The Climate Committee is a formal committee of the University of Chicago’s Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A) and the Kavli Institute for Cosmological Physics (KICP). The committee is composed of students, postdocs, faculty and staff. The core goal of the committee is to work together in a number of directions to improve the climate in A&A and KICP. Since the start of the committee in 2023, the primary goal of the committee has been to process the outcome of the 2021-2022 A&A+KICP Climate Survey describeed below.
Between Summer 2021 and end of 2022, A&A and KICP hired the University of Chicago’s Survey Lab to carry out a climate survey. The Climate Survey Recommendation Committee (an earlier rendition of the Climate Committee) compiled a report that includes a brief background introduction to the survey, and then describes the findings, comments and recommendations to A&A and KICP as well as other parts of the community. Concrete recommendations in this report will serve as a foundation for continuous improvement of the climate in A&A and KICP. As of February 2024, the Climate Committee is working to enact specific recommendations in this report. The report can be found here.
Current members of the Climate Committee: Dhayaa Anbajagane, Julia Brazas, Chihway Chang, Isaiah Escapa, Joshua Frieman, Daniel Hooper, Alexander Ji, Tanvi Karwal, Abigail Lee, Emily Simon, Galen Tsongas, Abby Vieregg