AstroCom
InStAR’s President, and ambassador extraordinaire, Rachel Freed, is currently hosting AstroCom, a monthly online global gathering which maintains connections established at the Robotic Telescope, Student Research and Education (RTSRE) conferences. These regular Zoom meetings also facilitate building the community involved in astronomy education, telescope networks and student research.
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Rachel has made it her mission in general to provide astronomy research opportunities for students of all ages but after the second annual RTSRE conference (third is coming up at the end of 2019), Rachel says she realized that “continuing the conversations begun at the annual meeting would be critical to making forward progress, especially for educators who are being newly introduced to telescope networks and student research projects and need ongoing assistance.”
“I also feel that one of the biggest factors in determining the successfulness of any program within education around research is having a community of practice that can support that research. I would not be where I am today without an incredible amount of guidance and support from fantastic mentors.”
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– Rachel Freed, InStAR President
In addition to helping to put together global conferences on robotic telescope, student research and education, Rachel is helping to coordinate telescope access for students and educators around the country and works with the Las Cumbres Observatory telescope network and the Skynet network of telescopes. She also has “the immense pleasure of giving workshops for educators on how to do astronomy research with students, how to get access to telescopes, and how to help their students learn how to write a scientific paper.”
Please contact her if you would like to participate in, or host such a workshop. Rachel also administers the RTSRE Facebook page. Click here to visit!
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