Congratulations to the AAS 234 Chambliss Student Award Winners

Presenters during the Chambliss Posters at AAS 234. Photo by ©CorporateEventImages/Phil McCarten 2019

The latest Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Awards poster competition, which occurred in June 2019 during the 234th AAS meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, was not disappointing!

Students had a wide variety of amazing science to discuss. In all, there were 27 students in the competition v 9 undergrads and 18 grads — along with 39 member volunteer judges, encompassing just over 100 judging events!! That’s less than 1/10th the students, judges, and judging events involved in a winter meeting! And with more volunteer judges than students, judges were able to view only half the posters they usually do — thanks to one and all!

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 St. Louis, 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! 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 otherwise have 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! Your next opportunity will be at the 235th AAS Meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, January 2020. The more judges we have, the fewer posters each judge is responsible for judging! My goal is to have 500 judges volunteer!!

Here are the results from St. Louis:

Undergraduate Student Medal Winners

• Brian Hybben (University of Missouri)
• Adolfo Carvalho (Rice University)

Undergraduate Student Honorable Mention

• Eleanor Stuart (Florida Atlantic University)

Graduate Student Medal Winners

• Dallar Babaian (California State University, Northridge)
• Jessie Duncan (University of Minnesota)

Graduate Student Honorable Mention

• Jacob Fausett (University of Nevada, Reno)

Congratulations, all!

On behalf of our Society and all of the students who entered the AAS 234 Chambliss competition, I would like to thank the AAS Executive Office staff and all of the many, many member volunteer judges (including those who volunteered onsite to replace judges who had scheduling complications due to weather, illness, etc.). It is all of you who help to make this very important competition such a big success!!

Here are our AAS 234 Chambliss Judges* — thank them when you see them next:

Rachel Bezanson, Saloni Bhatiani, Richard Bogart, Ana Bonaca, Spencer Buckner, Juan Buitrago-Casas, Jeffrey Coughlin, Tyler Desjardins, Norman Grogin, Colin Haig, Nimish Hathi, Jon Hoeksema, Sarah Jaeggli, Brian Kent, Michael Kirk, Chris Lowder, James Lowenthal, John Martin, James Mason, Loren Matilsky, Charles Mudd, Jr., Lan Nguyen, Ryan Norris, Dean Pesnell, Katherine Rabidoux, Andrew Repp, Viacheslav Sadykov, Gregory Simonian, Steven Spangler, Angela Speck, Michael Strauss, Wes Tobin, Gerrit Verschuur, Stuart Vogel, Shuo Wang, Nevin Weinberg, Alycia Weinberger, and Peter Young

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