2026-Jan-20: The VERITAS Collaboration is pleased to recognize the recipients of the 2025 "Outstanding Contribution Awards". Each year the collaboration recognizes exceptional work by two individuals - a graduate student (the Simon Swordy Outstanding Contribution Award) and a postdoctoral researcher (the Trevor Weekes Outstanding Contribution Award), to "...formally recognize the significant contributions of more early-career members of the collaboration in the critical service work that enables scientific publications of VERITAS, but do not result in any scientific publications directly".
This year's recipients are:
Samantha Wong (Simon Swordy Award) - For her exceptional and sustained service to the VERITAS Collaboration, particularly her leadership in validating and integrating the Gammapy analysis framework for VERITAS. Since 2024, Samantha has served as the VERITAS development lead for Gammapy, organizing bi-weekly coordination calls, working closely with the international Gammapy team to identify and resolve technical issues, and coordinating the release of sample VERITAS datasets and the first dedicated VERITAS tutorial within the Gammapy package. These efforts have been critical in enabling standardized, end-to-end analyses of VERITAS data using Gammapy. In addition to her software leadership, Samantha has been a strong advocate and organizer for early-career members, serving as the Collaboration’s Early Career Representative since 2025, organizing regular “Debug Den” sessions and coding workshops, and contributing to Collaboration governance through service on the Time Allocation Committee. Her recent long-term on-site stay at FLWO, where she is providing essential technical expertise to support the testing and commissioning upgraded FADCs to conduct optical monitoring on the whole VERITAS field of view, exemplifies her willingness to step beyond formal responsibilities to advance critical technical work that will benefit the Collaboration as a whole.For major contributions to VERITAS during his graduate work, where he pioneered the first implementation of a Gammapy based extended source analysis for VERITAS. This work required the integration of gammapy software into the EventDisplay-based VERITAS analysis pipeline for background estimation, the development and integration of an interpolator for instrument response functions into the VERITAS DL3 converter software, and extensive validations of extended source analysis with a focus on accurate background estimation and systematics.
Deivid Ribeiro - (Trevor Weekes Award) - For his outstanding technical leadership within the VERITAS and CTAO collaborations, particularly his sustained stewardship of the VEGAS analysis framework and his leadership in advanced analysis and machine-learning development. As a critical member of the VEGAS group, Deivid led the cleanup, restructuring, and roadmapping of the VEGAS codebase, establishing a well-ordered repository and a release path for legacy data products, while implementing and validating major upgrades including the Low Gain Fix, PMT after-pulsing corrections, and BDT-based analysis tools. He maintains the VEGAS Docker images used at NERSC for large-scale production of VERITAS data products, and has led the development and validation of converters enabling DL3-level compatibility with Gammapy and joint analyses between VERITAS and the pSCT using ctapipe. In parallel, Deivid has led the Machine Learning Working Group, developing and testing novel models for gamma–hadron separation and shower image generation, including the first applications of ML methods trained directly on real IACT data. Beyond these highly visible technical achievements, he has been a dedicated mentor and advocate for early-career researchers, leading software workshops, developing shared analysis scripts, updating documentation, and mentoring undergraduate and graduate students at several institutions. His service work, often conducted behind the scenes, has been essential to the Collaboration’s ability to produce reliable, timely, and forward-looking scientific results.
Congratulations to Sam and Deivid !
Sam Wong 
Dr. Deivid Ribeiro
2025-Jan-08: The VERITAS Collaboration is pleased to recognize the recipients of the 2024 "Outstanding Contribution Awards". Each year the collaboration recognizes exceptional work by two individuals - a graduate student (the Simon Swordy Outstanding Contribution Award) and a postdoctoral researcher (the Trevor Weekes Outstanding Contribution Award), to "...formally recognize the significant contributions of more early-career members of the collaboration in the critical service work that enables scientific publications of VERITAS, but do not result in any scientific publications directly".
This year's recipients are:
Tobias Kleiner (Simon Swordy Award) - For major contributions to VERITAS during his graduate work, where he pioneered the first implementation of a Gammapy-based extended source analysis for VERITAS. This work required the integration of gammapy software into the EventDisplay-based VERITAS analysis pipeline for background estimation, the development and integration of an interpolator for instrument response functions into the VERITAS DL3 converter software, and extensive validations of extended source analysis with a focus on accurate background estimation and systematics.
Ruo-Yu Shang - (Trevor Weekes Award) - For major contributions to both VERITAS and the SCT, such as advanced analysis techniques for VERITAS, including the development of a novel background estimation method that will be used in studies of large extended sources, paired with the critical work of familiarizing the wider collaboration with the details and use of the Matrix Method by working with students and early career scientists as well as for key contributions to the complex optical-system alignment of the pSCT and additional work to improve the event reconstruction for imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes generally. These efforts are completed in addition to service on the Update to Analysis Policy Committee in 2022 leadership of the Galactic Working Group for 2 years.
Congratulations to Tobias and Ruo-Yu !
Dr. Tobias Kleiner 
Dr. Ruo-Yu Shang
2024-Dec-13: An international team of astronomers, including the VERITAS Collaboration, recorded the first very-high energy flaring episode from supermassive black hole M87 since 2010 during an multi-wavelength observational campaign with EHT (Event Horizon Telescope). For the full story, read here.
2024-Jan-22: The VERITAS Collaboration is pleased to recognize the recipients of the 2023 "Outstanding Contribution Awards". Each year the collaboration recognizes exceptional work by two individuals - a graduate student (the Simon Swordy Outstanding Contribution Award) and a postdoctoral researcher (the Trevor Weekes Outstanding Contribution Award), to "...formally recognize the significant contributions of more early-career members of the collaboration in the critical service work that enables scientific publications of VERITAS, but do not result in any scientific publications directly".
This year's recipients are:
Matthew Lundy (Simon Swordy Award) - For a wide variety of service tasks, including his extraordinary contribution to observing (nearing ~20 observing weeks since 2018) and as one of the key volunteer VEGAS developers and instrument response producers. In his work on software, Matthew has been diagnosing and debugging many issues including the spectral analysis with ring background model calculations, light curve analysis, instrument response functions, and data formats, all of which are critical in the analysis pipelines which make scientific publications possible. He has additionally worked to develop a software tool which can be used for cross-checking expected package sensitivities for a range of observational datasets. In addition to ensuring that his efforts are well documented and communicated clearly to the collaboration as a whole, Matthew has also been actively supporting the early-career members. As part of this work, he organizes tutorial sessions on various topics at the VCM and the weekly early-career zoom meetings.
Serena Loporchio - (Trevor Weekes Award) - For major service tasks within pSCT, including the development of the prototype Schwarzschild-Couder Telescope (pSCT) camera. She has coordinated the quality control measurement tests conducted on FBK SiPM tiles developed for pSCT, completing these tasks with several installation and commissioning shifts, both on-site and remotely. More recently she has been completing detailed characterizations of the new SMART preamplifier ASIC and of the new FEE modules, both of which are key components in the pSCT camera upgrade. Serena’s service contributions to pSCT have been fundamental for the entire SCT collaboration and made the first pSCT publications, including the Crab detection by the pSCT, possible. Additionally, Serena has been active in outreach, education and transfer of knowledge, engaging in numerous outreach events annually, specifically with several talks aimed at college and high school students on pSCT and CTA more generally.
Congratulations to Matthew and Serena!
Matthew Lundy 
Dr. Serena Loporchio
2023-Aug-15: The members of the VERITAS Collaboration were very saddened by the news that our friend and long-time colleague John Finley passed away on the 16th of July 2023. John was an insightful scientist who made hugely significant contributions to the Whipple telescope, an effort which allowed for the discovery of the first VHE sources. Before his work on Whipple, he contributed to the Haleakala gamma-ray observatory.
John was one of the founders of VERITAS and was a key contributor to the VERITAS proposals and construction of the instrument. He fought in the trenches as the chair of the VERITAS Executive Committee during a critical time, navigating the intricacies of startup and helping to bring VERITAS into operation under challenging circumstances.
John was wise and incredibly patient, an inspirational scientist and a wonderful person. His good humour and sense of fun meant that it was always such a pleasure to work with him. He always had so much enthusiasm in what he did and was so supportive of the work of his colleagues and students. Many of his past students note his support as a significant source of motivation for remaining in the field.
The VERITAS Collaboration sends their condolences to all of John’s family, friends and colleagues.
An obituary for John can be found here (https://soller-baker.com/obituary/john-p-finley/).
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