Engagement, Mentorship and Climate Committee

The Simons Observatory (SO) has obligations to both its members and to the broader scientific community that extend beyond the core science mission of the collaboration. In order to recognize the importance of efforts to improve the health and standing of the collaboration and to make the most efficient use of collaboration members who volunteer their time for endeavours in this pursuit, the concept of the Engagement, Mentorship, and Climate Committee (EMC^2) was formed.

The EMC^2 will oversee and facilitate efforts involved with the internal health of the collaboration and engagement with the broader community beyond the collaboration.
Program Structure

The EMC^2 will exist under and report to the Collaboration Council Oversight Committee. The EMC^2 will be the higher level entity that organizes and oversees a series of flagship programs within SO as well as overseeing resource allocation for the programs and ensuring specific activities, detailed below, are completed.

Programs that fall under the EMC^2 are:
  1. The Education and Public Engagement (EPE) program. The EPE scope and mission is to present the work of SO scientists to those outside the collaboration (other scientists and the general public). This includes coordinate events and programs which bring our work (and the field of cosmology in general) to non-SO scientists as well as to non-scientists, and provide infrastructure for SO members to undertake educational activities that get young students excited about science.
  2. The Mentorship program that aids in the training of junior SO members, giving them support and resources to benefit their development within academia and beyond.
  3. The Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) program that promotes equity, diversity and inclusion in the sciences. The EDI committee is both outward looking, engaging in community-level initiatives like the APS-IDEA initiatives, and inward looking, engaging with the Planning Committee and Oversight Committee to facilitate climate surveys and EDI initiatives within SO.
  4. The Simons-National Society of Black Physicists Scholar Program (SNSP) brings Black student researchers into the SO family. Over the course of the summer, the SNSP students engage with SO researchers and receive lectures, training and mentoring.
  5. The Programa de Divulgación en Chile (PDC)  aims to foster engagement and collaboration with the Chilean public. The program will develop community engagement activities and materials on SO science and the telescope for distribution in Chile.

To request additional information, please contact the Engagement, Mentorship and Climate Committee: 

Email the SO EPO committee

Email the SO EDI committee