Elections for AAVSO Board members are held annually prior to the Annual Meeting. Voting in this election is open only to AAVSO members in good standing.
Meet the Candidates Webinar: To give you the opportunity to meet the candidates online (via Zoom), we are hosting a complimentary webinar on Saturday, October 5, 2024, at 18:00 UT (2 p.m. ET). Pre-registration is required.
Voting Procedure
All AAVSO members in good standing as of September 30, 2024, who have an email address in their AAVSO profile will be emailed an invitation that day with a link to vote for new board members to fill the three vacancies. Electronic voting closes at 9:00 AM U.S. Central Time on Sunday, November 10.
All AAVSO members in good standing who do not have an email address in their AAVSO profile will receive a paper ballot and pre-addressed and stamped envelope to mail in their votes. Mail-in ballots must be received at AAVSO headquarters one week prior to the electronic voting deadline.
Questions? Please send us an email! Thank you for voting!
Slate of Candidates
- Mark Hardaker, Hampshire, United Kingdom
- Thomas J. Maccarone, Texas, United States
- James Bruce McMath, Arkansas, United States
- Prajval Shastri, Karnataka, India
- Diogo Teixeira, Massachusetts, United States
- Molly Wakeling, New Mexico, United States
Candidate Statements
Mark Hardaker
I am a British citizen, with multinational work experience. I have been an amateur astronomer since I was eight years old and joined the British Astronomical Association (BAA) in May 1968. Real life took over for a while, but since my retirement in 2018, I have returned with passion to my ancient hobby and love being outside under the stars again. I am a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society (FRAS), the deputy editor of Popular Astronomy, the magazine of the SPA in the UK; the treasurer of my local astronomical society and I sit on the committee of the UK Commission for Dark Skies. Variable star recording is part of my every clear night activity. If elected, my background in sales, marketing and fund-raising will help me to boost awareness of AAVSO, especially outside the USA, and promote its activities to the wider astronomical community.
View Mark's nominee questionnaire responses.
Thomas J. Maccarone
I am a professor at Texas Tech University, specializing in observations of accretion disks around black holes, neutron stars and white dwarfs. This is an area where amateur astronomers have contributed greatly in the past and can continue to do so in the future. My main aim, if re-elected, is to try to get more interaction between professional and volunteer astronomers to try to maximize both scientific returns from data collection and to grow opportunities for funding for AAVSO. I'd like to do this by getting more professional astronomers to realize how good AAVSO data can be and how useful it can be for them, and by attempting to start some low-cost, more informal regional AAVSO meetings where there can be some closer interactions between AAVSO members at all levels, and by trying to get more professional astronomers who make wide use of AAVSO data to host zoom interactions with the people who collected the data for them, to help them feel appreciate and understand how much their contributions of data have meant.
View Thomas' nominee questionnaire responses.
James Bruce McMath
I am a retired lawyer and a Space Race baby. Forty years ago I bought a 6-inch Edmond Newtonian in hopes of inspiring my then-young son in school and got hooked. I have served on boards and in executive positions in several professional, civic, and environmental organizations over the years in addition to holding nearly every leadership position in my astronomy club. I run a robotic observatory monitoring ~160 young stellar object (YSO) stars and assist in running a robotic instrument in a joint venture between my club and Arkansas Tech University. I chair the state’s International Dark Sky Association (IDA; now Dark Sky International) affiliate and the AR Dark-Sky Festival. I received IDA’s Bob Gent Community Leadership Award in 2023 and the Astronomical League’s Mid-State Region Astronomer of the Year award in 2018 and served for a time on AAVSO’s validation team.
View Bruce's nominee questionnaire responses.
Prajval Shastri
I am an astrophysicist of over four decades, specializing in the empirical investigation of the physics of supermassive black holes at multiple frequencies using earth- and space-based telescopes. I have not been a member of the AAVSO but have been familiar with its work over my decades as an astrophysicist. I passionately believe that scientific thinking is for everyone and that the sky is everyone's laboratory, and thus I resonate strongly with the paradigm that the AAVSO has adopted for its work.
Apart from my regular individual astrophysics research, teaching, and public engagement, I have undertaken several major collective efforts over my career. I believe that the lessons from these experiences have bearing on strategic planning for the AAVSO and can provide specific perspectives that I can bring to the table. In particular, I mention the series of four Astrostatistics Schools that I ran in collaboration with Penn State University, the series of country-wide scientific awareness campaigns including the "Eyes on ISON" comet campaign that I led, and my gender-equity work that crystallized into a Gender in Physics Working Group of the Indian Physics Association that I was founder-Chair of, which undertook impactful work that I led. The core idea in each of these efforts was new and required me to innovate processes, build partnerships, and formulate a strategic plan to achieve the envisioned goals. In each case I had to get buy-in for the new unfamiliar idea from academic institutions, relevant influential individuals, and the government. I successfully raised funding for all of them.
In addition, I now serve as Vice-Chair of the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics Working Group on Women in Physics. I served as Vice-Chair of the Executive Committee of the International Year of Basic Sciences for Sustainable Development, and am currently in the Steering Committee of the Earth-Humanity Coalition formed to work on the International Decade of Sciences for Sustainable Development. These efforts too involve strategic planning, advocacy, and fundraising.
View Prajval's nominee questionnaire responses.
Diogo Teixeira
I am running for re-election to the Board to continue the work on fundraising, cost-cutting, investment performance and revenue raising projects that I have been involved in as a Board member. These are all key to stabilizing the AAVSO for the future. I bring a wealth of past management experience with other nonprofits making them more efficient and effective in meeting their goals. AAVSO has many challenges including strategic positioning and the requisite ability to make new ideas or initiatives financially possible.
View Diogo's nominee questionnaire responses.
Molly Wakeling
Molly Wakeling got into astrophotography in July 2015 after receiving her first telescope as a gift. Much trial and error later, she now has four astrophotography rigs set up in her backyard in Albuquerque, New Mexico, including one dedicated to variable star observing, with which she has contributed 3,847 photometric CCD observations to the AAVSO database. Molly will graduate with her PhD in Nuclear Engineering in March 2025 and is an active-duty Major in the US Air Force, serving as an acquisitions officer and physicist/nuclear engineer. She is also a Contributing Editor at Astronomy Magazine and does astronomy outreach with Scout groups, in classrooms, and with astronomy clubs across the country in-person and online.
View Molly's nominee questionnaire responses