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Announcements

2024-2025 Updates

2025 IJAS State Exposition

University of Illinois - Urbana/Champaign

Friday, May 2, 2025 - Saturday, May 3, 2025

The State Exposition will be held on Friday, May 2, 2025 – Saturday, May 3, 2025 at the University of Illinois - Urbana/Champaign. This is a NEW two-day format with THREE POSTER judging sessions. The PAPER session has moved to Saturday. Students can only compete in ONE event at the State Exposition, either the paper or the poster event. This new format will allow for students to present to more judges, more reliable scoring, and even more student events. Students are required to be present at ALL THREE poster sessions. Students will be allowed to leave and experience UIUC on Friday after meeting with their judges during each session. NO special judging sessions or special time arrangements will be given to any students. Stay tuned to IJAS social media feeds for up-to-date information!

2023-2024 Updates

The State Exposition will be held on May 3-4, 2024 at Millikin University in Decatur, Illinois. More information coming soon!

The contest deadlines for the Design and Essay contests have been updated. View the "Additional IJAS Contests" page for more information. We would like to see many submissions!

  • Student decal design and T-shirt design contest submissions are due on March 9, 2024.
  • Student essay contest submissions are due on March 16, 2024.

2022 Contest Winners

This was the first year that IJAS introduced the Decal Design Contest. Below are the winning and finalist designs. The winner of the 2022 IJAS Decal Design Contest is Winnie Choi and the finalists include Sela Nucum, Finn Donnelly, and Peter Jankowski. Congratulations to the winner and our finalists this year! The decals will be made available for purchase at the 2022 IJAS State Exposition on Friday and Saturday.

Winner


Finalist


Finalist


Finalist



Continuing the tradition from past years, the IJAS hosted the Artistic Design Contest once again. Here are the winning and finalist designs. The winning design will be printed on the t-shirts and the finalist design will be on the program cover for Friday night’s banquet. The winner of the 2022 IJAS Artistic Design Contest is Yoonseo Jung and the finalist is Uma Pulugurtha. Congratulations to the winner and our finalist for this year!  



Thank you to students who have submitted their essay in the 2022 IJAS Essay Contest! The winner of this year's essay contest is Indigo Wall! The finalists are: Gabriella Thalos and Sophie Mae McPhail! Finalists were invited to present their essay to the IJAS Student Board on the morning of Friday, April 22 at the Peoria Civic Center. Congratulations!

Proclamation by the Governor of Illinois

The governor of Illinois has proclaimed April 22, 2022 and April 23, 2022 as

Illinois Junior Academy of Science Days.


Our 2022 Keynote Speaker


Coralie Adam will be our 2022 State Science Exposition Keynote Speaker at the banquet held on April 22nd, 2022. She is the Lead Optical Navigation Engineer at KinetX Aerospace, the first privately held company to provide navigation and flight dynamics expertise to NASA. Born and raised in Illinois, she is a graduate of Palatine High School and an alumna of Adler Planetarium’s Astro-Science Workshop. She holds a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering and Astronomy from the University of Illinois, and an M.S. in Aerospace Engineering Sciences from the University of Colorado.

Ms. Adam first started studying and imaging asteroids at age 16, and has since been involved in many small body exploration missions including OSIRIS-REx, New Horizons, ROSETTA, Stardust-NExT, EPOXI, and Lucy. Since 2011, she has worked in the Space Navigation and Flight Dynamics division at KinetX where she has made significant contributions to the exploration of small bodies in our solar system. Ms. Adam was a navigator for the historic first reconnaissance of the Pluto system by NASA’s New Horizons mission in 2015. Next, she began working on the OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission – a challenging mission that has now achieved multiple spaceflight records, including smallest body every orbited by a spacecraft, and first U.S. mission to collect a sample from the surface of an asteroid.

For her contributions to NASA’s planetary exploration initiatives, she has received many honors, including a NASA Early Career Achievement medal and main belt asteroid 128314 dedicated in her name. Adam's enthusiasm for public outreach inspired the building of Muddy Run Observatory in Lancaster, PA, where one of the telescopes was dedicated in her name.

Ms. Adam is currently the Optical Navigation Lead at KinetX, where she manages a team of engineers supporting multiple planetary exploration missions. In her next role as Deputy Navigation Chief on NASA’s recently-launched Lucy mission, Ms. Adam is looking forward to exploring a new population of asteroids, the Jupiter Trojans, which will further expand our scientific understanding of our solar system and planet’s origins.

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