Membership Application - Stars, Milky Way & Local Volume

Membership Application - For New and Existing Members

Membership Eligibility Criteria:

As per LSST guidelines, membership in SMWLV is restricted to individuals who have data rights to LSST data. This includes:

  • All those employed or studying at institutions in countries with LSST data rights (e.g., Chile, US)
  • Any of those specifically listed individuals who have signed Memoranda of Agreement (MOA)   with the LSST Corporation, and their Designees
  • Scientists employed by the LSST Project
  • Members of institutions that have explicit data rights agreements with LSST, such as IN2P3.

Membership Classes:

SMWLV members are expected to belong to at least one Working Group, and are actively engaged in and contributing to SMWLV priorities. There are two classes of membership: Full Members and Associate Members. 

Full members must have a PhD. They commit ~5% of their time for LSST-related work, which translates to ~7 hours per month.  This time can be double counted; many of us engage in funded work that is also pre-cursor LSST work.  This work might include:  tackling collaboration priorities, pre-cursor research (and/or the coordination/advising thereof), or telecons/emails/in person meetings.  LSST-related research is very broadly defined as research that, when published and presented in talks, will include some reference to LSST.  Full members have voting rights in the collaboration, and access to Level 3 products and added-value/curated datasets that may be generated.

Associate members are graduate students working under the supervision of a fullmember, or more senior personnel who do not expect to commit 5% of their time.  Associate members will have access to all email lists as well as telecons, but will not have voting rights or access to Level 3 products or curated datasets.  They should also prepare a shortened application, only a few paragraphs in length.

 

Membership Guidelines:

All members submit a 1-2 page Membership Plan summarizing their 2 year planned contributions, including planned milestones and/or deliverables.  “Milestones” and “deliverables” may include things such as: conducting a particular LSST-related research project, presenting LSST-related work in colloquia or conferences, submission of grant or observing proposals to support LSST-related investigations, generating a simulated dataset, generating shareable code for a technical issue.  Each year a brief report on collaboration activities with estimated effort will be submitted (one paragraph long), and every two yearsmembership will be reviewed by Collaboration chairs, in consultation with Working Group leads.

New Members:

In addition to the 1-2 page Membership Plan above, new applicants submit a CV with publications list, and identify at least one science Working Group to affiliate with.  New applications may be submitted at any time, and will be reviewed quarterly by Collaboration chairs.  We encourage new applicants to be in touch with Collaboration chairs to help with the application process.

An Important Note for New Applicants:
 
Please read over these guidelines carefully, to check your eligibility and to determine which type of membership you're interested in.  Then look over the Working Groups to determine which Working Group you would like to set for your primary affiliation.  Before writing your 1-2 page application, please email the leads of that Working Group (or email the co-chairs of the whole collaboration) to let them know of your interest, and to learn what sort of contributions might be particularly helpful.

Loss of Membership Eligibility:

SMWLV members who lose LSST data rights because they move to countries or institutions that do not meet the above criteria may lose membership in our collaboration. In such cases the Collaboration chairs should be notified in order to make arrangements to continue to maintain membership in the collaboration.

Inactive Members:

Members who do not maintain the requirements of at least one of the two membership classes will automatically be classified as inactive members. They will be eligible for reinstatement via a new application, up to a maximum of 3 times. In the hopefully rare cases where membership is revoked more than 3 times, membership may be revoked permanently.

Special Note:
Please fill out the web form below and upload your application (and CV in one PDF if you are a new member) to our Dropbox file request.

 
Please enter your preferred email address here.