The Astronomy Genealogy Project

The Astronomy Genealogy Project, to be known as AstroGen, will list as many as possible of the world's astronomers with their academic parents (aka thesis advisors) and enable the reader to trace both academic ancestors and descendants. It will be very similar to the highly successful Mathematics Genealogy Project (MGP), available at http://genealogy.math.ndsu.nodak.edu. The MGP, which has been in operation since 1996, now contains the names of about 170,000 "mathematicians." These include many physicists and astronomers, as well as practitioners of related sciences. Mitchel Keller, the director of the MGP, has generously shared the software used in that project, and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) will host AstroGen, a project of the Historical Astronomy Division, on its website. We expect to start seeking entries soon, depending on the availability of computational assistance from the AAS IT department. We are seeking volunteers to help run the project. If you are interested, please contact me at joe.tenn@sonoma.edu.