Establishing a diverse community of expert Rubin Observatory users throughout the California State University System

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This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). A partnership is developed between a network of observational astronomers within the California State University (CSU) system and members of NOIRLab and the Vera Rubin Observatory to use the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) data. Faculty and undergraduate students at the CSU will form teams that will: work closely with Rubin Observatory staff to achieve data access; develop new scientific collaborations with NOIRLab scientists; engage in technical training and unique research-institute focused experiences; and become expert users of the Rubin Science Platform (RSP). In turn, a scientific study of the partnership will set best-practices that will serve the NOIRLab in its work toward research inclusion. Program highlights and partner profiles will be produced and communicated throughout the 23-campus CSU STEM community, laying the groundwork for building a CSU network of astronomers that extends beyond the project period. Three of the four CSU partner institutions are Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs). Conscientious and deliberate recruitment and mentoring will increase opportunities for the retention and success of students from groups underrepresented in astronomy. CSU astronomy faculty and undergraduate students will work together to learn the Rubin Science Platform, collaborate on preview-data science, and prepare for the immediate use of the Rubin Data Release 1. The partners will develop expertise and fluency in the RSP by investigating astrophysics topics particularly synergistic with the LSST experimental setup and the expertise at each CSU hub. At an early summer ‘data summit’ Rubin specialists will deliver tailored support and the CSU teams will build community. Each team will develop their own project and produce their own scientific results, but will work as a community to develop and share data analysis pipelines, as an accountability group, and in revising data analysis notebooks. The scientific areas addressed at the four CSU hubs are: Galaxy/Filament alignments in large scale structures, X-ray binary monitoring and discovery, gamma ray burst afterglow characterization and detection, and discovery of long-period variable stars in nearby dwarf galaxies. The impact on the student experience will be tracked by an external program evaluator.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.