Announcing Significant Changes in the AAS Prize Process

At the 225th AAS meeting in Seattle, your Council voted — after much deliberation — to allow self-nominations for all AAS prizes and awards that have a 30 June deadline. Previously only the Cannon, Pierce, and Warner prizes were open to self-nominations. The Council instituted this change because it felt that many qualified potential prizewinners were being “passed over.” Feel you’re worthy of an award? So do we, and we want to increase your chances of winning one.

Nominations for 2016 prizes are due in the AAS Secretary’s office by 30 June 2015. Nomination letters will no longer be accepted. Instead, three letters of support are required for each candidate/applicant, along with other required supporting materials. Because we don’t want prize-committee members to know which candidates were nominated by others and which candidates nominated themselves, letters of support must say something like “I’m writing to support the nomination of [candidate’s name]” rather than “I’m writing to nominate [candidate’s name].”

Members may obtain detailed prize-nomination instructions, as well as more information about all of the AAS prizes and awards, on our Prize Nominations page and the various pages linked from there.