Hello, JustSpace readers! Last month, the U.S. celebrated Juneteenth, a federal holiday commemorating the end of slavery in the U.S. in 1865. The week of June 19th also sees a more recently established annual tradition: Black Space Week, an international celebration organized by Black in Astro to recognize Black people working in space-related fields.

Not long after the end of this year’s Black Space Week, we chatted with Ashley Walker, a doctoral student in planetary science at Hampton University and the founder of Black in Astro. See below for the interview, which has been lightly interviewed for clarity and length.

Q&A with Ashley Walker

What is your current or most recent position?

I’m an incoming grad student at Hampton University in the Department of Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences. I was previously [a graduate student] at Howard [University].

Can you tell me about your career path?

I initially wanted to be a choreographer. I wanted to teach people how to dance, I wanted my own dance studio. I also got caught in that 2008 Great Recession, and that sucked really bad. So I had to really think, “How am I gonna pay the bills?”

I had to really go back to my childhood, when I would go to Adler Planetarium with my aunt. They had an exhibit where you could jump on a scale and see your weight [on different planets]. I weighed barely nothing, because I’m very tiny, but it was really cool to see and fascinating as a child.

In high school, I took chemistry. We had a class called Earth Space Science. I took biology. Looking back, I wanted to study chemistry, because I initially wanted to be a forensic chemist.

Then moving forward, I thought it would be cool to intern at NASA, but somehow I did not want to study [astronomy]. But as fate has it, here we are today.

I graduated from Chicago State with my bachelor’s in chemistry. I interned at Harvard and Johns Hopkings, and did a post-bac internship at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. I then got into grad school at Howard University in the graduate program of Atmospheric Sciences, which I just left this past December. Then I reapplied to grad school, and here we are now. I’m now going to continue my studies in planetary atmospheres [at Hampton University]. I’ve studied Titan, Venus, and now Uranus and Neptune.

Do you have any advice for students who want to follow a similar career path? It seems like a lot of students believe that there’s a set way you’re supposed to move through an academic career, but so many in space science have taken a windier path.

Since back in grad school, I’ve been working for TRIO, which is a [federal] program that helps low-income, underrepresented minorities. During that program, right now, I’m actually doing college readiness [training], so it’s so interesting that you asked me this question. Like I tell [the program participants]: no path is a straight line. Today, you may want to major in business. Tomorrow, you may want to study environmental science.

So I tell people to just take their time. Because you’re not gonna be the same person– especially young adults, teenagers– you’re not gonna be the same person you were at that time when you began to do these things.

But I do think that if this is something that you really want, it is possible and necessary to make connections, meet people, cold email people just to get a chance to be an astronomer.

Is there anything from your previous work as a choreographer that you feel helps you in your work in a unique way?

In dance, of course, everything is repetition. Practice makes perfect, just like in anything. And so for me, [when learning and practicing new concepts,] I literally have to do it in an eight count. Because if I don’t remember it like that, I don’t visualize it, then it may not stick to me. [That’s] something that I do tell my students: figure out what your learning style is. Because a lot of adults don’t have a set learning style, or they’re just now learning how to learn.

And then you have faculty, as we all know, who are just now learning how to properly teach. Because a lot of faculty– especially professors in college– they just learn how to be researchers, but they don’t know how to be actual teachers. My philosophy, especially in teaching college for undergrads, is that there should be two science education researchers in each department. That’s just my personal philosophy, because you can actually learn how the student thinks.

All in all, I do want people– especially young folks– to really find themselves. Because no one’s going to make you happier more than you are.

Can you tell me about Black in Astro and your role in founding it?

In 2020, there was the George Floyd protest. I remember prior to then, I was quietly talking to several students, Black and Brown students, particularly Black students, about their experiences [in academia]. I would ask them, “Hey, can I get your permission to yell about this on social media?” I’d hide people’s names, but then I’d yell about it, like, “This is what y’all be doing, it’s wrong, etc.” I saw a need for community for Black folk [in science]. Black Birders Week took off [around then]. So I went on ahead and made [a community] for Black astronomers and people within the space sector.

I wanted to make something that was solely for the diaspora. Not like some organizations who are for this ethnic group or that one. I wanted to go across the diaspora because there’s so many beautiful shades of Black and Blackness that I really wanted to bring us together. Black in Astro was a part of the greater “Black in X” movement. I went on to co-found Black in Chem, because obviously my degree is in chemistry, and Black in Physics.

Black in Astro has been celebrating Black Space Week since the beginning, and you just had Black Space Week 2026 last month (during the week of Juneteenth, as always). How did it go? What kind of activities do you have?

We kicked everything off with our usual open mic night. We had a panel by AJ Link about policy and space humanities, and another one for the educators and the science communicators. So we had some really good panels and we kicked everything off. We had undergraduate and graduate research showcases. We gave away some prizes.

We also had a fireside chat with Shania Jarrett. She’s a PhD student at the University of Maryland, where she has [a project called] Astrobeats, which helps young Black girls in inner cities who have never been exposed to astronomy before. They take [astronomical] data and they turn it into music, which is really, really cool. So we got a chance to chat with her, and it was so amazing.

We had our only in-person event (in Washington, DC) for Sally’s Night, celebrating Sally Ride and all the other queer pioneers [for Pride month], on top of it being Black Space Week, at the Air & Space Museum, which was really, really great.

It was very successful this year. I’m excited for next year.

How can people support Black in Astro and get involved with Black Space Week?

People can get involved by emailing us through our website. We see all of that. They can also get through to us through all of our [social media] websites: Bluesky, Instagram, TikTok. We have two social media people, so our team is very active in responding.

And we’re still advocating for not just us and the diaspora, but for all of us due to the funding cuts [to science] and stuff like that.

We like to ask people about their influences from storytelling. Are there any stories, science fiction or not, from books, TV, film that have influenced your interest in space?

This is so funny because people ask me this question, and I try to always not answer it, but I think I am gonna answer it this time: Growing up, I loved anime, and I loved Sailor Moon, who was my first real introduction to anime. It wasn’t just seeing the different planets that they represented, but it also showed a little diversity. And it just so happened to be my planets [that I study now]! I really enjoyed that. I’m also an artist, so my cousin would teach me how to draw [the characters].

That’s amazing. I love that answer, because you might assume all space scientists will say something like Star Trek, but the actual answers can be so varied. And I haven’t heard Sailor Moon as an answer before, but that makes so much sense for a planetary scientist.

What do you wish people knew more about space and the struggles or the successes that Black people have in space work in particular?

In my experience as a Black woman who understands who I am and what privileges I hold, what I do is I try to give more opportunities to those who may need it, or pass on messages, if I know someone that knows someone.

I do find it very, very disheartening the amount of women that have left the field, the amount of Black women in particular. I’ve watched my friends leave. I’ve watched myself almost get pushed out. I completely see some of these systemic issues. And I remember a time where people were really fighting a lot of us and pushing back on diversity, equity, inclusion. And those same people are now like, “Wait a minute, that was diversity? We actually need that.” So now we have all these funding cuts and things that are taken away from students who could potentially be in the field. Some of these things that are currently happening, it’s gonna take a long time to repair, and we may not recover from it.

And it’s not just the struggles of Black students trying to get into PhD programs. They might be at a certain level and they’re not getting promoted to where they need to be. They’re stuck between that mid-career and senior level, where they also don’t have any guidance, and they still need mentors. When I created Black and Astro, a lot of people thought, “Oh, it’s just gonna be for early career [scientists].” No, we help you out in the mid-career and the senior levels, too. That’s what we’re here for. We’re community.

I do think that it’s possible to dream and wish and hope that all of us could have secure jobs. But I also have to be realistic about where we are right now.

Is there something you want to say to Black students, early career, mid-career people about how they can support each other, and how they can find support, especially in times that are as rough as these?

Yes: stalk the internet, stalk people. But seriously, cold email people that you think are interesting. Reach out to people that you think are interesting and stick together. Most importantly, stick together. When I was going to Harvard, that was the first thing my mother told all of us: “Y’all stick together!” And we are still friends almost 10 years later. When you find your community, hold on to them. Now, you can hold folks accountable, and that’s something that we need to do in community. But we also have to make sure that we open the door and make a level playing field for a safe space. Because oftentimes, a lot of times, we don’t have safe spaces.

What would you say to non-Black people in the field, white people with a lot of privilege in particular, who want to be more supportive?

I was helping write a grant recently. And one of the things I had told one of my really good friends– I consider him a mentor, he’s at one of the R1 [universities], and he’s a man of color. But I said, you know, “You know, a lot of people at R1s or other Ivy Leagues and prestigious institutions, they don’t let Black schools lead on these grants. They’re like, ‘Oh, we’re collaborating to help them, to make them better.’ But they don’t allow them to lead.”

So, thinking about that, what I would tell folks is: let them lead. Because 9 times out of 10, they know what they’re doing. Let them lead. Don’t hog the spotlight. Allow them to shine as much as possible.

Because one thing that a lot of Black students know is that the Pet to Threat is very much real. Pet to Threat is a phenomenon with women of color, particularly Black women, whether they’re in the workforce, or grad school, higher education, what have you. They’re loved in the beginning. Everybody loves them. They love you in the beginning, and then they’re threatened by you later, and then they hate you. Essentially, it is something very real that people of color, particularly women, face. I truly believe in letting people of color, particularly Black women, exude in their confidence, because that’s who we are as a group. That’s who we are as a community.

And then I would also say to take the time to go outside of your own community and help. Go where you know that you may not typically go, but where you can provide support with your resources. Even donating is great too, especially in these times. If you can go and change a child’s life, more power to you. But just don’t hog the spotlight, right? Don’t overshadow them. Don’t co-opt their movements. And let them lead.

Anything else folks should keep an eye out for with Black in Astro?

We do have some amazing folks that are in the job market. And look out for some of our events that we’ll be continuing to have this year. We just got our grant renewed, so we’re extremely happy to continue to host networking dinners at different meetings [like the AAS]. We’re also excited because we’ll be giving away money for other folks to do their own initiatives.

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