In order to attract and retain excellent researchers and diverse individuals in astrophysics, we recommend action be taken in several key areas impacting young scientists: (1) Maintain balance between large collaborations and individual projects through distribution of funding; encourage public releases of observational and simulation data for use by a broader community. (2) Improve the involvement of women, particularly at leading institutions. (3) Address the critical shortage of child care options and design reasonable profession-wide parental leave policies. (4) Streamline the job application and hiring process. We summarize our reasons for bringing these areas to the attention of the committee, and we suggest several practical steps that can be taken to address them.
@article{arxiv.0905.1986,
title = {Challenges facing young astrophysicists},
author = {N. L. Zakamska and A. E. Schulz and K. Heng and M. Juric and B. Kocsis and M. Kuhlen and R. Mandelbaum and J. L. Mitchell and M. Pan and D. H. Rudd and G. van de Ven and Z. Zheng},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:0905.1986},
year = {2009}
}
Comments
10 pages, no figures, State of Profession paper for the Decadal Survey