate for all members of the AAS, at all points in their career paths, including grad students, post-docs, middle school and high school teachers, informal educators, college faculty, research scientists, amateur astronomers, and administrators. Any instructor of any level of experience will benefit, regardless of whether their classes are large or small, introductory level or upper division, or in-person, virtual, or hybrid.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 9:00 am – 5:30 pm

This workshop will cover the use of Python tools for astronomical data analysis and visualization, with the focus primarily on tools in the Astropy library and its affiliated packages. The goal is to introduce participants to the variety of tools which are available inside the Astropy library, and to provide time for participants to explore the science analysis capabilities which the scientific Python ecosystem and community provide. The format will include short presentations followed by instructor-guided tutorials where participants will use the tools and be able to ask questions in the company of expert users and developers.

We will first introduce the core Astropy package including units, quantities, and constants; coordinates; FITS, ASCII and Astropy tables; an introduction to object-oriented programming using light curves as the example data structure; images and their visualization; modeling; and other sub-packages. Then we may cover a few coordinated packages such as CCD image reduction (ccdproc), photometry (photutils), and spectroscopy (specutils).

Participants must bring a laptop with software installed, or be willing to use a Binder session in the cloud. We can support Mac OS X, Linux, and Windows 10+ operating systems. Support for Windows machines will require the Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL; see https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wsl/). In-person participants needing installation help can come early to the workshop room to receive assistance.

The workshop materials will be presented using Jupyter notebooks. The workshop repository is https://github.com/astropy/astropy-workshop

Prerequisites: Some familiarity with Python and Numpy will be helpful but is not required. We will send some suggested tutorials before the workshop for those with no prior Python experience. Some familiarity with git and Github will be useful for installing the workshop software on your own computer, though we will try to minimize the need for those tools.

Price: 100.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, 12 Jan: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

This workshop will cover several tools used for the data analysis and visualization of JWST and Roman data. This includes the Jdaviz visualization and data analysis package, the Advanced Scientific Data Format (ASDF) package, specreduce, photutils PSF photometry, and generalized world coordinate systems (gwcs). The goals are to introduce participants to these tools and provide hands-on time for participants to use the tools and ask questions to the developers. The format will include short presentations followed by instructor-guided tutorials using Jupyter notebooks.

Jdaviz is a package of astronomical data analysis visualization tools based on the Jupyter platform. These GUI-based tools link data visualization and interactive analysis. Presenters will provide examples of the latest features available in the various configurations (Specviz, Cubeviz, Imviz, and Specviz2d) and will guide attendees through basic and advanced workflows to analyze JWST spectra and images.

The Advanced Scientific Data Format (ASDF) is a next-generation interchange format for scientific data. It will be used as the data format for Roman Space Telescope Level 1 - 4 data products.

The workshop will also cover the Astropy packages specreduce (spectral extraction), photutils PSF photometry, and the generalized world coordinates system package (gwcs).

There will be time spent on hands-on exercises. Participants must bring a laptop with the software installed. Instructions on installing the necessary software will be provided before the workshop and help will be available at the workshop for those that experience problems with installations.

The prerequisites are a familiarity with astronomical data analysis. Basic Python experience is highly recommended to be able to participate in the exercises. Those without Python experience will still be able to use Jdaviz and gain useful information about the capabilities for data analysis in Python.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 9:00 am – 12:00 pm

Scientists and subject matter experts at all career stages are needed and valued for informal learning experiences! Would you like to engage with STEM learners in venues such as museums, science centers, planetariums, libraries, and community colleges? Do you work with these audiences already or do you want to reach them?

Join us for a workshop to engage with NASA’s Science Activation teams working to meet the needs of learners and science experts, explore how you can become involved, and walk away with NASA resources, developed by Science Activation programs, that you can use in your own outreach efforts.

We will share resources, tackle select challenges, and connect with programs looking for expert volunteers to help deliver current and accurate NASA astrophysics content to audiences across the country. We will explore current astrophysics themes and learning pathways, and learn about programs and resources for working with different audiences.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 9:00 am - 5:00 pm

The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope is anticipated to generate close to 30 petabytes of data during its five-year primary mission, heralding a new era of big data in astronomy. As data sets grow too large for personal computers, virtual science platforms offer a solution by providing cloud-based data processing and analysis. The Roman Science Platform is being developed to offer the astronomical community a cloud computing environment for Roman data. It couples data-code proximity with a pre-configured software environment, making it easier for users to work with data. The platform also includes pre-loaded notebook tutorials and scientific workflows tailored to specific astronomical use cases. Utilizing the JupyterLab environment, users can create Jupyter Notebooks that seamlessly integrate code, analysis results, data visualizations, and other functionalities for handling astronomical images and catalogs.

This one-day workshop will provide the scientific community with an introductory overview of the Roman Science Platform. In addition to offering hands-on training, we aim to gather feedback, understand the needs of the user community, and identify ‘early adopters’ interested in utilizing the system for precursor science prior to the Roman launch.

The workshop will include both directed training and independent exploration exercises (i.e., hack hours). The training will feature presentations and short tutorials, alternating with hands-on practical exercises focused on exploring several high-level workflows. Examples include an introduction to Roman data reduction tools, learning how to work with the ASDF file format, and using visualization and simulation tools such as Jdaviz (image visualization), Pandeia (Exposure Time Calculator), RIST (Roman Interactive Sensitivity Tool), STIPS (Space Telescope Image Product Simulator), and WebbPSF for Roman (PSFs simulator). Attendees will also learn how to access and analyze state-of-the-art Roman simulations from the Open Universe project (Troxel et al. 2023), which includes simulated wide-field and time-domain Roman data, as well as how to simulate their own data using Roman simulation tools

This course is aimed at astronomers and scientists at all stages of their education and careers. A basic knowledge of Python and familiarity with astronomical data concepts (e.g., data reduction, photometry) is expected. Prior experience with science platforms, Jupyter Notebooks, or the Roman mission is not required.

This workshop requires registration. Participants will need personal computers and should set up their accounts in advance with help from the workshop organizers. A group list will be compiled approximately one month before the workshop to distribute software requirements and facilitate collaborative troubleshooting.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm

This is a workshop for those in positions of leadership (including faculty) in their departments. An often overlooked strategy for enhancing individual wellbeing is attending to the design of organizational environments where work and learning occur (e.g., labs, graduate programs, universities). Aligning the aims, leadership styles, resources, communications practices, and policies of learning environments to support a culture of mentoring and wellbeing may be necessary for changing culture. With a focus on labs and graduate programs, this workshop will empower attendees to assess their own organizational culture. Participants will learn how to proactively build equity-minded cultures of mentoring and wellbeing through tools such as lab manuals and graduate program handbooks that establish expectations about work-life balance, forms of support and mentoring available, and professional conduct as it concerns respect for members’ social identities. This workshop will be facilitated by experts from the Inclusive Graduate Education Network (IGEN) and the Equity in Graduate Education (EGE) Consortium.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 9:00 am – 4:00 pm

The success of scientists depends upon their ability to obtain funding. One of the largest challenges is to create strong proposals. Using Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) from NASA as a template, this workshop will focus on teaching the audience key points to communicating science through successful proposal writing. As a result of this session, participants will be able to understand the proposal writing, reviewing, and selection process for federally funded research. This will also help those who have previously submitted proposals improve their performance. How to understand one’s values and maintain those throughout this process will also be focused on. Story tellers will add unique and important lessons learned to the session.

Price: 50.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm

Python has become the dominant environment for astronomy data analysis. The visualization of the data products that come from astronomical observatories is also key to many steps of data analysis. Participants will learn how to use the Firefly toolkit to interactively visualize astronomical data products from Python. Firefly is an open-source library that makes it easy for users to query astronomical archives for data and to interactively visualize astronomical data products. The visualization provides brushing and linking capabilities among images, catalogs, and plots. Firefly has been integrated into many astronomical web applications, including Spitzer, WISE, ZTF, and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory. This workshop is appropriate for Python beginners, and users will take home worked Python notebooks.
 

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 11:00 am – 5:00 pm

This workshop aims to support students and postdocs interested in learning more about how to get the most out of professional development experiences like the AAS meeting. This workshop aims to help all astronomers who feel they need support or advice on how to approach large astronomical meetings, navigate the social parameters, and get the most out of attending, with neuroincusive principles in mind to allow access to everyone.

The American Astronomical Society Winter Meeting is the largest astronomy conference annually, and thousands of astronomers come to collaborate, network, and share their research. Like all conferences, the AAS meeting can be overwhelming, especially for first-timers. Workshop attendees will learn how to navigate and get the most out of these meetings, whether it is their first meeting or they are seasoned veterans.

This workshop will feature a number of speakers in the field discussing topics like how to appropriately network at meetings, how to present yourself, job seeking, how to prioritize, and self-care in a sometimes overwhelming environment.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 1:00 pm – 5:30 pm

In this workshop we will provide participants with professional development resources and educational materials with the aim of improving outdoor lighting on their campus. In particular, we will introduce the Campus SHINE (Safe and Healthy Illumination for the Nighttime Environment) document that will walk participants through the process of building a team of faculty, staff, and students to assess campus lighting and develop plans to improve it. Participants will learn about advocating for responsible lighting principles and learn methods of quantifying light pollution. Additionally, participants will be provided with examples of campus lighting management plans, student government resolutions, and images of good and bad lighting.

College campuses are well equipped to address a pervasive problem like light pollution due to the presence of young, environmentally conscious and diverse students, expertise across several disciplines, and potential access to funding. Astronomy courses are extremely popular among students from all backgrounds, and stargazing events on the main campus or at the campus observatory are popular with students and members of surrounding communities. And the most obvious manifestation of light pollution -- skyglow -- is intuitively easy to understand and experience due to its direct correlation to the ability (or lack thereof) to view stars and the Milky Way. It thus makes sense to embed light pollution related topics into astronomy courses and stargazing events. Not only this, but since bad outdoor lighting impacts not just astronomers but the entire community, the subject of light pollution lends itself to interaction and overlap with a whole host of other topics, ranging from Biology and Ecology to Urban Planning and Public Policy.

The goal of this workshop, then, is to provide astronomers with the tools necessary to engage the entire campus (students, faculty, staff, and administrators) and work towards responsible outdoor lighting practices.

Outcomes:

1) Introduce participants to the Campus SHINE initiative of AAS COMPASSE,

2) Help participants network with each other,

3) Provide participants with tools to educate the broader campus, surrounding communities and decision-makers about the importance of responsible lighting at night,

4) Encourage participants to adopt best practices while incorporating light pollution into astronomy, physics, and the curricula of other fields and,

5) Provide participants with tools to initiate curricular and research projects to quantify sky brightness and lighting sources (campus lighting inventories, spectral profiles of lighting, etc.) on campuses.

Pre-workshop materials will introduce the participants to the Campus SHINE project, and provide them with the necessary technical background about light pollution and the IES/DarkSky Five Principles of Responsible Outdoor Lighting. This will be accomplished by providing participants with access to the “Campus SHINE How-to-manual”, short (~5-minute) YouTube videos, and other relevant documents. The “How-to” manual is intended primarily for faculty, staff, and administration who want to improve their campus’ outdoor lighting.

The workshop itself will be a blend of short (~10-minute) presentations that will prompt participants into three 20-minute hands-on activities, guided with appropriate prompts that facilitate discussions. Between 15-20 minutes will be devoted to open-ended discussions, Q&A, and networking.

Workshop materials will include 10 sets of Unihedron Sky Quality Meters, Opple lightmaster meters, diffraction gratings, and gel-filters. These materials will be distributed (free of charge) to the participants at the end of the workshop based on information collected before and during the workshop. The criteria for distribution of the material include need, potential for use, potential impact, and demographical considerations. Some of this information will be solicited through pre- and post-workshop questionnaires and surveys.

Price: 35.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

Clear and powerful visualizations are a critical component of science communications whether the audience is the general public, students, or researchers. Today’s astronomy visualizations comprise an ever-expanding collection of disciplines that include traditional fields of image processing, data presentation, and illustration, as well as emerging technologies like data sonification, 3D printing, virtual/augmented reality experiences, and the rapidly-growing applications of AI.

Price: 50.00

IN-PERSON

Saturday, Jan 12: 1:00 pm – 5:00 pm

In this interactive half-day workshop, Hubble Space Telescope (HST) experts will share the resources that are available to help you succeed in using HST imaging for your research. Specific topics will include how to download data, perform astrometric alignment, and create mosaics by drizzling images obtained with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) and other imagers on-board Hubble. We will also explore how to generate high-quality Point Spread Function (PSF) models for accurate astrometry and photometry. The workshop will focus on brief presentations of each topic followed by ample time for Q&A. In the second half of the session, experts will be on-hand to aid you with questions specific to the datasets you are analyzing. Users of all experience levels are welcome, with the material focused on first-time users and early career researchers who are looking to build their skills using Hubble observations. A basic familiarity with Python, Astropy, and Jupyter Notebooks will be helpful to fully benefit from the content of the workshop, but is not required. We encourage you to bring an HST dataset that you’re working on for your research.

Price: 45.00

IN-PERSON

Sunday, Jan 12: 1:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Interested in a faculty career at a primarily undergraduate institution, or maybe you are just passionate about undergraduate research? This session will provide participants with the background and practical strategies necessary to create or improve your undergraduate research program. Current faculty or graduate students and post-docs interested in applying to a faculty position at a primarily undergraduate institution are encouraged to register.

Topics will include:
- Best Practices in Mentoring Undergraduates
- How to set up an undergraduate research lab
- How to integrate research into the curriculum
- Potential grant programs to support your undergraduate research lab

Price: 35.00