Becky Nevin

I worked with Julie Comerford and Fiske Planetarium to develop a full dome documentary on supermassive black holes, gravity, and galaxies. It is available in english and spanish format and is free to all planetariums!

I organized a weekly lunch series at Harvard that welcomes astrophysicists who are working in industry to share their career journey. Here's the link to the youtube playlist.

In collaboration with Fiske Planetarium, I started a science communication workshop for scientists. There is little training for graduate students and early career scientists in this area, and I have contributed to several white papers on the topic. I ran the workshop for two years at CU Boulder; each year we had a different theme. The first year, we focused more on speaking to public audiences, and the second year, we shifted to giving talks to scientists. We have had positive feedback from graduate students both years and this workshop will continue at CU for years to come. In the future, I hope to expand the workshop to include a youtube presence for some of the workshop sessions as they are relevant and useful for graduate students everywhere.

I also ran multiple graduate student talk series at Fiske Planetarium, including The Science of Sci Fi and Science and Society. I have written about how these type of programs are beneficial to graduate students and engaging for the public in a white paper and have given multiple talks myself as part of these talk series, including Zombie Pathology: A Survival Guide for Pandemics in the 21st Century.

I was immortalized in a comic about supermassive black holes by the talented Jorge Cham. He interviewed my research group at CU and created a marvelous video about our research.

While I was at CU Boulder, I ran and was an active member in the graduate student run PICA group. As a white woman in the field, I have found myself drawn to efforts that increase inclusion and equity in STEM. Also as a white woman in this field (and in the world), I find it increasingly important to make this type of group not just about women's equity, but to push the group towards intersectionality. The main goals of PICA are education and action; during my time in PICA I have helped educate other astronomers about issues ranging from reporting sexual harassment to understanding imposter syndrome, to the dangers of the physics GRE. We have also pushed towards more concrete results such as spearheading efforts to increase graduate student diversity through active recruitment and meeting with campus advocates and lawyers to discuss the implications of the end of DACA for students and staff. I can only imagine that I will be continuing my own education in how to foster a more inclusive community well into the future.

I love to speak publicly, and Astronomy on Tap is one of my favorite places to do so! I have given two talks, one about gravitational waves, and one about "The Dino's Demise" which uses The Land Before Time to explore the impact of asteroids on Earth.