By David J. Eicher
Enthusiastic teenager Benjamin Clark of Lancaster, Pennsylvania (right, with Scott Roberts), won this year's National Young Astronomer award. Ben's project analyzed radial velocities of M dwarf stars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey data, looking at the close binary fraction to shed light on ideas about star formation. He will attend Caltech starting next year.
Related blog: On the road: ALCON 2011, day 2