Generally, at the end of each Spring the grad students gather to volunteer or elect people for the various responsibilities of the upcoming academic year, which are listed below.
Graduate student jobs are updated for the current year: 2019-2020
Grad Student Representative
One grad student is selected for this position, which involves attending faculty meetings, reporting the proceedings to students, and generally being a liaison between the faculty and grad students. The representative also leads a twice-yearly meeting between the Department head and the graduate students on grad student issues. Other internal graduate student meetings are held throughout the year as grad student issues arise, and are led by the grad student representative.
Current grad rep: Cassandra Lejoly
Graduate Student Colloquiums
One or two students are selected to organize the Graduate Student Colloquiums that year, which includes scheduling speakers, introducing the speakers before their presentation, moderating questions from the audience after the session, and ensuring that enough feedback forms are available for the audience.
Current GSC chairs: Sarah Sutton and Ben Lew
Curriculum Committee
The undergraduate and graduate classes are periodically reviewed and revised by this departmental committee. One or two grad students are selected each year to serve.
Current curriculum committee rep: Laci Brock and Saverio Cambioni
Prospective Student Coordinators
Two or three students are selected to help the academic office organize and facilitate the prospective student visit at LPL and to lead lunches for visiting and prospective students who arrive at LPL during other times of the year. A primary focus of this position is providing opportunities for discussion of graduate student life at the lab.
Current prospective weekend coordinators: no one :(
Library and Computer Committees
Lab members serve on the library committee to help decide what books and journals should be added to the LPL library or if any should be discarded or discontinued. The computer committee ensures students have the computing resources they need, including the assigned LPL desktop to each student when they first start at the lab. A grad student is selected to be involved with the 2 or so meetings per year for these committees. The library and computer committee reps can be separate grad jobs or combined are held by one person.
Current library committee rep: Sarah Sutton
Current computer committee rep: Nathan Hendler
Grad Student Office Coordinator
This person is responsible for keeping track on which grad students are in which offices, which grad students are wanting to change offices and working with the admins to find space for incoming grad students. This job can be the responsibility of the grad rep, or be assigned to a separate person.
Current grad student office coordinator: Lindsay Slick
Graduate Webmaster
This student is responsible for maintaining the LPL graduate web pages, including the graduate handbook. They help grads learn how to update the guidebook and control access and editing priviledges. Additionally, another student also controls membership of the various grad student e-mail lists.
Current grad webmaster(s): Amanda Stadermann
Current student@lpl manager: Amanda Stadermann
Lunar and Planetary Laboratory Conference
These students organize and run the annual Lunar and Planetary Laboratory Conference held in August.
Current LPLC Organizing Commitee: Teddy Kareta, Injudaa Ganesh, and Ben Sharkey
Associated Graduate Council for the College of Sciences (AGCCS) representatives
1-2 students serve as representatives for our department to the College of Science's graduate council. This involves a once/month meeting with pizza and volunteering either at the TA training in the fall or the awards ceremony in the spring.
Current AGCCS Reps: Laura Seifert and Rachel Fernandes
Journal Club Co-Chair
One grad student co-chairs Journal Club with a faculty member to plan out the schedule for weekly Friday afternoon Journal Clubs.
Current Journal Club co-chair:
Colloquium Speaker Lunch Coordinator
This grad student coordinates weekly lunches between the Tuesday colloquium speakers and up to 5 graduate students. Additional information on how many students can attend and how much can be spent on department meals can be found on the Food page.
Current colloquium lunch coordinator: Sondy Springmann
LPL Alumni Liason
This person knows how to contact alumni. This person can also help if you need to shake-down alumni for donations to help pay for such things as bratfest or the Arizona party at LPSC. This person may also help maintain communication channels between current LPL grad students, such as managing grad student Slack channels.
Current alumni liason: Sondy Springmann
Career Seminar Organizers
These grad students organize career seminars throughout the year, which can range from discussion of academic career paths and talks by spacecraft operations people to telecons with people who have pursued non-academic careers. Some of these seminars have also focused on building career skills such as creating good data visualizations and presentations.
Current Career Seminar organizers: Daniel Lo and Ben Lew
Departmental Life Commitee (DLC) representatives
Two grad students serve on the DLC, whose goal is to find ways to make the department more equitable and inclusive, and maintain a good working environment around the lab.
Current DLC reps: Molly Simon and Hamish Hay
Outreach Lead
This is a 0.25FTE paid position by the department to coordinate all the outreach efforts of the grad students.
Current outreach lead: Shane Stone
Champagne Fund Manager
This person maintains a supply of champagne, cider and cups to bring to celebrations of defenses and orals.
Current champagne fund manager: Molly Simon
LaTex Template Manager
This person maintains the LaTex template for theses.
Current LaTex template manager: Jess Vriesema
Graduate Mentors for Incoming Students
These students check in with their 1st year mentee and answer questions in the new student's time leading up to arrival, and when getting started, at LPL.
Current grad mentors for incoming students: Josh Lotheringer, Nathan Hendler, Daniel Lo, Sondy Springmann, Sarah Peacock, Sarah Sutton, Tracy Esman, Molly Simon, Margaret Landis, Ben Lew
Plumbing Advocate
Fairly self explanatory... this person has helped get new sinks in some of the older men's bathrooms and new toilet seat in the women's bathrooms by grad hallway. Thanks, Nathan!
Current plumbing advocate: Nathan Hendler
LPL Women's Group
This person organizes a once/semester lunch for the LPL Women group and maintains the email list. This goal of this group and email list is to provide a forum for discussion, support, and networking for women currently or previously associated with LPL (for very broad definitions of associated). People of all gender identities are welcome to join.
Current LPL Women coordinator: Maria Steinrueck
Art Show Organizers
These people help run the grad-student founded and led Art of Planetary Science show.
Current art show organizers: Tracy Esman
Bratfest
These students take the leads to organize the annual Oktober-fest style party known as Bratfest!
Bratfest Tips and Tricks for these jobs can be found on the Bratfest Advice page.
Current head coordinator(s): Molly Simon and ~your name here apprentice~
Cheesecakes: Amanda Stadermann and Cassandra Lejoly
Beer orderer: Nathan Hendler
Cider Brewers: Hamish Hay and Josh Lothringer
Grill Masters: Tad Komacek, Saverio Cambioni and Kyle Pearson
Picker-Up of Shit: Sondy Springmann
Website and Order Form: Amanda Stadermann
Advertisements/shake down people for $$: Kyle Pearson and Sondy Springmann
Karaoke: Cassandra Lejoly
Tshirt Design: Laci Brock
Vegan/Vegetarian Master: Maria Steinrueck