  The ASTROMOVES project studies the career moves and the career
decision-making of astrophysicists. The astrophysicists participating have to
have made at least two career moves after receiving their doctorates, which is
usually between 4 and 8 years post PhD. ASTROMOVES is funded via the European
Union and thus each participant must have worked or lived in Europe. Gender,
ethnicity, nationality, marital status, and if they have children are some of
the many factors for analysis. Other studies of the careers of astronomers and
astrophysicists have taken survey approaches (Fohlmeister & Helling, 2012,
2014; Ivie et al., 2013; Ivie & White, 2015) laying a foundation upon which
ASTROMOVES builds. For ASTROMOVES qualitative interviews are combined with
publicly available information for the project, rather than surveys. Valuable
information about career options and the decisions about where not to apply
will be gathered for the first time. Those few studies that have used
qualitative interviews often include both physicists and astrophysicists,
nonetheless they have revealed issues that are important to ASTROMOVES such as
the role of activism and the nuances of having children related to the long
work hours culture (Ong, 2001; Rolin & Vainio, 2011). The global COVID-19
pandemic has slowed down the project; however, at the time of this writing 20
interviews have been completed. These interviews support previous research
findings on how having a family plays an important role in career decision
making, as well as the importance of mobility in building a career in
astrophysics. Cultural Astronomy spans all aspects of the relationship between
humans and the sky as well as all times ancient to the present; and thus,
studying astronomers & astrophysicists who have a professional relationship to
the sky is part of cultural astronomy, too.
