The Cornell Department of Astronomy has established the annual Cranson W. and Edna B. Shelley Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate and Graduate Research in Astronomy. The first winners are graduate student Jeremy Darling and undergraduate Nirattaya Khumsame.
Darling, who receives an award of $500, is conducting a survey at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico of highly luminous galaxies known as OH (hydroxyl) megamasers. His academic advisers are professors of astronomy Martha Haynes and Riccardo Giovanelli. Khumsame, who receives $250, has worked with Joseph Veverka, professor of astronomy and chair of the department, and Peter Thomas and Damon Simonelli, researchers in the department's Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, on analyzing new images of Jupiter's small inner moons obtained by NASA's Galileo spacecraft.
The funds for the awards come from the estate of the late Maryanne Shelley Jessup MacConochie in memory of her parents, Cranson and Edna Shelley, who died in the 1950s. Two of MacConochie's sisters, Vanne Shelley Cowie ('57) and Edna Shelley Gates ('37) attended Cornell. In addition, one niece and two nephews are Cornell graduates. MacConochie, who died in 1998, was a music major at Syracuse University but had a lifelong interest in astronomy.
A statement from the family reads: "This award is presented by the Shelley family to recognize achievements which are the product of that same insatiable curiosity and desire for knowledge that motivated their parents. The family hopes that future generations of astronomy students will continue to probe the mysteries of the universe in which we live, with vigor, determination, patience and, above all, personal satisfaction in the quest for knowledge."
In addition to the MacConochie estate astronomy awards, the Cowie family established a design program in the College of Human Ecology in honor of Edna Shelley Gates and donated the daffodils that bloom each spring on the shores of Beebe Lake in honor of Cranson and Edna Shelley
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