Capturing the Now — the AAS Oral History Project

The Oral History Project of the American Astronomical Society is in its sixth year. It is part of the activities of the Historical Astronomy Division. What is an oral history? Oral histories are interviews with individuals that are meant to capture some aspect of their, if not their entire, life. For the AAS project, we spend up to two hours with each person gathering background information, noting career moves, highlighting mentors, but also touching on current issues relevant to our community such as diversity, sexual harassment, data science, queue observing, tenure, and getting individual recognition for collaborative research. We have interviewed over 150 scientists, technicians, family members, and STEM support staff. Some of these interviews can be found on the AIP archive of oral history interviews. The AAS Oral History Project is unique in that we interview anyone who volunteers to be interviewed: You do not need to be old and famous (like Doug Lin, but we do want to interview him, too!). Our interviews include undergraduates to emerita. The poster shares the full list of our interviewees and some of our preliminary analysis of trends. Finally, if you would like to be interviewed contact Jarita (jholbrook@uwc.ac.za).