Inclusion in an international training program for early-career engineers and scientists in the Thirty Meter Telescope partnership

Nicholas J. McConnell,  Austin Barnes,  Warren Skidmore,  Renate Kupke,  Jessica Lu,Scott Roberts,  Ravinder Bhatia,  Sandra Dawson,  Gary H. Sanders, and  Lisa Hunter. Proc. SPIE 11449, Observatory Operations: Strategies, Processes, and Systems VIII, 114491O (13 December 2020); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.2575654.

The TMT Early-Career Initiative (TECI) is an innovative, evolving program designed to support inclusion in the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) International Observatory (TIO) by engaging graduate students and postdocs in TIO projects, and preparing them with skills required to contribute to the project and advance in their careers. TECI has an annual cycle that begins with a workshop that includes project management, instrument design, and teamwork sessions, and engages participants in projects that could lead to visits and new collaborations. Project teams are led by the participants themselves, who consult with a member of the relevant technical team or project staff. In this paper we describe the components of TECI, our approach to designing it, and outcomes from our early piloting in 2016-17, as well as our first full program in 2018-19.

Full paper available online