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0.5 per year

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0.5 year$^{-1}$. That's how many black americans earn Ph.D.s in astronomy each year. I was two years worth of data back in 2007. One of my primary goals as a professor is to increase that number to > 1 year$^{-1}$. An order-of-magnitude increase would do nicely.
Former Caltech summer undergraduate researcher, Keith Hawkins (center). 
During the summer of 2011 I had the pleasure of working with an outstanding young, black astronomer named Keith Hawkins. Here's an article about him that was featured on the Caltech website describing how he became interested in science and what he was working on with me and my student Tim Morton.

Keith is one of the best students I have worked with as part of Caltech's SURF/MURF program, and I'm proud to announce that Keith was awarded a prestigious Marshall Scholarship to pursue his Masters degree in astrophysics (M.Phil) at Cambridge University in England. Keith was one of three African American students, and one of 40 total students to win a Marshall scholarship this year.

Nice work, Keith!
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