Founded in 2013, the USAAAO started as a group of six high school students who were interested in astronomy and astrophysics. They had heard about the Physics and Chemistry Olympiads that currently existed to foster students’ interest in the sciences. When they learned that there was an international-level astronomy Olympiad, and that more surprisingly, the US did not participate, they wanted to change that. They came into contact with each other via email, and collaborated to form the USAAAO.
That year, they took the initiative of forming a team to represent the USA at the 7th International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics. Receiving two individual honorable mentions and 11th place in the team competition, they returned and began preparation to establish a national selection procedure for future teams.
13th IOAA, Hungary, 2019
Vincent Bian – Gold Medal, Prize for Best Data Analysis Paper
Joseph McCarty – Gold Medal
April Cheng – Silver Medal
Leo Yao – Silver Medal
Sean Chen – Bronze Medal
Albert Qin – Bronze Medal
Anthony Ou – Bronze Medal
Daniel Chang – Bronze Medal
Dean Zhou – Honorable Mention
Devin Hoover – 1st Place in the Poster Competition
Team Leaders: Ioana Zelko and Natasa Dragovic
12th IOAA, China, 2018
Joseph McCarty – Gold Medal
Vincent Bian – Gold Medal
April Cheng – Silver Medal
Sahil Pontula – Bronze Medal
Andy Zhu – Honorable Mention
David Yue
Team Leaders: Ioana Zelko and Natasa Dragovic
11th IOAA, Thailand, 2017
Hagan Hensley – Gold Medal
Jason Yang – Gold Medal
Siddharth Sridhar – Honorable Mention
Andy Zhu – Honorable Mention
Shubhanga Ballal – Honorable Mention
Team Leaders: Ana-Roxana Pop and Ioana Zelko
10th IOAA, India, 2016
Srijon Mukherjee – Gold Medal
Hagan Hensley – Silver Medal
Luke Qi – Silver Medal
Robert Yang – Honorable Mention
Wonjun Yoon – Honorable Mention
Team Leader: Roohi Dalal
9th IOAA, Indonesia, 2015
Jeffrey Huang – Silver Medal
Luke Qi – Bronze Medal
Srijon Mukherjee – Bronze Medal
Sara Anjum – Honorable Mention
Hariharan Sezhiyan
Team Leader: Luke Finnerty
8th IOAA, Romania, 2014
Luke Finnerty – Bronze Medal
David Wang – Honorable Mention
Claire Burch – Honorable Mention
Evan Tey – Honorable Mention
Team Leaders: Tad Komacek and Roohi Dalal
7th IOAA, Greece, 2013
Bryan Brzycki – Honorable Mention
Luke Finnerty – Honorable Mention
Claire Burch
Roohi Dalal
Silas Grossberndt
Team Leader: Carlos Preising
