The AAS Board of Trustees has voted to not hold the virtual portion of the 239th AAS meeting. AAS 240 will be programmatically adjusted to be the major astronomical meeting of 2022. It will be held in Pasadena, California, 12–16 June 2022. We encourage all individuals who contributed talks and posters for AAS 239 to submit for AAS 240. Most of the plenary and prize talks scheduled for AAS 239 will take place at AAS 240. All virtual and in-person registration fees will be refunded in the coming weeks.
The Society will strive to support grassroots efforts to virtualize some portions of the canceled AAS 239 meeting such as special sessions. But special sessions approved for AAS 239 will also receive preference for scheduling at AAS 240. We will work with town hall organizers to hold their events as free webinars in the coming months. The press conference program will move forward as planned in a virtual Zoom webinar format. Those briefings are open to anyone to attend; Zoom links and the speaker schedule will be announced in early January.
The Board of Trustees is particularly concerned about the lost networking opportunities for early-career scientists due to the canceled meeting. Therefore, we are exploring the possibility of providing scheduled dissertation talks as a spring-time webinar series, as well as looking into some virtual networking opportunities in the short term.
We will convene a Task Force, including members of the community and in particular early-career scientists and relevant committee members, to develop ideas for how to hold the June 2022 meeting and future meetings in a way that prioritizes effective networking, safety, and inclusion.
Unfortunately, the Society cannot assist with hotel reservation cancellations for hotels outside of the contracted AAS 239 meeting hotels. But if any registrant has a challenge with one of the official meeting hotels, we will assist with refund requests as needed.
We will reach out to our exhibitors and sponsors separately in the coming days and we thank you for your continued patience and support.
Kevin B. Marvel
Executive Officer
On Behalf of the AAS Board of Trustees
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