Chambliss Student Poster Awards for AAS 230

The latest Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Awards poster competition, which occurred in June during the 230th AAS meeting in Austin, Texas, was small but mighty! There were 5 undergraduate students and 17 graduate students entered in the competition — all of whom are junior members of the Society (a requirement to be in the competition). Approximately 30 member volunteers were on hand for the judging. As usual, student posters were evaluated during the morning coffee breaks and afternoon poster sessions of the first three science days of the meeting; for Austin, this was Monday through Wednesday, 5-7 June.

For many students in the competition, this was their first time presenting at, as well as attending an AAS meeting, but you wouldn't know that from the many comments I hear from judges! Judges expressed, as usual, that being a Chambliss judge and talking with students about their work was a very rewarding, fun, and gratifying experience, which not only allowed them to interact with students but also allowed them to focus on some science for which they might not otherwise have had the time.

So, if you haven't signed up to judge student posters in the past or in a while, I encourage you to do so in the future — the more judges we have, the fewer posters each judge is responsible for judging! Your next opportunity will be at the 231st AAS meeting in Washington, DC, in January 2018.

Here are the results from Austin:

• Keaton Bell (University of Texas at Austin)
• Samantha Brunker (Indiana University)
• Jacqueline Monkiewicz (Arizona State University)

• Jonathan Ward (University of Pennsylvania)

• Amy Glazier (Austin College)

• Logan Pearce (University of Texas at Austin)

Congratulations, all! On behalf of our Society and all of the students who entered the AAS 230 Chambliss competition, I would like to thank our volunteer judges, with a special thanks to those who volunteered onsite to replace judges who had last-minute schedule changes. I would also like to thank the AAS Executive Office staff who help to make this very important competition such a big success.