The Rubin Team Meets in Tucson, AZ

After two years of all-virtual meetings, the Rubin Project and Community Workshop (PCW) returned as a physical event in 2022! More than 300 people attended the meeting at the Ritz Carlton Dove Mountain resort in Tucson, Arizona, and an additional 241 people registered to participate online. The meeting ran five days, from August 8th through August 12th.

This workshop, held every year, is a chance for the scientists who will be using Rubin data to make discoveries to meet face-to-face with the people who are building the telescope. This ensures that the telescope and its systems are being built with a good understanding of how astronomers actually intend to use them, and that the scientists will be as ready as possible to work with Rubin data when it starts flowing.

Things were noticeably different at this year’s meeting, compared to past years' workshops. The face masks were the most obvious change, but there were other differences: many people were more cautious about being in crowded spaces, and social interactions just seemed to take a little more conscious effort than they used to. Providing a valuable experience for a much larger group of virtual participants than in the past was also a challenge this year—the daily plenaries saw nearly 100 virtual participants—and session chairs made an effort to provide virtual access to sessions, even in rooms that weren’t set up to support it. Overall, the Rubin community spirit of collaboration and camaraderie was especially evident throughout the week, and the meeting was a great success.