Dear Astrobiology Community,

We at NASA Astrobiology are continuing to prioritize thoughts and efforts in justice, equity, and belonging. We are seeking your inputs at this time on several fronts toward building momentum for growth, change, and action…for ourselves and our beloved community.

We are issuing a call, asking if you would please share with us your thoughts and ideas, both specifically related to these areas and in general. Further explanation of these areas is below:


  • NASA Mission Equity Request for Information (RFI)

  • New Science Mission Directorate (SMD) RFI for IDEA Language in Future AOs

  • Do you do fieldwork? What documents do you have in place that guide and govern your group’s ethics, conduct, process, policy, etc.?

  • Recommendations of scholars to feature in a symposium wherein they share their research about the current barriers and challenges faced by minoritized/marginalized students and professionals in STEM, and discuss strategies for addressing them

  • Other, non-specific inputs
  • Please identify if you are interested in working together on these fronts.


We see ourselves in service to community-based efforts, as gatherers of our collective thoughts and ideas, and facilitators of dialogue and action. Our vision is to organize groups to work on co-creating and advancing activities based on these inputs. All will be treated as proprietary and used only to take our collective pulse toward moving forward as a community.

Please send all inputs via this uploader, which is monitored by Melissa Kirven-Brooks, Aaron Gronstal, and Daniella Scalice at NASA Astrobiology:

https://forms.gle/4ZEWA9ute5AYeWp17

THANK YOU!




  • NASA Mission Equity RFI
    • Inputs to this agency-wide call were due on August 31st. Did you contribute? Did you not have the time? If so, please share your thoughts with us now.
    • https://www.nasa.gov/mission-equity

  • New SMD RFI for IDEA Language in Future AOs

  • Do you do fieldwork? What documents do you have in place that guide and govern your group’s ethics, conduct, process, policy, etc.?
    • Recent events have provided an opportunity for us to consider and potentially reimagine how we conduct ourselves and train our early career investigators with respect to fieldwork. What policies and documents have you drafted to guide your/your group’s conduct in the field? Please share both formal and informal information.
    • One goal for this activity is to influence the language that is incorporated into NASA’s requests for proposals. A secondary goal is to begin thinking about our relationship with the resources around us.

  • Please share recommendations of scholars to feature in a symposium wherein they share their research about the current barriers and challenges faced by minoritized/marginalized students and professionals in STEM, and discuss strategies for addressing them
    • We seek to provide the community with a way to educate ourselves more deeply about the challenges and barriers to access, as well as to remaining in and co-creating a healthy and diverse STEM workplace.
    • We seek to look together at what is needed to achieve equity and address and break down these barriers? What does justice demand?

  • Other, non-specific inputs
    • Please share with us papers you’ve read, documents, abstracts, session proposals, powerpoint/slides, decadal papers…even questions, concerns, and/or random thoughts and ideas you haven’t written down yet.

  • Please identify if you are interested in working together on these fronts.