Cosmic Origins Early Career Workshop

NASA’s Cosmic Origins Program is excited to invite you to the first Early Career Workshop, designed to support and empower the next generation of astrophysics leaders and PIs. The workshop aims to provide insights to early career scientists about the wide range of work done in the Cosmic Origins Program, to explain and demonstrate the tools and opportunities available to them, and to answer any questions they may have.

Location

Virtual

Dates

21-23 October 2025
1:00 PM - 4:00 PM

Community

Cosmic Origins

Type

Workshop

Cosmic Origins Community

To Support and Empower the Next Generation of Astrophycists

This workshop will take place virtually on October 21 – 23, 2025, from 1 – 4 pm Eastern.

The three days will be focused on Science (Day 1), Missions (Day 2) and Careers (Day 3).

Registration

Gaseous yellow-orange filaments look like a rose seen from the side and tilted slightly from upper left to lower right, slightly higher than the center of the frame. Extending from the rose to upper left and lower right are gaseous outflows that appear as red lobes that have an overall shape of tall, narrow triangles with rounded tips. Each red triangle is made up of wavy, irregular lines. Dozens of stars are scattered across the field. One particularly bright white star with eight diffraction spikes is located at the top of the yellow rose. Another bright blue star with even more prominent diffraction spikes is to its lower left. The background of space is black.

Webb’s image of the enormous stellar jet in Sh2-284 provides evidence that protostellar jets scale with the mass of their parent stars—the more massive the stellar engine driving the plasma, the larger the resulting jet.

Image: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, Yu Cheng (NAOJ); Image Processing: Joseph DePasquale (STScI)

On Day 1, we will provide participants with an overview of the science themes covered by Cosmic Origins and give early career scientists opportunities to share their research.

On Day 2, we will highlight the many NASA archives, data analysis tools, and upcoming proposal opportunities so that participants can see a clear path for themselves to get involved with NASA missions.

On Day 3, participants will engage with speakers who have taken a variety of career paths that have led them to NASA science and mission work.

Workshop Schedule

Day 1 Science

Workshop Connection

Time	Topic	Speaker
1:00 PM	Cosmic Origins Overview	S. Ravindranath (NASA/GSFC)
1:15 PM	How to be a Scientific Leader	S. Nikzad (JPL) S. Stierwalt (Occidental)
1:30 PM	Decadal Surveys and Why They Matter	R. Kennicutt (Texas A&M)
1:45 PM	Where Ideas Come From: The Creative Process of Writing a Scientific Proposal	P. Kurczynski (NASA/GSFC)
2:00 PM	HEASARC	A. Basu-Zych (NASA/GSFC)
2:15 PM	NASA Data Analysis in the Cloud: the Fornax Initiative	T. Jaffe (NASA/HQ)
2:30 PM	Submitted Talk: How did that get there?	B. Koplitz (Arizona State)
2:45 PM	Submitted Talk: Investigating the Effects of SMBH Feedback on Disk Formation using FIRE Simulations	P. Fofie (UC Irvine)
3:00 PM	Break
3:15 PM	Submitted Talk: Extremely Metal-Poor Galaxies and the Faint-End of the Mass-Metallicity Relation at Cosmic Dawn	T. Hsiao (UT Austin)
3:30 PM	Submitted Talk: The evolution of metals and chemical enrichment in the first billion years after the big bang	J. Huyan (University of South Carolina)
3:45 PM	Submitted Talk: Hot Off the Stacks: Simulated X-ray Surface Brightness Profiles & Physical Interpretations of X-Ray Brightness	N. Sanchez (Carnegie)
4:00 PM	End

Day 2 Missions and Technology

Workshop Connection

Time	Topic	Speaker
1:00 PM	Astrophysics Missions Overview	TBD
1:15 PM	Guest Observer Programs	E. Lopez-Rodrriguez (USC)
1:30 PM	The PI Launchpad and how to prepare for mission opportunities in the future	E. Hamden (U. Arizona)
1:45 PM	Pioneering Emission Mapping of the Circumgalactic Medium with Aspera: Mission Progress and Lessons Learned	C. Vargas (U. Arizona)
2:00 PM	Creating the Future through Innovation	J. Gaskin (NASA/HQ)
2:15 PM	Submitted Talk: The STABLE Cosmic Web Imager	D. Miles (Caltech)
2:30 PM	Break
2:45 PM	Submitted Talk: Finding the Enrichment Timescale of R-Process from Neutron Star Mergers to Star Forming Regions	Z. Smith (North Carolina A&T State)
3:00 PM	How to Join Roman – A Mission for the Community by the Community	R. Beaton (STScI)
3:15 PM	How to get involved with the Habitable Worlds Observatory	G. Arney (NASA/GSFC)
3:30 PM	Chromatic Cosmos: SPHEREx’s All-Sky Spectral Map of the Near-Infrared Universe	S. Everett (CalTech)
3:45 PM	Submitted Talk: Predictive Models for Binary Formation Across Metallicities	A. Cason (Fisk University)
4:00 PM	End

Day 3 Careers

Workshop Connection

Time	Topic	Speaker
1:00 PM	So many paths; Each is Unique, including mine. I’m here to champion yours!	J. Crooke (NASA/HQ)
1:15 PM	Navigating NASA-funded graduate and postgraduate opportunities	N. Cucchiara (NASA/HQ)
1:30 PM	TBD: Science Comms Within NASA	S. Roberts (NASA/GSFC)
1:45 PM	From the Woods to the Stars	M. McTier (Astrophysicist; Folklorist)
2:00 PM	It's Not a Wall: Moving Between Academia & Industry	A. Lanz (Capella Space)
2:15 PM	Submitted Talk: Disentangling the Halo: Joint Model for Measurements of the Kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich Effect and Galaxy-Galaxy Lensing	J. Sunseri (Princeton)
2:30 PM	Break
2:45 PM	Binary Stellar Evolution Across Redshift and Varying IMF: A Choose-Your-Own-Adventure Tale	E. Park (UC San Diego)
3:00 PM	How AI is Changing How We Do Science	Y. Ting (OSU)
3:15 PM	Leadership Outside of Academia	D. Norman (NoirLab)
3:30 PM	Career Branding	R. Gamble (NASA/GSFC)
3:45 PM	UCO Professional Development and Summer School Experiences 2026	A. Metevier (ISEE), C. Pacheco (ISEE)
4:00 PM	End

Workshop Science Organizing Committee

Sabrina Stierwalt
Peter Kurczynski
Swara Ravindranath
Ronald Gamble

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