Welcome and Farewell to Our AAS Media Fellows

In 2017 we announced a new AAS-sponsored program for graduate students: the AAS Media Fellowship. This quarter-time opportunity is intended for current graduate students in the astronomical sciences who wish to cultivate their science-communication skills.

We are pleased to announce that Tarini Konchady, a graduate student at Texas A&M University, has been selected as our AAS Media Fellow for 2019–2020.

Tarini majored in physics at Johns Hopkins University, with a minor in space science and engineering. She is now in her third year of the astronomy PhD program at Texas A&M, working with Lucas Macri studying Mira variables to help calibrate the extragalactic distance scale.

Tarini is an active member of the broader astronomy community: she’s an author and editor for the graduate-student-run astronomy blog Astrobites, she co-organizes a chapter of Astronomy on Tap, and she’s been spotted at the Capitol as a member of the AAS’s Congressional Visits Day delegation.

You can expect to see Tarini around at upcoming AAS meetings, beginning with the January meeting in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, helping to run press conferences with AAS Press Officer Rick Fienberg. Also, keep an eye out for her posts on AAS Nova!

As we welcome Tarini, we’re also saying farewell to our inaugural AAS Media Fellow, Kerry Hensley. She’s continuing her PhD work in planetary science at Boston University, and she’s already ascended to new heights in science communication, working at Voice of America this past summer as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Mass Media Fellow.

Please join us in welcoming Tarini and in wishing Kerry well in her next adventures!