Contact
Dr. Rick Fienberg
Press Officer
202-328-2010 x116
Email
Relations with the news media on science topics are handled by the AAS Press Officer. The Press Officer responds to media inquiries by providing referrals to suitable experts, suggesting story topics and illustration sources, and recommending scientists who are effective communicators on radio and television.
The Press Officer is responsible for all media arrangements at meetings and all AAS public-information activities concerning the science of astronomy, as distinct from issues of public policy. AAS Divisions, including DPS, HEAD, and SPD, also appoint press officers who facilitate media coverage of their respective Divisional meetings and awards.
Research articles reporting significant developments, discoveries, and theories about planets, moons, small bodies, and the interactions among them will soon have a new showcase: The Planetary Science Journal (PSJ), which joins The Astronomical Journal and The Astrophysical Journal family as the newest of the AAS's peer-reviewed publications.
At the 235th AAS meeting in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 5 January 2020, the Kavli Foundation Plenary Lecture will be given by Suvi Gezari (University of Maryland), who will describe the discovery and analysis of tidal disruption events in which stars are torn apart by the gravitational pull of supermassive black holes in the centers of galaxies.
Sheperd S. Doeleman (Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian) is being honored with the 2020 Berkeley prize for his scientific contributions to, and his leadership of, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project and publication of its historic image of the supermassive black hole at the center of galaxy M87 in Virgo.
The AAS Division on Dynamical Astronomy is awarding its 2019 Vera Rubin Early Career Prize to Jo Bovy (University of Toronto) for his work on the structure and dynamics of the Milky Way galaxy.
The AAS has agreed to acquire Sky & Telescope (S&T) magazine and its related business assets, including skyandtelescope.com, SkyWatch, digital editions, astronomy-themed tours, and S&T-branded books, sky atlases, globes, apps, and other stargazing products, following the bankruptcy of current owner F+W Media.
In response to the launch by SpaceX of 60 Starlink satellites with plans for thousands more, the AAS Board of Trustees expresses concern over these satellites' potential to interfere with astronomical observations and pledges to work with space-technology companies and other stakeholders to mitigate this threat.
What are the big topics in astronomy research that we’ll be working to address in the next decade? Astronomers have a pretty good guess, and they’ve shared what they think in a series of white papers that are part of the Astro2020 Decadal Survey. Read them all in the Bulletin of the AAS.
Fifteen astronomers and planetary scientists from the American Astronomical Society visited Capitol Hill on Wednesday, 13 March 2019, to advocate for strong, sustained federal support of astronomy, planetary science, and heliophysics and of programs that the scientific community itself has prioritized by consensus.
After a two-year study, the American Astronomical Society has recommended more than a dozen steps that colleges and universities can take to increase the number of students from underrepresented groups who earn graduate degrees in the astronomical sciences.
At the 234th AAS meeting in St. Louis, Missouri, on 10 June 2019, the Kavli Foundation Plenary Lecture will be given by Alice Shapley (University of California, Los Angeles), who will explore one of the great challenges of modern cosmology: the formation and evolution of galaxies.