The FAST Initiative: Fostering a More Inclusive SDSS Collaboration

The success of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) hinges on tapping into a diverse talent base. From our experience, however, it is clear that simply allowing access to SDSS data is not enough to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in the collaboration. For this reason, the SDSS collaboration instituted the Faculty and Student Team (FAST) Program, which pairs teams of faculty and students from underrepresented groups with SDSS partners to build serious, long-term research collaborations. Our intent is to build capacity at the faculty level to propagate SDSS research to students in the long-term. We present the FAST initiative in detail and outline results from the first 1.5 years of the program.