TIO’s vision is to integrate the areas of workforce development, education, public outreach and communication into a WEPOC plan and programs that are commensurate with the inspiring scientific goals of TMT. TIO’s partners, programmatic leadership, and the TIO WEPOC Board are developing and implementing a strategy to drive this vision forward.
Each TMT partner has a representative on the WEPOC Board charged with developing and implementing the TMT WEPOC plan.
In 2013, TMT formed a Workforce Education and Public Outreach (WEP) Advisory Group, consisting of education, workforce development, and outreach specialists from across the United States. This group was funded as part of an NSF grant to develop a proposal for potential US community involvement in the TMT observatory. The WEP group’s charter was to: develop a vision and approach that is responsive to the needs of the full international partnership that uniquely leverages TMT, and drives our own resource engine. Programmatically this will include workforce development, formal/informal education/ outreach & public communications (WEPOC).
Specifically, the WEP Advisory Group provided advice on the NSF proposal, with an embedded WEPOC strategy.
The final product of the WEP Advisory Group was part of a proposal to the NSF for TMT’s future education, outreach and workforce development. The Advisory Group met with and was superseded by the TIO WEPOC Board, which consists of members from each of the TIO partners:
The WEPOC Board meets remotely every two months, and in person biennially. The board has met in Japan, Hawaii, and California.
