Welcome to Kerry Hensley, AAS Communications Specialist

We’re delighted to (re-)introduce Kerry Hensley, a planetary scientist who has recently joined the AAS staff as our Communications Specialist. Kerry’s responsibilities will include working with Communications Manager Susanna Kohler as co-Editor of AAS Nova, a website that features research highlights from the AAS journals, and serving as the AAS Deputy Press Officer.

Kerry is not new to the AAS’s ranks: In 2018, she was selected as the inaugural AAS Media Fellow, a quarter-time position for graduate students in the astronomical sciences who wish to cultivate their science communication skills. Over the span of her 1.5-year fellowship term, Kerry helped to plan and run press conferences at AAS meetings, assisted in operating the AAS press release distribution service, and wrote and published articles on AAS Nova.

Since concluding her fellowship term at the AAS, Kerry was selected as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Mass Media Science and Engineering Fellow and served as a science journalist for Voice of America, writing articles and scripting, voicing, and producing radio and video stories. Her past science communication pursuits include freelance writing (with bylines in publications like Sky & Telescope magazine), presenting planetarium shows, and writing and editing for Astrobites, a graduate-student-run astronomy blog.

Kerry earned her BA in astrophysics and Chinese at Williams College and will shortly defend her PhD dissertation work in planetary atmospheres at Boston University. We’re excited to welcome her on board!