Since 2015, the Sloan Foundation has funded cohorts of new SDSS collaborators through the Faculty And Student Team (FAST) initiative. FAST-2 began in 2018 and FAST-3 in 2021.
The FAST program targets faculty and their students at US institutions that would not normally have the financial resources to join the collaboration independently. Each year, a cohort of FAST scholar teams are matched with established SDSS partner/collaborator to tackle a research project together. This can be a new project or one that’s already defined.
The FAST program provides teams with an SDSS mentor, access to proprietary data, and financial support to help them begin working with SDSS data. Ultimately the goal is that FAST teams will build long-term research relationships with SDSS collaborators and be a lasting and productive part of the collaboration and the scientific community.
Since 2024, FAST has started its next iteration, FAST 4ward, with support from the National Science Foundation (AST-2425222). In our latest iteration, we continue to offer the same benefits of FAST, along with a newly implemented peer mentoring program for undergraduate students participating in FAST teams as well as increased funding for each team.
Currently, there are three active FAST 4ward teams: Dr. Paola Rodriguez Hidalgo at the University of Washington Bothell, Dr. Rachel L. McClure at Weber State University, and Dr. Trey Wenger at CSU-Chico.
If you have any questions, please contact the SDSS FAST Program lead, Dhanesh Krishnarao, at fast@sdss.org.
