Undergraduate Astronomy Research Tutorial Repository
The Astronomy Research Tutorial Repository serves as an excellent resource for undergraduate students learning how to program in the Python language, as well as introducing several other astronomy-specific software packages. This is a work in progress and contributions are always welcome. Please check back periodically for new additions!
Picture an Astronomer
“Picture an Astronomer: Best Practices for Retaining Talent in Astrophysics” is a community-authored white paper on why early-career astronomers — particularly those from historically underrepresented backgrounds — leave the field, and what departments, mentors, and institutions can do about it. Co-authored with a large group of students, postdocs, and faculty from across the field, the paper draws on survey data and lived experience to lay out concrete, actionable recommendations for improving retention: from mentorship structures and funding stability to climate and community-building. It is intended as a resource for anyone thinking seriously about how to build a more sustainable and inclusive astronomy workforce.
Graduate Student Research Agreement Template
Student-mentor relationships are both extremely rewarding, but also challenging. This graduate student research agreement template has been developed to provide (graduate) students with a set of guidelines for their role performing independent research in astronomy. The purpose of this document is to provide a clear set of expectations, which will help make students and mentors more successful in their journey, enhancing the students development, and ensuring that the student and mentor are on the same page. A generic version of the Graduate Student Research Agreement can be downloaded and adapted; please acknowledge those that have contributed to making this document: Prof. Kate Whitaker (UMass Amherst), Prof. Stella Offner (UT Austin), Prof. Cara Battersby (UConn), Prof. Julia Kamenetzky (Westminster College), and Prof. Jeyhan Kartaltepe (RIT).
Compilation of Undergraduate Research Opportunities
This compilation of undergraduate research opportunities, compiled in Fall 2020, includes the program name, an estimate of the application due date, and a link to the webpage. Some information may not be up-to-date; corrections and/or additions are encouraged – please email me!
Effective Plotting and Presentations Workshop
This workshop was originally developed for the UMass Astronomy Department Fall 2020 Journal Club (and made public in September 2020). Included in the 2-session workshop is a “Data Challenge”, where participants are asked to download a spreadsheet of the astrophysics arXiv submissions between March 15th and August 10th of 2019 and 2020 (i.e., before and during COVID-19). Using code released by Professor Megan Frederickson, the CSV file contains two gender columns counting the total number of men and women (albeit an imperfect process, gender is automatically assigned through an applied algorithm whenever first names are specified).
Other Resources
Data Products
You can download science-ready data products and literature compilations resulting from various public surveys, including the following:
- 3D-Herschel Survey
- JWST UNCOVER Treasury Survey (including Cycle 1 and 2 programs, with a Cycle 5 MIRI program coming soon)
- Cold dust literature compilation
- Hubble Legacy Survey
- 3D-HST Survey
- NEWFIRM Medium-Band Survey
Literature Resources
- Prof. Arianna Long has an amazing compilation of resources on their professional webpage: ariannalong.space/resources, including research skills, applications, teaching pedagogy, mentorship, and literature on community and support.
- Python for Astronomers is a free textbook, with interactive tutorials and guides for learning scientific computing by Imad Pasha and Chris Agostino: prappleizer.github.io
- Pre-print of various chapters for the Encyclopedia of Astrophysics to be published by Elsevier as a Reference Module:
- Spectral Energy Distributions: arxiv.org/pdf/2502.17680
- Galaxy Morphologies: arxiv.org/pdf/2502.09610
- Interstellar Medium: arxiv.org/pdf/2504.01410v1
- Gas in Galaxies: arxiv.org/pdf/2504.08103
- Circumgalactic Medium: arxiv.org/pdf/2412.10579
- Gravitational Lensing: arxiv.org/pdf/2501.07938
- Other related resources not in the encyclopedia but related include: arxiv.org/pdf/1910.07832 and arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0109358
- Check out our review article, Quenching of Star Formation in Massive Galaxies (Whitaker & Bezanson 2026), to appear in the 2026 edition of Annual Reviews of Astronomy & Astrophysics and available now on the arXiv.