2018 AMS Annual Meeting

The Coriolis reception brings together lesbian–gay–bisexual–transgender–queer (LGBTQ) friends and allies to mentor, network, and connect with individuals who share common professional and personal interests. The reception will feature a keynote speaker, Ms. Jessica Mink, who is a positional astronomer and software developer at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO). Mink has SB and SM degrees from MIT in comparative planetology at MIT, co-discovered the rings of Uranus while working at Cornell, moved back to MIT, where her work contributed to the discovery of Neptune's rings and detection of the extent of Pluto's atmosphere. At SAO, she developed some key workstation and mapping software for a Space Shuttle telescope and data reduction and analysis data pipelines for ground-based spectrographs used to study everything from exoplanets to Large Scale Structure. Along the way, she wrote the widely-used astronomical software packages WCSTools and RVSAO, parented a daughter, became a bicycle and open space activist, changed gender, acted, and sang.

Students and professionals from all levels, as well as their relatives, are welcome to attend and participate. The 2018 reception will be hosted by the AMS Board of Women and Minorities and cosponsored by Colorado State University, Johns Hopkins University, Millersville University, Pennsylvania State University and University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). For additional information, please contact the AMS Board on Women and Minorities chair, Mona Behl (mbehl@uga.edu), Aaron Piña (pina.aaron@gmail.com), or Ryder Fox (k.ryder.fox@gmail.com). Attendees are encouraged to follow Coriolis on Facebook.