The ins-and-outs of giving a talk at the Green Bank Observatory … hint, don’t mention the aliens hidden in the fallout shelter …
So you’ve been invited to give a science talk in Green Bank, and you don’t know where to start. Science talks in Green Bank might be different than what you’re accustomed to preparing. We have a small science staff on site — on order 10 astronomers — so you may have more non-astronomers at your talk than you’re used to.
Colloquia
This is the most “formal” of our talks, but don’t let that trick you into diving head first into technical details. You will have a ~40-minute block of time for this talk, followed by 20 minutes for questions. We recommend spending the first third of your talk on introductory material — tell a story about the context about your work. This should be accessible to anyone with a basic technical background, since our colloquia are attended by scientists, engineers, administrative personnel, educators, etc. In the middle third, tell us about your work and results. This will likely be a bit more technical, but should still be accessible to anyone with a basic astronomy background. For a home run, in the last third of your talk, tell us why we care, how your observations are advancing astronomy in Green Bank and beyond, and any new ideas you have about using Green Bank and National Radio Astronomy Observatory telescopes or resources in the future.
Colloquia also routinely include an overnight stay, site tour, meetings with scientists, and a dinner with staff. A member of the colloquia organizing committee will work with you to set up your talk in the Jansky Auditorium. We typically have an even mix of in-person and remote attendees for colloquia.
Community Webinars
Community Webinars are bite-sized updates on recent Green Bank Observatory results. We typically solicit speakers for these talks from publications on the ArXiv. These talks are only 15 minutes in length, with ~5-10 minutes at the end for questions. Community Webinars have a reach of ~50 participants per week, mostly with astronomy backgrounds. We recommend spending the first five minutes of these talks on background before going into science results. Please try to stay on time for these talks, since our commitment to the community is that we will start at 1 pm ET and finish by 1:30 pm ET.
GB Community Webinars are recorded and posted online for the community to access after your presentation.
Science Lunches
Science lunches are the least formal and most flexible of our talks. These 15-minute talks are open for in-person and remote attendance by Green Bank staff members, but we do not typically make these available to the wider community. If you’re visiting to observe or work with staff members in Green Bank, chances are we’ll ask you to give a Science Lunch. (If we don’t, tell us you’re interested!)
Science lunches are given over… lunch! The lunch hour can be a sacred time to unplug, so make these talks engaging and fun! Our goal with science lunches is not to be beaten over the head with science, but rather to have a community to brainstorm, show tentative results, or talk about other not-strictly-astronomy topics (e.g. use of AI in astronomy, reporting on recent conferences, ethics in publishing, etc).
Science lunches begin at 12:15 pm in the Drake Lounge above the Green Bank cafeteria and are not recorded. Many following meetings start at 1pm, so we try to wrap up by 12:50 pm.