Nicholas McConnell
Plaskett Postdoctoral Fellow
National Research Council Canada, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics
n.j.mcconnell [at] gmail.com

Previously:
Beatrice Watson Parrent Postdoctoral Fellow
Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii at Manoa

Curriculum Vitae  (December 2015)

I am leading multiple projects to observe the universe's most massive galaxies and black holes
in unprecedented detail. Many of these efforts employ optical and near-infrared spectroscopy,
using facilities in Hawaii, Texas, and Chile. My latest work includes an expanded census of
massive galaxies' central black hole masses and an investigation into spatial variations in the
abundances of individual elements.

I earned my Ph.D. from UC Berkeley in 2012.  
If you have a lot of free time, you can peruse my thesis.

I earned my B.A. from Boston University in 2006.

Nicholas McConnell
Plaskett Postdoctoral Fellow
National Research Council Canada, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics
n.j.mcconnell [at] gmail.com
CV

Research

The largest galaxies in today's universe are giant ellipticals, ``red and dead'' relics from a past era of cosmic mayhem. Their ancestors likely hosted the most vigorous star formation and most violent black hole growth in the cosmos, corresponding to the brightest galaxies and quasars observed in the high-redshift universe. I am leading multiple projects to observe the universe's most massive galaxies and black holes and address questions such as:

• Do these galaxies' stellar motions point to a unique history of collisions?
• Did their supermassive black holes grow in advance of their stellar components, and were they the primary agents in expelling gas and quenching star formation?
• Do the chemical abundance patterns in their stars reflect normal star formation over multiple generations of chemical enrichment, or do they reveal unique variants of star formation physics driven by extreme environments?

I measure stellar motions and chemical compositions in nearby elliptical galaxies, seeking clues to the growth of stars and black holes under extreme physical conditions. In Decmeber 2011 I led the measurement of the two most massive black holes in the local Universe (at least, the most massive known at that time). I am currently expanding this work to measure black hole masses in dozens of galaxies, with the Black Hole Safari campaign at Keck and Gemini Observatories, and the MASSIVE survey at McDonald Observatory. A second project seeks to explore the range of stellar masses at different locations within giant elliptical galaxies, responding to recent evidence that these systems form an excessive number of low-mass stars. I am testing the hypothesis that this extreme behavior only occurs near the galaxies' centers, while their outer regions have stellar populations more like those observed in the Milky Way.

The Black Hole Safari
The MASSIVE Survey
Stellar Masses in Giant Ellipticals
Black Hole & Host Galaxy Scaling Relations
Discovery of the Most Massive Black Holes
Measuring Black Hole Masses
Other Projects (MaNGA galaxy survey, young star clusters, supporting observations of A-stars, Kepler targets, and Jupiter)

The Black Hole Safari

I am leading the Black Hole Safari, a campaign to observe the centers of over 30 giant elliptical galaxies and measure the masses of their central black hole. We observe each galaxy from one of the 8-m Gemini or 10-m Keck telescopes and record spectroscopic data over a two-dimensional field. From these data, we measure the motions of stars at distance scales of ~100 light years within each galaxy (which themselves reside 10 to 100 *million* light years from the Milky Way). A one-billion solar-mass black hole (the approximate mass range we anticipate in our target galaxies) is the dominant source of gravity within a 100-light-year radius. By measuring stellar motions on these scales, we can infer the gravitational field from the black hole, and consequently determine its mass. In practice, this involves comparing our observed data to computer models of each galaxy.

Black Hole Safari galaxies observed through November 2014. Each thumbnail is a collapsed image from a three-dimensional data cube. We use queue-mode observing and adaptive optics to probe the finest angular scales possible with current optical astronomy technology.

The MASSIVE survey

I am a core member of the MASSIVE galaxy survey team, along with Chung-Pei Ma (Berkeley), Jenny Greene (Princeton), and John Blakeslee (Herzberg). MASSIVE is a campaign to measure stellar kinematics and chemical abundances out to large scales in ~100 of the most massive galaxies in the nearby universe. Specifically, the survey is volume-limited out to a distance of 108 Mpc and a K-band magnitude of -25.3 (for reference, the giant galaxy M87 has a K-band magnitude of -25.31). More details can be found in our survey paper. As of December 2014, we have observed 69 galaxies using the Mitchell integral-field spectrograph on the McDonald Observatory 2.7m telescope.

In particular, I am interested in these galaxies' supermassive black holes and radial trends in their stellar initial mass function (IMF). Do these components exhibit differences between the universe's most massive galaxies and ordinary ellipticals? To this end, I am taking advantage of overlap between MASSIVE and the Black Hole Safari sample (above), and a deep investigation of IMF-sensitive spectral absorption features in some MASSIVE galaxies (below).

Finally, an interesting feature of the MASSIVE sample is its distribution of environmental properties. While approximately two thirds of the MASSIVE galaxies are the brighest member of a galaxy group or cluster, a substantial fraction are second-ranked group members or are relatively isolated. Cosmic environment is known to affect the evolution of low-mass satellite galaxies, but our survey will be among the first to explore the role of environment in shaping the growth of very massive galaxies.

The Stellar Initial Mass Function in Giant Elliptical Galaxies

I have recently begun an investigation of elliptical galaxies' initial mass function (IMF): the relative proportion of low-mass vs. high-mass stars that form from interstellar gas. Most regions of the Milky Way and other nearby spiral galaxies appear to have a common IMF. However, in the past few years multiple teams of astronomers have uncovered evidence for a strange trend: some of the most massive elliptical galaxies appear to contain a very high fraction of low-mass stars, or a "bottom-heavy" IMF. This could mean that billions of years ago in these particular galaxies, the physical mechanism for gas collapse and star formation was somehow different from the phenomena we observe in our own Galaxy. However, this idea is hard to reconcile with the notion that giant elliptical galaxies were built up from smaller ones that may have initially resembled the Milky Way.

A missing ingredient to recent investigations of the IMF in other galaxies is spatial coverage: almost all the evidence for a different IMF comes from observations of these galaxies' innermost regions. If they transition to a more Milky-Way-esque IMF in their outer regions, it could be possible to reconcile strange physics at their centers with more prosaic assembly from small galaxies in their outskirts. I have teamed up with Jessica Lu (Hawaii) and Andrew Mann (Texas) to measure the IMF at large radii within giant elliptical galaxies, using the LRIS spectrograph at Keck Observatory. While this builds off of pioneering work by other teams, extracting data from galaxies' faint outskirts ("the boonies") is a unique challenge!

Another issue I am tackling along with Drs. Lu and Mann is the calibration of galaxies' spectra -- specifically how differences in chemical composition can bias our interpretations of stellar masses when we examine light from many stars blurred together. To date, astronomers have relied on theoretical models to describe the spectral patterns of stars with chemical abundances unlike the closest stars in our own Galaxy. In order to check the accuracy of these models, we have sought out and observed rare nearby stars that may have abundance patterns similar to giant elliptical galaxies. These templates will aid future investigations of the IMF and other aspects of massive galaxies' stellar populations.

Black Hole Scaling Relations

Supermassive black holes (SMBHs) reside at the centers of elliptical galaxies and spiral bulges. "Supermassive" means anything from "only" a few hundred thousand times the mass of our Sun, up to 10 billion or more solar masses. Below 1 billion solar masses, the mass of an SMBH correlates with luminosity or stellar mass of its host galaxy or bulge (the M_BH-L and M_BH-M_bulge relations) and also with the velocity dispersion, or the typical speed of orbiting stars, in the host galaxy (M_BH-σ). To produce the correlations we observe today, galaxies and their central black holes likely evolved together, eating and starving over similar time intervals. Yet we do not understand whether this coevolution was driven by violent galaxy collisions, or whether galaxies and black holes "communicated" their respective growth rates via gentler processes.

Professor Chung-Pei Ma and I have compiled an updated sample of black hole masses in nearby galaxies, including some of our own measurements. Our sample indicates a steeper overall slope for the M_BH-σ relation (relative to previous samples), and diffrent relations for different types of galaxies. We are continuing to update the sample at our website blackhole.berkeley.edu. By increasing the size and coverage of the observed sample, we can make finer distinctions between different scenarios for black hole and galaxy growth.

Correlations between black hole mass and stellar velocity dispersion (left), and bulge stellar mass (right), using the sample from
McConnell & Ma (2013)

In addition to the statistical errors illustrated in the figure above, black hole mass measurements have systematic errors that haven't been explored fully. In collaboration with Professor Ma at Berkeley and Stephen Chen at Philips-Exeter Academy, I recently examined one possible systematic effect: spatial variations in the mass-to-light ratio of stars (McConnell et al. 2013).

Discovery of the Most Massive Black Holes (December 2011)

Working with colleagues at Berkeley, UT Austin, NOAO, and UM Ann Arbor, I measured stellar motions near the centers of two giant elliptical galaxies, each roughly 300 million light years from the Milky Way Galaxy. We determined that the stars were orbiting black holes of 9.7 billion and 21 billion solar masses, and reported our result in the journal Nature. Before our discovery, the most massive known black hole was in a much closer galaxy, M87, and had a mass between 6 and 7 billion solar masses.

In addition to breaking the 10-billion solar mass threshold, our discovery is exciting because it provides a connection between relatively nearby galaxies (in the scheme of the entire Universe, 300 million light years isn't very far) and very distant objects, which we observe as they were billions of years ago when the Universe was just emerging from its infancy. Some of the brightest distant objects are quasars, whose brilliant luminosity comes from gas spiraling into enormous black holes. Astronomers believe that the most massive black holes in quasars were approximately 10 billion solar masses. Over time they ran out of gas and became too faint to observe. Our discovery finally suggests where some of them might be hiding.

Some Media Coverage:
Nature letter (free version on arXiv)
Nature News & Views (free version on arXiv)
Nature podcast
UC Berkeley press release
Gemini Obseratory press release
New York Times article
Dunlap Institute video interview with James Graham

 

Brightest Cluster Galaxies:
Our two tremendous black holes were each at the center of a Brightest Cluster Galaxy (BCG). BCGs are the most luminous galaxies in the Universe. They are giant elliptical galaxies residing in large galaxy clusters, often anchored near the cluster center. A typical BCG is several times more massive than the Milky Way, and contains over a trillion stars. Unlike the Milky Way, most BCGs stopped forming new stars billions of years ago, and they are almost completely devoid of gas.

Hubble Space Telescope image of a galaxy cluster and its BCG (ESO 325-G004). Image credit: NASA, ESA, and the Hubble Heritage Team

Although they are enormous, BCGs are rare and mysterious. Astronomers are not sure whether they formed by tearing apart and consuming hundreds of small galaxies, or from collisions of galaxy clusters that each had a large central galaxy. To gain clues about how BCGs grew into the monsters we observe today, it is important to carefully examine all of their components. The supermassive black hole at the center of each BCG is one of the most interesting components, but also one of the hardest to observe.

Because of their extreme luminosities, the M_BH-L correlation predicts that BCGs host the most massive black holes in the nearby Universe. However, BCGs have similar velocity dispersions to other elliptical galaxies, and so the M_BH-σ relation predicts that their black holes will not be unusally massive. Directly measuring the masses of SMBHs in BCGs is the only way to resolve the contradicting predictions, and by doing so can provide information about how smaller galaxies and their black holes merged together to eventually build a BCG. Although my team demonstrated that two BCGs hosted extremely massive black holes, we have measured black holes with lesser masses in two other BCGs.

Measuring Black Holes

To determine the mass of a black hole, we need to observe stars that are orbiting in response to the black hole's gravitational pull. Galaxies beyond the Milky Way are too distant for us to see individual stars -- instead, we see the light from millions of stars blurred together. Fortunately, we can use spectroscopic data (measurements of the light emitted at thousands of different wavelengths) to measure a statistical distribution of stellar velocities. If we can get velocity distributions at different locations in the galaxy -- especially very close to the central black hole -- we can use numerical models of orbiting stars to indicate how massive the black hole is.

My main tool for measuring the orbits of stars is integral-field spectroscopy (IFS). An IFS instrument uses an array of small lenses or optical fibers to sub-divide the focal plane into a two-dimensional grid and then disperses the light to create a spectrum for each grid position. I have observed BCGs with IFS instruments on some of the world's largest telescopes:

OSIRIS on the 10-m Keck telescopes
GMOS on the 8-m Gemini North and South telescopes
NIFS on the Gemini North telescope
Mitchell Spectrograph on the 2.7-meter telescope at McDonald Observatory

With OSIRIS, GMOS, and NIFS, we try to make measurements on tiny angular scales in order to isolate the black hole's gravitational influence from the rest of the galaxy. However, BCGs have relatively few stars near their centers, making it extremely difficult to obtain high signal-to-noise spectra. Often I will spend an entire observing night pointing the telescope at a single BCG (and watching Youtube videos writing science proposals in the meantime). The Mitchell Spectrograph gives us information about stars at larger radii, so we can tell how much mass is in stars and dark matter. After analyzing spectra from different instruments to measure stellar motions, I model the galaxies using codes from Karl Gebhardt et al., run on supercomputers at the Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC).

Collapsed data cubes from OSIRIS. Each pixel in the images above has a corresponding near-infrared spectrum.
Above: Center of Brightest Cluster Galaxy NGC 6086. The red square indicates the location and spatial extent of the central spectrum (0.05 x 0.05 arcsec). The field of view is 3.9 x 1.1 arcseconds.
Below: Double star, including sample spectra. The field of view is 3.2 x 0.8 arcseconds.

Adaptive Optics Observations:
Observations with OSIRIS and NIFS use laser guide star adaptive optics (LGS-AO) to resolve galaxies more sharply than is typically possible from the ground. Turbulence in Earth's atmosphere bends the direction of starlight in patterns that change rapidly over time. This causes stars to twinkle when viewed with the naked eye, and through a telescope a star will normally appear blurry and jittery. Adaptive optics uses a specially engineered sensor to measure how light is being distorted and a deformable mirror to correct the distortions before the light enters the science camera. For bright stars, the distortions can be measured and corrected thousands of times each second.

However, the night sky has a limited number of bright stars, and we are not so lucky to have one near every BCG. Fortunately, we can create a fake "guide" star by shining a laser into the sky. A powerful laser tuned to the right wavelength (not your dorky cousin's hand-held laser pointer) illuminates a layer of sodium atoms in Earth's ionosphere, and some of the light shines back downwards into the telescope. By correcting the light from our fake star, we can obtain sharp images of a much fainter galaxy.

Laser Guide Star systems at Keck Observatory (left) and Lick Observatory (right)

Other Projects

MaNGA galaxy survey: I have contributed to planning the MaNGA survey, which will make two-dimensional measurements of kinematics and stellar populations in approximately ten thousand galaxies from 2014 to 2020. I helped define the performance requirements for measuring galaxy kinematics in accordance with MaNGA's science goals.

Embedded star clusters: Star clusters form within clouds of gas and dust, and are therefore invisible to the naked eye at their birth. However, their presence is sometimes betrayed by radio and infrared light produced when the most massive young stars ionize pockets of gas, known as ultra-compact (UC) HII regions. In 2007 and 2008 I hunted for young star clusters in the Milky Way by surveying UCHII regions with the near-infrared camera and laser guid star adaptive optics (LGS-AO) system at Lick Observatory. Below is an infrared image of a gorgeous young cluster, from follow-up observations with the Keck II telescope and LGS-AO system.

Young star cluster, composed from images with two near-infrared filters (courtesy Nate McCrady)

Super star clusters: While supermassive black holes exist in the most luminous galaxies, large star clusters may contain "intermediate-mass" black holes (IMBHs) with thousands or tens of thousands of solar masses. Using OSIRIS at Keck Observatory, my collaborators and I collected spectra of a young, massive star cluster in the dwarf starburst galaxy M82 and an old globular cluster (or possibly the core of a stripped galaxy) orbiting the Andromeda Galaxy. These data are very challenging because the stars in these systems move more slowly than in massive galaxies, and OSIRIS has limited velocity resolution. With some effort, we hope to glean some information about the stellar dynamics and populations of these two systems.

Miscellaneous observations: Sometimes the most interesting observing experiences come when you agree to help a colleague out with a project (s)he is leading. In September 2009, my scheduled observing time at Keck came shortly after a large asteroid impacted the southern hemisphere of Jupiter. During my first night, Jupiter was rotating such that the impact site faced Earth, and I got to point one of Earth's largest telescopes at the Solar System's largest planet and snap away. I've also observed scores of bright stars with adaptive optics to check for companions that would be too faint and close to see with atmospheric blurring. Some of these observations were designed to rule out stellar binaries in targets for the Kepler and GPI missions for detecting extra-solar planets.

Nicholas McConnell
Plaskett Postdoctoral Fellow
National Research Council Canada, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics
n.j.mcconnell [at] gmail.com
CV

Teaching and Mentoring

I have taught in a variety of settings and collaborated with teachers in fourth-grade through college-level courses. Below are some highlights, including lab activities or worksheets that could be useful in your classroom. If you have any questions about an activity or are interested in obtaining futher materials, please contact me!

ISEE/Akamai Professional Development Program
Fluids Activity:   for MARC summer research program at UC Santa Cruz
Transiting Planets Activity:   for Hartnell College Astronomy 1L course
Spectrometer Design Activity:   for Maui Community College ETRO 102 course

Astronomy C10: Introduction to Astronomy:   worksheets I developed as a TA at UC Berkeley
Astronomy C12: The Solar System:   worksheets I developed as a TA at UC Berkeley
HI STAR astronomy mentoring:   research projects with middle- and high-school students in Hawaii
Dr. Nick the Astronomer:   collaboration with trigonometry classes at Evanston Township High School
3rd Grape from the Sun:   Solar System activity for middle schoolers
Other experience

ISEE/Akamai Professional Development Program
Since 2008 I have worked with the Professional Development Program (PDP) of the Institute for Science and Engineer Educators (ISEE) and the Akamai Workforce Initiative. I was a program participant in 2008 through 2010 and have been a program instructor and design team consultant since 2012.

The goal of the PDP is to train graduate students and professionals to use inclusive teaching practices supported by education research. In particular, the PDP focuses on inquiry-based teaching and learning, wherein students conduct their own investigations of science and engineering problems. In inquiry-based activities, students simultaneously develop science or engineering knowledge (content) while practicing authentic skills (processes) in an environment modeled after professional research.

As an instructor at the PDP, I have led discussion groups of five to ten participants, facilitated multiple examples of inquiry-based and other classroom activities, trained teams of participants in facilitation methods, and monitored and guided teams through multiple stages of designing their own activities. As a participant, I have contributed to the design of the activities below.

Fluids Activity
In summer 2010 I led a team in designing and facilitating a day-long activity for the Minority Access to Research Careers (MARC) summer program at UC Santa Cruz. The other team members were Jae Pasari and Pia Moisander. The MARC summer program helps undergraduate students transition from classwork to original research projects. In our activity, student teams designed their own experiments to explore fluid phenomena related to density, temperature, and polarity. In addition to the fluid experiments, our activity included components to promote research skills such as explaining using evidence and managing frustration.

Transiting Planets Activity
In fall 2009 I led a team in designing and facilitating a 3-hour activity for an introductory Astronomy lab course at Hartnell Community College, taught by Pimol Moth. The other team members were Linda Strubbe and Anne Medling. In our activity, students used model planetary systems and recorded transit light curves to learn what relative properties could be determined by comparing transits. In addition to the students' investigations, we emphasized the skill of questioning: to collect first impressions, to refine initial ideas into investigable questions, and to respond to a presentation by asking questions for clarification and further information.
An overview of our activity was published in the volume Learning from Inquiry in Practice (2010, ASPC 436, 97, available on arXiv). Modified versions of the activity have been used in classes at UC Santa Cruz, Boston University, Wesleyan University, and George Washington University. More information about our activity and the principles motivating it can be found below:
Presentation at UC Berkeley with Linda Strubbe (December 2009)
Complete talk (PDF)
Bibliography (PDF)

Spectrometer Design Activity
In 2008 I worked with a team to create a 1-week activity at Maui Community College (now UH Maui) for the course ETRO 102, Instrumentation for Engineering Technicians, taught by Mark Hoffman, John Pye, and Elisabeth Reader. Our students investigated the components of a spectrometer and worked in teams to assemble different spectrometer prototypes with different design goals. Throughout the activity my team provided personal facilitiation to enable students to make self-motivated decisions and actively forward their understanding. The other members of my design team were Steve Rodney (team leader), Lisa Chien, Bernhard Laurich, and Scott Seagroves.
Summary Presentation of Spectrometer Design Activity (April 2009)
PDF (18 MB)

Astronomy C10:
In 2006 and 2007 I was a Graduate Student Instructor (GSI) for Professor Alex Filippenko's introductory astronomy course at UC Berkeley, AY C10. In 2007 I was the Head GSI for AY C10 and coordinated 26 weekly discussion sections for 12 GSIs and approximately 750 undergraduate students. In both 2006 and 2007 I taught two AY C10 discussion sections of 15-30 students. Resources I wrote and used for these sections can be found here.

Astronomy C12:
In 2007 I was a GSI for AY C12 at UC Berkeley, an introductory course on the Solar System, taught by Professors Geoff Marcy and Michael Manga. Resources I wrote and used for AY C12 discussion sections can be found here.

HI STAR astronomy mentoring
In 2014 I was a mentor for the Hawaii Student/Teacher Astronomy Research program (HI STAR). During a one-week summer course I mentored two middle-school students on a project classifying galaxy mergers, and two high schoolers on a project estimating the total mass and stellar mass of a galaxy cluster. Both projects used data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. In fall 2014 I continued to mentor one of the students on his eighth-grade regional science fair project, comparing the frequency of galaxy mergers in a cluster environment versus the field.
Lecture on galaxies at 2014 HI STAR (PPTX, ~90 MB!)

Dr. Nick the Astronomer
In 2012 and 2013 I collaborated with Zachary Herrmann at Evanston Township High School in Evanston, Illinois, to share professional applications of geometry and trigonometry and insights to problem-solving. Mr. Herrmann and I have constructed astronomy-themed problems, including small-angle distance approximations, calculating angles in three dimensions, and vector components and arithmetic. Through my video interviews and Mr. Herrmann's long-form team projects, we emphasize how real-life problems often require original thinking and sustained effort, and can be approached in multiple ways. Mr. Herrmann's webpage for "Dr. Nick" is here.

3rd Grape from the Sun
In 2011 and 2012 I visited elementary school classrooms in Berkeley and Oakland, as a volunteer for Bay Area Scientists in Schools (BASIS). I designed a hands-on activity to address 5th-grade science education standards of classifying objects and understanding Solar System membership, by illustrating the relative sizes and features of different Solar System objects. In a scale model, each object (including the eight planets, Pluto, a comet, and an asteroid) was represented by a fruit, seed, or grain, corresponding to one-billionth of its real size. In an open-ended model, students chose from a variety of objects to represent the planets' sizes, colors, compositions, and extreme weather conditions. Notes for the activity are available here.

Other:
In 2005 and 2006 I was an instructor for the Princeton Review. I taught the Physics component of preparation courses for the MCAT.
In 2004 through 2006 I tutored Calculus and Physics at the Boston University Educational Resource Center.

Nicholas McConnell
Plaskett Postdoctoral Fellow
National Research Council Canada, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics
n.j.mcconnell [at] gmail.com
CV

Astronomy Resources

This page is under construction as I organize my notes and programs to post online. But if you're interested in anything below, e-mail me and I will send you related documentation.

* Frequently updated online compilation of dynamical black hole masses and host galaxy properties:
  Online HTML table
  ASCII table
  If you use the above compilation, please cite McConnell & Ma (2013)

* Custom OSIRIS IFU routine for cleaning faint, extended objects

* Custom Gemini GMOS IFU routines for mapping galaxies, defining lenslet positions, and extracting spectra from individual lenslets

* Notes on Gemini GMOS IFU reduction

* Notes on Gemini NIFS IFU reduction

* Installation notes for IRAF + Gemini IRAF + PyRAF on Mac OSX 10.7

* Notes on McDonald VIRUS-P (Mitchell Spectrograph) reduction (Vaccine pipeline + post-processing routines)

* IDL code for computing confidence intervals from noisy χ² arrays, using cumulative likelihood distributions (described in McConnell et al. 2011)

 

 

Nicholas McConnell
Plaskett Postdoctoral Fellow
National Research Council Canada, Herzberg Astronomy and Astrophysics
n.j.mcconnell [at] gmail.com
CV

"[S]cience is a social endeavor done by real, messy people, and I embrace that." Jason Wright

Beyond exploring interesting questions and discovering new things, my mission is to appreciate and strengthen the communities I work within. I believe strongly in the following three tenets:

1.) Science education and basic research are both crucial for the future of our species and our society.

2.) Equitable participation (by scientists of all races, gender identities, orientations, etc.) at all career levels is essential for maximizing the quality and impact of science research.

3.) Scientists are human, and the best science occurs in supportive, collegial environments.

 

Below are some of my activities and contributions echoing these themes:

I am a member of the Astronomy Allies, who work to support a safer environment for participants at meetings of the American Astronomical Society.

Guest blog posts for the AAS Committee for the Status of Women in Astronomy:
What does it mean to be smart?   (intelligence and mindset)
Say cheese!   (gender differences in smiling and department photos)

Additional writing:
Intelligence/mindset discussion at UC Berkeley
Personal profile at thehumanside.org