Ombudsperson and student postdoc advocate

This is Geoffrey Lovelace and Gabe Bonilla. We wanted to briefly introduce ourselves as SXS Ombudsperson (Geoffrey) and SXS Student/Postdoc Advocate (Gabe). It’s very important to us that SXS is a positive, welcoming, supportive environment for everyone.

For that reason, we wanted to introduce ourselves in the roles of Ombudsperson and Student/Postdoc Advocate:

Ombudsperson: Hi! For those of you that don’t know me, I’m Geoffrey Lovelace (he/him/his). As a member of SXS, I want you invite you to please feel free to contact me in my role as Ombudsperson (email ombudsperson@black-holes.org) if you have any concerns during your time in SXS, including conflicts, problems, violations of our code of conduct, or anything else you might be concerned about or just want to talk about. As Ombudsperson, I offer confidential, neutral, and informal conflict resolution services to anyone in SXS. Unless there’s a serious issue of safety, our conversations will remain confidential unless you would prefer otherwise (e.g., that I bring your concerns to the SXS Executive Committee).

Student/Postdoc Advocate: Hi I’m Gabe (he/they)! I'm a postdoc at Cal State Fullerton. My goal is to advocate positively for the people in the collaboration with less power, specifically high school students, undergraduate students, summer REU students, grad students, and postdocs. I know how daunting it may sometimes be to go to professors, so please feel free to talk to me (sxs-advocate@black-holes.org) about any issues and concerns you may have in the collaboration, especially concerns about culture and environment. I can bring up (anonymously) any of your concerns with the SXS exec committee if you wish. Otherwise, unless there’s a serious issue of safety, I’ll keep the Ombudsperson in the loop but otherwise keep your conversation confidential.

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to either of us! It’s really important to us that the SXS Collaboration is a welcoming, supportive, and respectful place for all of us to work. We hope that if there’s ever anything we can do better to reach that goal, or if you have any concerns or conflicts during your time in SXS, that you’ll let one of us know.

If you would prefer to speak to someone outside outside of the collaboration and get advice (such as one of the LVC allies), you can also reach out to the Student/Postdoc Advocate or Ombudsperson and they will put you in touch.