Molly Simon is the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for Fall 2013. Molly earned the award for her work as a GTA for Dr. Steve Kortenkamp's PTYS/ASTR 206 course. Molly is a first-year graduate student; her advisor is Assistant Professor Ilaria Pascucci.

Congratulations, Margaret Landis! Margaret has been named the recipient of a NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, which comes with three years of funding and tuition support.

by Jamie Molaro

Two LPL alumni, Marc Buie (1984) and John Keller (2006), are mustering citizen scientists in the western U.S. for project RECON: Research and Education Cooperative Occultation Network. The project has provided telescope equipment and training to 14 small communities north and south of Reno, Nevada, and hopes to eventually build a network stretching from Arizona to the Canadian border.

Chinese student Beary Xiao, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), forwards the good news that he successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on November 21, 2013. Beary will continue his career at the university in Wuhan as a postdoctoral researcher. Beary spent two years at LPL as a visiting researcher, working with Professor Emeritus Robert Strom.

LPL alumnus Matt Pasek (2006), currently Assistant Professor at the University of South Florida, and Virginia Pasek (former LPL staff, current Cassini VIMS team member) have created an app called MeteorRight.

Features of the app include:

321Science produces fast-draw and other formatted videos to explain concepts in planetary science and promote communication about and public engagement in the mission and Solar System exploration.  OSIRIS-REx Presents 321Science posts entertaining videos about asteroid science and OSIRIS-REx mission information. Regular installments are posted to the OSIRIS-REx YouTube Page.

Kudos to Ali Bramson, who won an Outstanding Student Paper Award (Planetary Sciences) at the Fall 2013 AGU meeting. Ali's paper was titled, "Thick subsurface water ice in Arcadia Planitia, Mars" (Bramson, Byrne, Putzig, Plaut, Mattson, Holt).

PTYS graduate students Patricio Becerra and Michelle Thompson were each awarded a Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) Career Development Award in February 2014.

The award is given to graduate students who submitted a first-author abstract to the 45th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC). The awards are based on a review of the application materials by a panel of planetary scientists, and recipients received a $1000 travel stipend to help cover LPSC conference expenses.

Third-year graduate student Melissa Dykhuis is the recipient of a 2014 Ray Duncombe Prize from the Division on Dynamical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society for her contributed presentation titled Defining the Flora Family: Reflectance Properties and Age.