2020-Jan-11: The VERITAS Collaboration is pleased to recognize the recipients of the 2019 "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:
Alasdair Gent (Simon Swordy Award) - Awarded for Alasdair's role in ACG/VEGAS and simulations production: "...managing production of simulations on the Open Science Grid (OSG) is his biggest contribution to VERITAS. While it seems like a trivial task, managing several million jobs and data files is not... Alasdair stepped forward and volunteered."
Dr. Greg Richards (Trevor Weekes Award) - Awarded for his role as calibration "czar": "He has been serving as Calibration Czar since April 2016, a role which includes scheduling and coordinating all of the regular calibration measurements for VERITAS, providing instruction to the observers, as well as following up on the subsequent analysis, and maintaining the associated wiki pages. In addition, after serving as a TAC member for a year, Greg took on the role of TAC Chair in summer 2018. This is a service-heavy role which is usually given to a more senior member of the collaboration - not a first-year post-doc!"
Congratulations to Alasdair and Greg!
Alasdair Gent 
Dr. Greg Richards
2020-Jan-11: The VERITAS Collaboration is pleased to recognize the recipients of the 2018 (inaugural) "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:
Tony Lin (Simon Swordy Award) - Awarded in part for Tony's stint as a long-term FLWO visitor in Fall 2018. Tony's citation reads, in part, "...it is to the observing burden for the season that his most significant service came; if it were not for his contributions at (seasonal) start-up and selflessly taking on czaring duties on three further occasions, often at short notice, VERITAS would not have met its minimum observing yield in what was a very challenging season..."
Dr. Ralph Bird (Trevor Weekes Award) - Awarded in part for Ralph's of VERITAS' Data Archive and VEGAS analysis code. The citation reads, in part, "He maintains the data archive at UCLA... He maintains and leads the efforts for the VEGAS standard analysis package both in terms of contributing software and in performing the verification tests of each release. He has led the effort to extend the archiving computing environment... He has also found the time, as a new father, to come to site and observe on two separate occasions last season."
Congratulations to Tony and Ralph!
Tony Lin 
Ralph Bird
2019-Jan-05: VERITAS reports the detection of an exceptional VHE flare from the blazar 1ES 1218+304. See the Astronomers' telegram here. MAGIC, as well as X-ray and optical instruments, have also reported recent activity from this object.
2018-February-15: VERITAS notes with great sadness the passing of Richard (Dick) Lamb in Lexington, Kentucky, on February 10, 2018. Dick was a key player and a strong proponent of ground-based gamma-ray astronomy during the 1980s and 1990s. He played a significant role in the Whipple 10m collaboration, and his vision and energy helped to move TeV astronomy to the forefront of science. (See the obituary here)
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