Crosspost: An Interview with AAS President-Elect Dara Norman

By Ashley Walker, Howard University

Ashley Walker is a planetary science PhD student at Howard University and member of the AAS Committee on the Status of Minorities in Astronomy (CSMA). She sat down with Dr. Norman, who was elected to be the next AAS President by AAS members earlier this year, to discuss the path that led her to astronomy, the mentors who influenced her, and what she aims to accomplish during her term as AAS president.

Dara Norman, AAS

A legacy I would like to see is basically that there's not one way to be an astronomer, and that there are opportunities available for people who decide that they love astronomy, but writing a bunch of papers is not where they want to be. What they want to do is communicate to students, or they want to communicate to the public, or they want to help other astronomers get their data and get their research done. Or they want to go into policy, and they want to make sure that there is funding and opportunity for the people who do want to write a million papers. But I really think that there are a lot of ways to do this, and the more credit we give to all of the people who are making it possible for all of us to do this kind of work, the better the field will be, and the more accessible the field will be. So hopefully that will be part of the legacy that I leave behind.

Read more at

https://aas.org/posts/news/2023/04/interview-aas-president-elect-dara-norman