AAVSO Board Officers and Members - 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.