Rapf_2018Post-Doctoral Scholar
Lawence Berkely National Lab 

I am nominating Rebecca for her extensive work and dedication to the Astrobiology Graduate Conference over the past 4 years. She first attended the conference in 2014 and quickly became an indispensable member of the AbGradCon Team. She has been an organizer for the conference since 2016 when she served as a local organizer at CU boulder in charge of the Research Focus Group (RFG) 2016 content proposal guidelines. RFG had seen a decline in participation and had trouble recruiting participants in 2015 and 2016. As such, Rebecca undertook a revamping of the program and changed the name to the Proposal Writing Retreat (PWR). She instituted structural and administrative changes for PWR as well as advertising for the retreat and integrating the admissions and registration process with AbGradCon. As such, participation in the program has surged to all time highs with 25 participants in both 2017 and 2018. For the first time in 2018 the program had to be selective with over 50 applicants. In addition to her work with PWR Rebecca has been extremely involved in planning for the 2018 meeting and has stepped up as a lead external organizer. I don’t think this conference could have happened without her help. She managed the budget for the conference, worked to ensure transparency and communication between the full organizational committee and local committee members, handed communications with participants, logistics and record keeping, was a liaison with the conference hotel, edited the program, and brainstormed solutions for virtually every aspect of the conference. In addition to all her work with the conference she has become the lead author of organizational guidebooks for both AbGradCon and PWR to ensure continuity and retention of institutional memory for future organizers of the conference. She has been instrumental in organizing and maintaining the AbGradCon program for the last 3 years and is continuing her work recruiting bid sites for the 2019 and 2020 conferences and has helped develop a small organizational team working on the 2020 meeting to meet the demands of an international conference hosted by ELSI in Tokyo. The community is deeply indebted to Rebecca for all the work she has done and continues to do for us.