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The American Astronomical Society (AAS) and its Historical Astronomy Division announce the launch of the Astronomy Genealogy Project, or AstroGen on 25 July 2020 . The launch date of 25 July was chosen because it is the anniversary of the award of the first PhD degrees in the United States.
Basic facts
The project’s website provides information on more than 33,000 astronomers who either earned doctorates with astronomy-related theses or supervised research for such dissertations.
It is called a genealogy project because, in academic genealogy, a person’s “parent” is their thesis advisor.
The project will facilitate studies of the astronomical community by historians and sociologists of science.
With information in the database, it is possible to compare numbers or careers of those earning astronomy-related doctorates for different countries, universities, or time periods.
With a little more effort, researchers can compare the numbers of people earning doctorates with research in different subfields, such as celestial mechanics, planetary science, or X-ray astronomy.
Source: American Astronomical Society
