Outreach

I've done a lot of outreach since coming to the UW. My outreach efforts are geared towards encouraging women and minorities to participate in SME fields and towards teaching the general public about astronomy and what astronomers do. Here's a list of some of the outreach projects I participate in and brief decriptions.

• Pre-MAP - the Pre-Major in Astronomy Program, aimed at recruitment and retention of minorities in the sciences (specifically astronomy) at the undergrad level. If you know of incoming freshmen to the UW who might be interested, send them this link!

• Project AstroBio - a program that pairs scientists with K-12 teachers. Scientists do 3+ school visits a year and help the teacher with the classes astronomy unit. My first three years here I was a scientist-partner in Project AstroBio. My teacher-partner was Dave Green at the Odle Middle School Academy of Math, Science, and Technology. My partner retired so I thought I'd take some time off Project AstroBio to have more time for research.

• Making Connections - a program which encourages high school girls to go into math, science, and technology fields (and, of course, college). I have mentored high school girls and ocassionally done workshops with the whole group for the past three years. I'm taking 2004-2005 off from MC to do more research.

• Expanding Your Horizons - an annual all-day workshop where high school girls get to learn about their dream jobs and many others they never knew about. Every year I give three one hour-long workshops at Shoreline CC's EYH Conference to tell high school girls what astronomers do and how to be one. I show some pictures, they ask tons of questions, I give out free stuff, and the girls think I'm rad.

• UW Planetarium. I was planetarium outreach coordinator from about 2001 through summer 2004. This means people emailed me when they want to come for a planetarium show and I schedule the volunteers to give them. I also recruited volunteers, sent reminders, and updated the calendar online. As of fall 2004 I'm handing the coordinator job off to Mark Claire so I can spend more time doing research. But you can still catch me giving shows one or two Fridays each quarter.

• I was the Astronomy Department webmistress from about 2001-2004.

• Astronomy Department Annual Open House - (when we have one) I help with planetarium shows, demos, and the Ask-An-Astronomer booth.

• Interconnection. It's not astronomy, but as a person interested in technology and the common good, I often volunteer for this non-academic organization. Interconnection makes and hosts websites for other non-profits around the world and refurbishes used computers to ship to third world countries.

• TimeBucks. Another non-astronomy/non-academic endeavor, TimeBucks is a forum for bartering services with other people in your area. I don't volunteer for them but I do hook up with a lot of excellent non-profits through them. I also make web pages for people and use the TimeBucks to get massages - now that's a good barter!