Cornell researcher Julie Rathbun is leading a new survey of the planetary science workforce that will examine who works in the field, their education and their employment experience.
Rathbun, a senior research associate at the Cornell Center for Astrophysics and Planetary Science, and her colleagues launched the 2026 survey Tuesday at the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Science meeting in Spokane, Washington, according to Cornell’s College of Arts and Sciences.
The division conducts a workforce survey roughly every five years. Rathbun led the creation and analysis of both the 2020 survey and the new effort.
Survey will inform the next decade of planning
The 2020 findings informed workforce recommendations in the 2023 Planetary Science and Astrobiology Decadal Survey. Rathbun said the new survey will serve a similar role for the 2030 decadal survey, which helps shape priorities for planetary science and missions.
She said understanding the people doing the research, including their training and backgrounds, is necessary to put the science itself in context. Planetary science draws on multiple disciplines, making the range of perspectives within its workforce relevant to the work.
The previous survey found a broader range of subdisciplines represented in the division’s membership than in 2011. Rathbun expects that trend to continue.
Earlier findings identified barriers on mission teams
According to Rathbun, the 2020 survey showed that nonwhite scientists, scientists with disabilities, LGBTQ scientists and women were underrepresented among principal investigators and co-investigators on planetary science spacecraft missions.
She said participation in those missions has a significant effect on career success. In her presentation Tuesday, Rathbun emphasized the work still needed to encourage Black, Indigenous and other people of color to remain in planetary science.
Rathbun said the field has become more diverse in its subjects and demographics but still trails the overall U.S. workforce, the science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce, and the physical sciences workforce.
The earlier survey also found that universities were the largest employers of planetary scientists. NASA centers employed a small share, even though NASA remained the principal source of funding for planetary research and missions, Rathbun said.
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