# NANOGrav Education and Outreach: Growing a Diverse and Inclusive Collaboration for Low-Frequency Gravitational Wave Astronomy

## TL;DR

This paper discusses NANOGrav's efforts to promote diversity and inclusion in low-frequency gravitational wave research by involving students and establishing broad participation policies, serving as a model for similar collaborations.

## Contribution

It presents strategies and policies implemented by NANOGrav to foster diversity, inclusion, and student involvement in gravitational wave astrophysics.

## Key findings

- Enhanced student engagement across all levels.
- Successful implementation of inclusive collaboration policies.
- Positive impact on collaboration diversity and growth.

## Abstract

The new field of gravitational wave astrophysics requires a growing pool of students and researchers with unique, interdisciplinary skill sets. It also offers an opportunity to build a diverse, inclusive astronomy community from the ground up. We describe the efforts used by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav) NSF Physics Frontiers Center to foster such growth by involving students at all levels in low-frequency gravitational wave astrophysics with pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) and establishing collaboration policies that ensure broad participation by diverse groups. We describe and illustrate the impact of these techniques on our collaboration as a case study for other distributed collaborations.