Charlotte Olsen, PhD 🏳️‍🌈🔭🌌

Always a nonzero chance and it seems like today is the day. Cash in those lotto tickets folks!

🔭 The reason I rarely ask questions at conferences is that there’s always the risk of me referring to galaxies with particularly stochastic star formation as “burst-y quench-y bois” 🤦🏼

Good time to remind people that when you call your reps that suck you can remind the staffers that they can and should quit.

Astronomers From Across New York Area Gather to Celebrate Release of New Telescope Data Columbia researchers, some sporting martian headbands, gathered to celebrate the launch of the new Vera Rubin Observatory.

What a fun time this was! 🔭🧪

news.columbia.edu/news/astrono... Astronomers From Across New York Area Gather to Celebrate Release of New Telescope Data | Columbia News

Omg I’ve been gone from this platform for so long. I hope everyone is surviving as best they can ❤️

Me: Today we’re going to be going over planetary motion.

*15 minutes later*

Me: So basically what I think I’m trying to say is that the Moon is totally obsessed with us.

Marco Rubio May Have Just Banned Trans Foreigners Seeking Visas From US Entry A new state department cable, meant to target transgender athletes, indicates a potential broader application to all transgender visas, which it states must contain "sex at birth."

1. Major exclusive breaking news: Marco Rubio may have just banned trans foreigners seeking visas with correct gender markers from US Entry.

A new cable, effective immediately, says visas must contain assigned sex at birth and should be rejected if they don't.

Subscribe to support our journalism.

The NEA has released their updated literature grant guidelines. They are appalling. Tupelo Press will not be altering our 25-year mission to promote contemporary poetry and literary prose by emerging and established writers of diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, including, especially, women and writers of color, as well as the LGBTQ+, immigrant, and Native American communities. We aim to develop wider audiences for, and deeper understanding of, innovative, multi-cultural writing by essential participants in this conversation. At the same time, we undertake to enhance the reading experience itself by publishing and distributing gorgeously designed and produced books. If adherence to our principles means that we will be ineligible for NEA grants going forward, so be it. Compliance with the new regulations would be immoral.

This is how you do it. Thank you, @tupelopress.bsky.social!!!

Pretty depressing to think that all it took was three weeks for astronomers to go from excitedly showcasing their work at AAS to the blind panic and fear experienced when their funding gets shut off because they called their students diverse on an NSF.

Push back. We’re in this together.

list of banned keywords

🚨BREAKING. From a program officer at the National Science Foundation, a list of keywords that can cause a grant to be pulled. I will be sharing screenshots of these keywords along with a decision tree. Please share widely. This is a crisis for academic freedom & science.

Gaining Clarity 2025: A Reading List to Know Your Political Moment Gaining Clarity 2025: A Reading List to Know Your Political Moment Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of t...

Gaining Clarity 2025:  A Reading List to Know Your Political Moment. For those affiliated with colleges and universities information during these challenging times, even as some U.S. elected officials are calling professors and universities “the enemy.” docs.google.com/document/d/1...

It feels like everything I've been working towards in undergrad physics education is crumbling around me and ppl not in a line of work being affected like this are living on a different planet right now.

If anyone gives you any guff just suggest they start looking for wood for the campfire before the sun goes down. When they go off to look then you can run away.

Hey #AAS245!

I'm on my way, and have a presentation coming on Tuesday!

Beyond Academe Panel: Exploring Astronomy Powered Career Paths - 2:00-3:30 in Annapolis 3-4,

followed by a roundtable discussion - 3:30-4:30 in the Exhibit Hall CD.

Come one, come all, and bring your questions!

#AAS245 with 3654 attendees as of this afternoon, this is the largest AAS meeting ever, beating the previous record set by Honolulu in 2020.

Debbie and Emily posing inside the BOOTHtique in the AAS conference exhibit hall, with plush planets, mission scarves, and jewelry on display (plus lots more!)

We are ready for you, #AAS245! Visit us at booth 726 (far back right of the hall) starting at the opening reception tonight and during exhibit hours until Thursday at 2:30 pm.

Poster saying "Half of Black astronomers have left, or are considering leaving, the field due to finances. Survey on Poverty in Astronomy Special Session, Tuesday, January 14, 10am in Chesapeake G/H" for #aas245

The CSMA is proud to sponsor a #aas245 special session on the results of the Astronomy Poverty Survey. The panel will report astonishing findings (like the poster below) from the survey's >1000 respondents and describe next steps. The session is Tuesday, Jan 14, at 10am! 🔭🧪 See you there!

The @aasoffice.bsky.social will issue full registration refunds for all of our colleagues impacted by the devastating fires in CA. If you are an #AAS245 registrant and in CA standby for an email on how to request your registration. We at the AAS are heartbroken for you and ready to support.

Selfie of me in front of the icy Potomac River with the setting sun behind me. There is some sort of boardwalk that is going into the river and snow on the ground.

Made it to National Harbor for the American Astronomical Society's #AAS245 meeting!

I'll be posting a lot this week and will try my best to summarize all of the talks I attend.

If you want to follow along, great! If that sounds annoying mute me or #AAS245.

PRESENTING: #AAS245 Bingo

Thanks to the fantastic community responses, we have a bingo card for the next week! Complete the bingo card and post it tagging me here or IG/Threads to be entered into a drawing for a prize.

Photo of facade of the natural history museum in Washington DC in the snow

PSA: if you're going to #AAS245 in Washington DC.

There is a sample of #asteroid #Bennu on display at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History! Also a Mars meteorite you can *touch*! #ToBennuAndBack

🧪🔭

I’m giving two presentations at #AAS245 this week, including my first non-iPoster! Here’s the info:

Wed. Jan 15, 9AM-10AM
Session 306 - Theory of Exoplanet Atmospheres iPoster
Production of O2 and O3 on CO2-rich/H2O-poor Mars-like Exoplanet Atmospheres
Terminal 99 in the Exhibit Hall

I’ll be at #aas245 from Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday afternoon - let me know if you want to catch up and/or if I can make your talk! And if you are the morning type, come see the Chambliss astronomical writing award thingy, before the first plenary of Weds 1/15 (around 8am, I am told).

THERE’S AN EXTREMELY LARGE TELESCOPE TOO?? WHAT NEXT?

I feel this. Deeply.

Oooh! I feel so fancy!! My poster from last year must’ve impressed! What an honor! 🔭🧪

Just a reminder for those who need to hear it.

Ooh! 🔭🧪

Session #22 is this week and I’m excited to get to highlight some work by my student Ena Chia (applying for grad school now!) Pics to come 🔭🧪