17 February 2021

AAS Doxsey Travel Prize Recipients for 2021

Neelab Yousafzai
American Astronomical Society

Rodger Doxsey

The Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize — established through the support of his father, John Doxsey, and other friends, family, and colleagues — provides graduate students and recent PhD recipients/postdocs within one year of receiving or receipt of their PhD a monetary prize to enable the oral presentation of their dissertation research at a winter meeting of the AAS. 

There were 55 entries for the 2021 Rodger Doxsey Travel Prize competition, out of 809 total oral dissertation abstracts submitted for the virtual 237th AAS meeting. Choosing only a small number of these to win the prize from among so many worthy entrants was not easy — especially since our judges have noted that the abstracts seem to get better every year!

In all, nine Doxsey 2021 prize winners and eight honorable mentions were selected. All of them will receive complimentary registration for an AAS meeting. In addition, the prize winners will receive a modest stipend to reimburse some of their travel expenses to our next in-person meeting. Prize winners and honorable mentions came from a diverse group of institutions and geographical locations.

Following are the 2021 Doxsey prize winners and honorable mentions:

Winners (PhD Institution)

  • Munazza Alam (Harvard University)
  • Samantha Dixon (University of California, Berkeley)
  • Jamie Law-Smith (University of California, Santa Cruz)
  • Sara Frederick (University of Maryland)
  • Bokyoung Kim (Georgia State University)
  • Jennifer Li (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
  • Sarah Moran (Johns Hopkins University)
  • Bingjie Wang (Johns Hopkins University)
  • Alexandra Yep (Georgia State University)

Honorable Mentions (PhD Institution)

  • Humna Awan (Rutgers University)
  • Travis Berger (University of Hawai‘i at Manoa)
  • Saloni Bhatiani (University of Oklahoma)
  • Samantha Brunker (Indiana University)
  • Diego Godoy Rivera (Ohio State University)
  • Dylan Keating (McGill University)
  • Adam Smercina (University of Washington)
  • Drona Vargya (University of Pennsylvania)

Much gratitude goes out to this year’s volunteer judges for their earnest efforts:

  • Jennifer Lynn Bartlett (US Naval Observatory)
  • Matteo Luisi (West Virginia University)
  • Dan Schwartz (Harvard & Smithsonian)
  • Timothy M. Lawlor (Penn State University)
  • Nimish P. Hathi (Space Telescope Science Institute)

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