Bart Bok Award

The 2003 Priscilla and Bart Bok Awards

Terry Oswalt (center) of the Florida Institute of Technology, a member of the AAS-ASP Special Awards Team, presents the 2003 Bok Awards to Lisa Doreen Glukhovsky and Jonathan Nicolas Sick. Courtesy of Terry Oswalt.

Lisa Doreen Glukhovsky of New Milford High School in New Milford, Connecticut, received the 2003 First Place Pricilla and Bart Bok Prize and a $5,000 scholarship for a project whose results were within 1% of those predicted by JPL scientists. The Bok Awards, jointly sponsored by the ASP and the American Astronomical Society (AAS), were presented on May 15 at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Cleveland, Ohio.

Glukhovsky's project was "A Rapid, Accurate Method of Determining the Distance to Near-Earth Asteroids". For a number of potentially-hazardous asteroids, she planned simultaneous (within a fraction of a second) two-site observations from widely-separated observatories in Europe and the United States. Glukhovsky coordinated all of the observations, which were made by high school students and amateur astronomers. After successful imaging sessions, Glukhovsky used the parallax shift with image processing/astrometry software to determine each asteroid's distance. She submitted 14 observations to the Minor Planet Center, which assisted NASA scientists in refining the asteroids' orbits.

The following day, Glukhovsky was one of three students to receive the top Intel Fair Award, the Young Scientist Award, which is accompanied by a $50,000 scholarship and a computer.

The recipient of the Second Place Pricilla and Bart Bok Award was Jonathan Nicholas Sick, from Queen Elizbeth High School, Calgary, Alberta. Sick's project was "Development of an Adaptively Controlled Telescope". Sick designed a 32-cm automated telescope and prepared software that will orient the telescope, identify star fields, and track sky objects. The Second Place Bok Prize is a $3,000 scholarship. — Jeanne E. Bishop

The AAS, ASP and IAPPP have co-sponsored special awards in astronomy at the annual ISEF since 1991.

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