Our Story

The History of NASA-PEER

NASA-PEER was founded in August 2023 to address a need for community by the post-bac researchers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. While more and more post-bacs were coming to GSFC, they found themselves isolated to their research group, and there were limited relevant professional development activity geared towards the unique needs of post-bac researchers.

To begin to address these needs, founders Erini Lambrides, Taylor Hutchison, and Kristen Garofali formed the first constellation with three post-bacs in the Astrophysics Science Division. Meeting regularly, they discussed grad school applications, the adjustment to full-time research, career goals, and persistence in astrophysics. As they believed this structure and resource could be useful to the larger community of post-bacs, they ultimately reached out to Jenna Cann and Katie McKee to discuss scaling the program up, in partnership with NGAPS+, the NASA Goddard Early Career Advocacy organization, and the CRESST II co-operative agreement.

Through their combined efforts, NASA-PEER was able to support its inaugural cohort of 19 post-bacs through their time at GSFC and has expanded in leadership and scope since the initial inception. Now, in addition to supporting the post-bac community at NASA GSFC, NASA-PEER also advocates for the broader post-bac community, through the development and distribution of resources, through providing recommendations for the development of other holistic post-bac programs, and through advocating for more formal recognition of the post-bac career stage in the field more widely.

NASA-PEER Identifier Symbolism

The NASA-PEER identifier, created by Katie McKee and Jay Friedlander, features a prominent constellation at the center of the logo. This constellation comprises three stars, known as Pyxis (abbreviated as Pyx), and is commonly referred to as the Compass constellation. In addition to Pyxis, the identifier incorporates a total of 19 stars, symbolizing the 19 post-bacs of the inaugural NASA-PEER cohort from late 2023 to early 2024.

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