If you are thinking to yourself, “wow, this is great!  I would like to be an Ally!  How do I do it?”

First, you need to ask yourself, honestly, if you’ve had encounters with people that left them feeling uncomfortable.  We take “clean driving records” seriously, because the Allies badge is a badge of trust.  If you’ve had formal or informal complaints lodged against you, while you might not be able to be an official Ally, you can definitely still support Allies.

But let’s say you’re squeaky clean.  If you know someone on the Allies page, reach out to them.  Allies can nominate new members, which will then be passed on to the Nominating committee, who will get the nominee’s reference from the existing Ally, and put them through a vetting process which involves all current Allies.

If you don’t know anyone on that list, right now, we can’t accept you (we’re sorry!).  But currently the effort in vetting and interviewing people without Allies vetting capabilities is beyond the time effort we are able to put in. This very likely will change in the future, but right now we can’t offer this.

Get in touch by contacting our email address if you have suggestions for how to make this work better!

Also, you do not have to be a regular attendee of the large astronomy meetings to become an Astronomy Ally. There is a lot of work that we are able to do remotely, and so we welcome you to ask a current Ally for a nomination.

We are discussing a second option: being able to proudly express your support for Allies and a safe and inclusive astronomy environment.  You won’t be a first response Ally, but we want to make sure everyone who agrees with our goal of a safe and inclusive astronomy can join hands with us in support.  More details of this tier will be coming eventually.