Wavelengths Now Accepting Sign Ups for 2026-2027 Pods through Monday, September 14th, 2026!

The EPRV RCN is kicking off a second year of Wavelengths: an EPRV Networking & Mentoring Pods Program, and sign-ups are now open for both Pod Organizers and Pod Members!! Sign ups are due by Monday, September 14th, 2026.

See below for more information about the program. For those who participated in the 2025/2026 Wavelengths cohort, we encourage you to sign up again! You'll be intentionally placed in a pod with different members from last year and many of the discussion topics will be new for this iteration of the program.

Overview

Wavelengths is a community-building initiative designed to foster informal, cross-disciplinary connections within the extreme precision radial velocity (EPRV) community. By facilitating small-group conversations across career stages, areas of expertise, and instrument teams, we aim to lower the barrier to meaningful professional relationships and shared scientific insight.

Goals

• Promote low-effort, low-pressure, professional networking across the EPRV community.
• Foster connections between early-career and more senior researchers.
• Bridge gaps between subfields, such as instrumentation, data analysis, and theory.
• Encourage cross-collaboration and awareness across international spectrograph teams.

Program Structure

• Participants will be placed into small “pods” of 5-6 people, balanced across career stages, interests, and institutions.
• Each pod will have one designated Pod Organizer (typically a mid-career or senior researcher) to facilitate meetings and help guide discussion.
• Pods will meet every other month, either virtually or in person.
• Each meeting will come with a suggested theme and optional discussion questions, provided by the RCN Steering Committee. Pods are encouraged but not required to follow these themes. Example themes includes: navigating job markets in different countries, sharing favorite tools or techniques, exciting new papers and what they mean for the field, etc

Time Commitment

The second round of Wavelengths will run during the 2026-2027 academic year and include six meetings for each pod plus two-three optional cross-pod events.

Pod Member Expectations

• Attend bimonthly meetings with your pod and contribute to the themed discussions
• Share your own experiences and help to create a welcoming and inclusive space for other pod members to do the same
• Build your network and develop new and deeper connections with the broader EPRV community

Pod Organizer Expectations

• Schedule a meeting every other month with your pod and encourage participation (pod organizers are not expected to prepare presentations or carry the conversation).
• Use themes and questions provided by the Wavelengths leads to guide the conversation at each meeting (or let the discussion go wherever it flows!)
• Foster a welcoming and inclusive space
• Help connect pod members to the broader community when relevant. Organizers are encouraged to post in the #pod-organizers Slack channel to crowdsource advice.

The Organizer role is intended to be low effort and low pressure. We're aiming to create a space for organic, supportive conversations—not formal mentoring relationships or structured workshops.

Who Can Join / How To Sign Up

All members of the EPRV RCN are welcome, including observers, theorists, instrumentalists, and data scientists. We especially welcome participation from early-career researchers (graduate students, postdocs) and international colleagues.

Sign ups are now open for the second Wavelengths cohort which will run during the 2026-2027 academic year. Please use the Pod Organizers and Pod Members forms to sign up!!