AAS Committee on Employment and You! Services and Recent Updates

By Luisa Fernanda Zambrano-Marin, Emily Mason, Chelsea Sharon, and Julia Kamenetzky

The AAS Committee on Employment is here for you! What will you do for work once you complete your degree? How far up in the degree ladder are you interested in going? What branch of work would you want to go into? Here is a summary of what we have been up to this year to help you answer these questions and more!

The AAS Committee on Employment has been quite active updating our online resources and providing training to AAS members. We are composed of fourteen passionate members, led by Julia Kamenetzky from Westminster University; our charge is to

facilitate the professional development and employment of astronomers

at all career stages and on all career paths, and

to promote balance and fairness in the job market

Our most visible activities for the AAS community are workshops and splinter sessions at the winter AAS meetings. This year kicked off with the popular How to Give Great Presentations workshop, led by Rob Coyne and Kavitha Arur at the AAS 243 Winter meeting in New Orleans. Next came Beyond Academe, an awesome event showcasing diverse career paths beyond the traditional academic track. We had a panel discussion featuring NASA scientists, science communicators, and more, who painted a vivid picture of the possibilities for careers beyond academia. The roundtables, where 75 participants were guided by 20 expert facilitators, dove into specific career paths in an engaging exchange of ideas. The committee also sponsored the Software & Data Carpentries Workshops and the Astronomers Turned Data Scientists Splinter Session.

AAS Committee on Employment members (from left to right): Kavitha Arur, Quyen Hart, Julia Kamenetzky, Rica Sirbaugh French, and Amit Vishwas at the Beyond Academe Roundtable Discussion event at AAS 243 in New Orleans. Photo credit to Diane Frendak.

Our committee also works behind the scenes to support AAS members. The committee joined forces with AAS staff to provide feedback and suggestions for the revamp of the Job Register webpage, ensuring clarity and ease of use for both employers and job seekers. Members Emily Mason and Dave Principe have been conducting detailed textual analysis of job postings, in addition to our annual quantitative analysis of postings. 

We kept on with the redesign and update of the list of resources available at the AAS Career Resources webpage including the Academic Career Advice page! Updates to more resource pages will be available shortly. For a summary of the resources available to job seekers and those in charge of hiring (including resources to help ensure an equitable and fair search process) see Chelsea Sharon’s post on the AAS Digest. 

Collaboration is key. We actively engage with other AAS groups, such as the Committee on the Status of Women in Astronomy and the AAS Education and Mentoring Specialist Tom Rice, fostering knowledge sharing and identifying areas of common interest. Additionally, we joined forces with the Beyond Academic Careers Advisory Committee (BACAC), aiming to amplify their collective impact. AAS Committee on Employment members also serve on the Meetings Task Force, the Early Career Engagement Task Force, and the AAS Workshop Task Force. 

Looking ahead, our main projects are to continue with popular workshops at AAS meetings. We plan to

• introduce a new Project Management workshop,
• nurture collaborations with BACAC and other AAS committees and task forces,
• keep analyzing job data,
• improve website access to career resources, and
• support international students' and employees’ special concerns.

The AAS Committee on Employment continues to support astronomers’ career aspirations worldwide. We seek to empower individuals at every career stage, foster collaboration, advocate for transparency within the field, and pave the way for a brighter future for the astronomy community.