In days of yore, we simply adjusted a user's default group to match, essentially, their research group status. The concept of research groups is still extremely valuable, so, AD groups like clas_spacephysics_halekas or clas_spacephysics_rpwg are the best way to segregate access to many different file resources. However, the university Active Directory fixes the default group for each account to be determined by the department of their employment. For example, everyone employed by the Department of Physics and Astronomy has a default group clas-physics-and-astronomy-d1280 which will appear as the group ownership of new files created unless they are created in a directory owned by the research group and with the group "sticky bit" set on the directory. So, unless the directory where the file is being created has "chmod g+s" applied, then the group ownership will be the unfortunate department-wide value.
