Congratulations to the AAS 233 Chambliss Student Award Winners

The latest Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Awards poster competition, which occurred in January 2019 during the 233rd AAS meeting in Seattle, Washington, was the largest yet! With the government shutdown, winter weather, and cold and flu season presenting their own challenges, our students and judges rose to the occasion!

In all, there were 360 students in the competition — 214 undergrads and 146 grads — along with 343 member volunteer judges, encompassing nearly 1400 judging events!! That’s a lot of people!

As usual, student poster presentations were evaluated during both the morning poster session and evening poster session times of the first three science days of the meeting; in Seattle, this was Monday through Wednesday.

For many students in the competition, this was their first time presenting at one of our Society meetings, as well as their first time attending one, but you wouldn't know that from the many comments I heard from judges! As usual, Chambliss judges tell me that being a 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 they might not have otherwise had the time to.

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! Did I mention we had 343 judges in Seattle?!? The more judges we have, the fewer posters each judge is responsible for judging! Your next opportunity will be at the 234th AAS meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, June 2019.

Here are the results from Seattle:

Graduate Student Medal Winners

• Prasiddha Arunachalam (Rutgers - The State Univ. of New Jersey)
• Adam Broussard (Rutgers Univ.)
• Jonathan Cookmeyer (Univ. of California, Berkeley)
• William Cramer (Yale Univ.)
• H. Thankful Cromartie (Univ. of Virginia)
• Julie Davis (Univ. of Wisconsin Madison)
• Mithi Alexa de los Reyes (Caltech)
• Adina Feinstein (Univ. of Chicago)
• Molly Finn (Univ. of Virginia)
• Tharindu Jayasinghe (The Ohio State Univ.)
• Intae Jung (The Univ. of Texas at Austin)
• Islam Khan (Washington State Univ.)
• Jessica Klusmeyer (Wesleyan Univ.)
• Rebecca Larson (Univ. of Texas at Austin)
• Meiji Nguyen (UC Berkeley)
• Locke Patton (Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics)
• Juan Remolina (Univ. of Michigan)
• Kathryn Weil (Dartmouth College)
• Luisa Zambrano Marin (Arecibo Observatory)

Graduate Student Honorable Mentions

• Evan Anders (Univ. of Colorado Boulder)
• Tara Fetherolf (Univ. of California Riverside)
• Andrew Fullard (Univ. of Denver)
• Mengya Hu (Princeton Univ.)
• Jacob Shapiro (Cornell Univ.)
• Gabriel Soto (Cornell Univ.)
• Isaiah Tristan (Rice Univ.)
• Alia Wofford (NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

Undergraduate Student Medal Winners

• Caroline Bamberger (Cornell Univ.)
• Tyler Cox (Arizona State Univ.)
• Alexandra Dobbs (Fort Lewis College)
• William Fuelberth (Univ. of Iowa)
• Sebastian Gameros (Univ. of Massachusetts Amherst)
• Tenley Hutchinson-Smith (Spelman College)
• Wynn Jacobson-Galán (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz)
• Mackenzie Joy (Univ. of Georgia)
• Carlos Llorente (Cornell Univ.)
• Brian Lorenz (Pomona College)
• Catherine Manea (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz)
• Joseph Manuel (Villanova Univ.)
• Luis Martinez Patino (Harvey Mudd College)
• Megan Masterson (Case Western Reserve Univ.)
• Morgan McCarthy (Univ. of Rochester)
• Riley McGlasson (Macalester College)
• Caeley Pittman (William Jewell College)
• Jaimee-Ian Rodriguez (Hunter College)
• Danielle Rowland (Columbia Univ.)
• Christopher Rura (Villanova Univ.)
• Zafar Rustamkulov (Univ. of California, Santa Cruz)
• Mark Siebert (Cornell University)
• Rochelle Steele (Brigham Young Univ.)
• Vidya Venkatesan (California State Univ., Northridge)
• Emily Walla (Univ. of Arizona)
• Priscilla Holguin West (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo)

Undergraduate Student Honorable Mentions

• Justin Bracks (California State Univ. Northridge)
• Clare Burhenne (Cornell Univ.)
• Olivia Cooper (Smith College)
• John Della Costa (Univ. of Florida)
• Katherine Elder (California State Univ. Fresno)
• Sinead Humphrey (DePaul Univ.)
• Hannah McCall (Washington Univ. in St. Louis)
• Nicel Mohamed-Hinds (Stanford Univ.)
• Supavit Pokawanvit (Univ. of California, Santa Barbara)
• Eric Rohr (Univ. of Virginia)
• Sheila Sagear (Boston Univ.)
• Aimee Schechter (The Univ. of Texas at Austin)
• Laney Wicker (The Univ. of Texas at Austin)

Congratulations, all!

On behalf of our Society and all of the students who entered the AAS 233 Chambliss competition, I would like to thank our member volunteer judges, including those who volunteered onsite to replace judges who had scheduling complications due to the shutdown, weather, illness, etc. I would also like to thank the AAS Executive Office staff for their continuous support. It is all of you who help to make this very important competition such a big success!!

Here are our AAS 233 Chambliss judges* — thank them when you see them next time:

James Aguirre, Rachel Akeson, Rachael Alexandroff, Richard Anantua, Morten Andersen, Loren Anderson, Jonathan Arenberg, William Armentrout, Nicole Arulanantham, Paul Baker, Maria Barrios Sazo, Jennifer Bartlett, Shiblee Barua, Amanda Bayless, Adam Beardsley, George Benedict, Robert Benjamin, William Best, Kornpob Bhirombhakdi, John Biersteker, Breanna Binder, Michael Blanton, Lindsey Bleem, Sarah Blunt, Steven Boada, Tereasa Brainerd, Katelyn Breivik, Marta Bryan, Juan Cabanela, Douglas Caldwell, Yssavo Camacho-Neves, Jeffrey Carlin, Jennifer Carter, Daniel Caton, André-Nicolas Chené, Carina Cheng, Yun-Ting Cheng, Laurie Chu, Francesca Civano, Geoffrey Clayton, Angela Collier, Thomas Connor, Kyle Conroy, Timothy Cook, Kevin Cooke, Matthew Cornachione, Simon Coude, Eric Coughlin, Kevin Covey, Alison Crocker, Emily Cunningham, Daniel Orazio, Mi Dai, Kyra Dame, James Davenport, Kristina Davis, Allen Davis, John Debes, Héctor Delgado Díaz, Ethan Deneault, Nat DeNigris, Abhishek Desai, Tyler Desjardins, Janosz Dewberry, Larry Dewell, Joshua Dillon, Dillon Dong, Stephanie Douglas, Ewan Douglas, Courtney Dressing, Xinnan Du, Patrick Durrell, Kathleen Eckert, Hilary Egan, Michael Eracleous, Jerome Fang, Elizabeth Ferrara, Scott Fleming, Brian Fleming, David Fleming, Erin Flowers, John Forbes, Decker French, Rachel Friesen, Andrew Fruchter, Amy Furniss, Brandt Gaches, Sofia Gallego Gallego, Kristen Garofali, Wilfred Gee, Richard Gelderman, Benjamin Gerard, Jeffrey Gerber, Sankalp Gilda, Crystal Gnilka, Emmet Golden-Marx, David Goldfinger, Golnoosh Golpayegani, Tyler Gordon, Natalie Gosnell, Melissa Graham, Nicole Granucci, Johnny Greco, Paul Green, Joel Green, Nicole Gugliucci, Maximilian Günther, Gregory Hallenbeck, Matthew Hankins, Kevin Hardegree-Ullman, Zachary Hartman, Sten Hasselquist, Jeffrey Hazboun, Shafiq Hazboun, Sebastian Heinz, Erin Hicks, James Hill, Eric Hintz, Stephanie Ho, Jennifer Hoffman, Ian Hoffman, Ward Howard, Kevin Huffenberger, Anna Hughes, Yashashree Jadhav, Kenneth Janes, Hannah Jang-Condell, Steven Janowiecki, Eric Jensen, Rebecca Jensen-Clem, Kelsey Johnson, L. Johnson, Chelen Johnson, Marshall Johnson, Margaret Johnston, Michael Joner, Amy Jones, Megan Jones, Julia Kamenetzky, Patrick Kamieneski, Nicole Karnath, Vinay Kashyap, Tiffany Kataria, Brian Kent, Amanda Kepley, Joey Key, Ali Ahmad Khostovan, Brian Kilpatrick, Hwihyun Kim, Randolf Klein, Karen Knierman, Henry Kobulnicky, Marina Kounkel, Thea Kozakis, Kathleen Kraemer, Laura Kreidberg, Dhanesh Krishnarao, Nick Kruczek, Charles Kuehn, Paul La Plante, Mark Lacy, Anson Lam, Casey Law, Davide Lazzati, Denis Leahy, Hyun-chul Lee, Bomee Lee, Chien-Hsiu Lee, Emily Leiner, Sebastien Lepine, John Lewis, Ting Li, Lisa Locke, Felix Lockman, Alexandra Lockwood, Ryan Loomis, Joshua Lothringer, Lorenzo Lovisari, Parke Loyd, Jacob Luhn, Michael Lund, Ragnhild Lunnan, Julie Lutz, Jianwei Lyu, Meredith MacGregor, Steven Margheim, Herman Marshall, Jennifer Marshall, John Martin, Christopher Martin, Philip Massey, Karen Masters, Rachel Matson, Dimitri Mawet, Erin May, Laura Mayorga, Curtis McCully, Rosalie McGurk, Drew Miles, Bryan Miller, Jacqueline Monkiewicz, Tom Montemayor, Benjamin Montet, Brian Morsony, Patrick Motl, Leonidas Moustakas, Dale Mudd, Charles Mudd, Susan Mullally, Claire Murray, Burcin Mutlu Pakdil, David Nataf, Joseph Neilsen, Philip Nicholson, Ryan Norris, Alejandro Núñez, Karen O'Neil, Anna Ogorzalek, Antonija Oklopcic, Jerome Orosz, Nathalie Ouellette, Fabio Pacucci, John Parejko, Pallavi Patil, Daniel Patnaude, Nathaniel Paust, Aaron Pearlman, Joshua Pepper, Marshall Perrin, J. Sebastian Pineda, Norbert Pirzkal, Adele Plunkett, Jonathan Pober, Klaus Pontoppidan, Stephen Portillo, Johnny Powell, Henry Prager, Lisa Prato, Andrew Prentice, Adrian Price-Whelan, Yu Qiu, Jordan Raddick, Marc Rafelski, Phillip Reed, Anthony Remijan, Bin Ren, Andrew Repp, Jinsu Rhee, Evan Rich, Christina Richey**, Stephen Ridgway, Caroline Roberts, Joseph Rodriguez, Michael Rodruck, Ian Roederer, Rachael Roettenbacher, Erik Rosolowsky, Kate Rowlands, Charli Sakari, Greg Salvesen, Ronald Samec, Micah Schaible, Everett Schlawin, Eric Schlegel, Sarah Schmidt, Paul Sell, Anil Seth, Ramon Sharma, Ohad Shemmer, Kristin Showalter, Ethan Siegel, Steven Silverberg, Joseph Simon, Robert Siverd, Julie Skinner, David Sliski, Brianna Smart, Adam Smercina, Rachel Smith, David Soderblom, Nima Soltani, Chelsea Spengler, Timothy Spuck, Tjitske Starkenburg, Ian Steer, Denise Stephens, Ian Stephens, Nicholas Sterling, Abigail Stevens, Christopher Stockdale, Michael Strauss, Michael Stroh, Ian Sullivan, Meng Sun, Jing Sun, Joe Swiggum, Ryan Tanner, Kirill Tchernyshyov, Johanna Teske, Joanna Thomas-Osip, Samaporn Tinyanont, Volker Tolls, Ryan Trainor, Laura Trouille, Vivian U, Stephen Unwin, Todd Veach, Aparna Venkatesan, Gerrit Verschuur, Sarah Vigeland, Jacqueline Villadsen, Stuart Vogel, Madeline Wade, Glenn Wahlgren, Hannah Wakeford, Luqian Wang, Jason Wang, Kimberly Ward-Duong, MacKenzie Warren, Maria Weber, Jake Weiss, Trey Wenger, Matt Wentzel-Long, Michael Werner, Jacob White, Patrick Wilcox, Ashlee Wilkins, Donald Willcox, Anna Williams, Jennifer Winters, Alexander Wise, Robert Wittenmyer, David Wittman, Jennifer Wojno, Schuyler Wolff, Xiaohan Wu, Yao-Lun Yang, Jun Yang, Jason Ybarra, Marie Ygouf, Allison Youngblood, Robert Zellem, and Michael Zhang!

*We apologize for any omissions or errors, please email me any corrections.

**A special thank you to Christina Richey who was particularly instrumental in helping with shutdown-related challenges, both in recruiting numerous onsite judges and in personally judging a heroic number of posters over the three days of the competition — thank you, Chrissy!!!