2021-Jan-12: It is with great sadness that the VERITAS Collaboration notes the passing of Steve Criswell on 3 January 2021 in Tucson, Arizona. Steve had been a Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory employee for 53 years (1962-2016), during which he served many roles including Facility Manager at Fred Lawrence Whipple Observatory and Project Manager for VERITAS during its critical planning, construction and commissioning phases. Steve was a most talented person who never courted the limelight, preferring always to work away quietly and efficiently in the background on the myriad of SAO/FLWO projects. Steve's outstanding organizational and management skills played a vital role in the successful development of the field of TeV gamma-ray astronomy at the Whipple Observatory. Steve was also wonderfully supportive of the many visiting researchers and students to FLWO, and provided a welcoming environment with advice and mentorship. His loss is strongly felt by the VERITAS Collaboration, and we extend our condolences to Steve's family and friends.
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.
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