Dr. Rob Coyne was representing the U²GRC at the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, held June 12th through 16th in Pasadena, California. While there he ran a professional development workshop (“How to give great presentations: a scientist’s guide to effective communication”) alongside longtime collaborator Dr. Kavitha Arur from the Georgia Tech Center for Relativistic Astrophysics. The workshop was designed to help astronomers from all stages of their career develop and hone their communication skills, which are essential for all professional scientists (whether it’s in the classroom, reaching out to the public, or presenting research at a conference).

The workshop was an enormous hit, with over two-dozen attendees spanning from high school students all the way up through tenured and emeritus faculty—with numerous undergraduate students, graduate students and post-docs in between! Plans are already in motion to offer the workshop again at future AAS meetings.

Special thanks to fellow U²GRC member Katie Rink who helped develop content for the workshop alongside additional collaborators Dr. Julia Kamenetzky (Westminster College) and Dr. Mitchell Revalski (Space Telescope Science Institute). The entire team would like to acknowledge (and thank) the AAS Committee on Employment for sponsoring the workshop!