AstroGen

The Astronomy Genealogy Project, (AstroGen), will list as many as possible of the world's astronomers with their academic parents (aka thesis advisors) and enable the reader to trace both academic ancestors and descendants. It will be similar to the highly successful Mathematics Genealogy Project. The MGP, which has been in operation since 1996, now contains the names of nearly 200,000 “mathematicians.” These include many physicists and astronomers, as well as practitioners of related sciences. Mitchel Keller, the director of the MGP, has generously shared the software used in that project, and the American Astronomical Society (AAS) will host AstroGen, a project of the AAS Historical Astronomy Division, on its website.

Although the results are not yet visible, a small group of us, the “AstroGen Team,” has been working on developing the Project. We have entered more than 15,000 astronomy-related dissertations into a temporary database, taking advantage of the fact that many universities and some countries have posted such information—even the full dissertations—online. We are working on our list of universities that have granted doctorates, and we are dealing with questions regarding what information to list when AstroGen takes its place on this website in a format somewhat similar to that of the MGP.

We are looking for help. If you would like to become a member of the team, contributing as much or little time as you wish, please contact me at astrogendirector@aas.org.

Joseph S. Tenn
Director, AstroGen Project

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Publications and Talks