Community

We work to keep a supportive and strong community within our group, which results in several offical and unofficial group activites that happen frequently.

Organizations

Here, we list some of the organizations in our department that help to strengthen our community, with brief summaries about the purposes of each one. In addition to the organizations listed here, our graduates are very active in — and have also founded — a number of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI)-specific organizations in our department. For information about those organizations, see our Diversity & Climate page!

Astronomy on Tap

Astronomy on Tap B/CS is our local chapter of Astronomy on Tap (AoT), a series of free, public science presentations hosted by astronomers, typically at bars. A group of astronomy graduate students, led by Alex Riley, founded the chapter in Spring 2018, and we have held monthly events ever since! Usually, we hold our events at the Grand Stafford Theater in Bryan. During the pandemic, we instead livestream our events on youtube at tx.ag/aotlive. You can watch our past events and subscribe to our youtube channel here! You can also follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for up-to-date news on upcoming events!

GLASS

GLASS (not an acronym) is a collaborative astronomy graduate student program focused upon professional developement, where fellow astronomy graduate students create and lead workshops teaching useful skills and tricks of the trade. All of the materials for the meetings are made available on the GLASS website and the associated GitHub organization page.

Graduate Student Assembly

The Graduate Student Assembly is a department-wide organization run by and for the department's graduate students. They are an interface between the department administration and our graduate population. This organization was founded in 2018 by a combination of physics and astronomy graduate students (including Tarini Konchady).

Graduate & Professional Student Government

The Graduate and Professional Student Government (GPSG) represents the interests of graduate and professional students with respect to the University's administration. Each department has two senators who represent them in the organization, who help draft resolutions and organize events. The current senators for our department can be found on the GPSG website .

Mentoring and Advising Graduates in an Inclusive Community (MAGIC)

MAGIC at Texas A&M University is a mentoring program created by and for graduate students in Physics and Astronomy at Texas A&M. Graduate student mentors are matched to incoming graduate students in order to create an inclusive, supportive community to help students thrive throughout graduate school.

Postdoc-Graduate Student Mentoring Program

The Postdoc-Graduate Student Mentoring Program was founded in 2020. Each graduate student is assigned one mentor who is a current astronomy postdoc at Texas A&M. Each mentor-mentee pair meets approximately once each month. The purpose of this program is to provide support and guidance to graduate students, including helping with questions about future academic life.

Astronomy Group Activites

    • Astronomy Coffee Discussions (aka Journal Club): we gather Friday mornings to talk about the various astronomy papers that came out that week. This serves as excellent practice for graduate students to present and discuss professional papers, as well as a learning opportunity about astronomy topics during discussions with postdocs, researchers, and faculty.
    • Tuesday Tea Time: every Tuesday, we gather for an hour to relax and socialize with each other — taking the moment to separate ourselves from our work and get a much-needed break. Weather permitting, we often move outside to the 3rd floor garden located in our building.
    • Astrosymposium: every August, right before the semester starts, we hold an event where everyone in our astronomy group presents brief summaries of the science they've been working on for the past year. This includes our faculty, researchers, graduate students (including incoming graduates), and undergraduate students.
    • Post-Astrosymposium Happy Hour: after Astrosymposium, we gather for a large dinner/social hour. This is a really fun event where everyone is able to mingle and get to know the new students, who have just arrived for the Astrosymposium.
    • Liquid Physics: Every Friday, graduate students and postdocs gather at Rough Draught to socialize and relax after having a long week.
    • Slack: in order to help build and support community within our astronomy group, we have an active and dedicated Slack for our graduate students, postdocs, & researchers. We have dozens of channel topics, including various work-related channels and non-work-related channels. A lot of communication happens over our Slack, and we typically use it to organize social events, such as game nights and parties.