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.
12th IOAA
Joseph McCarty – Gold Medal
Vincent Bian – Gold Medal
April Cheng – Silver Medal
Sahil Pontula – Bronze Medal
Andy Zhu – Honorable Mention
David Yue
10th IOAA
Srijon Mukherjee – Gold Medal
Hagan Hensley – Silver Medal
Luke Qi – Silver Medal
Robert Yang – Honorable Mention
Wonjun Yoon – Honorable Mention
9th IOAA
Jeffrey Huang – Silver Medal
Luke Qi – Bronze Medal
Srijon Mukherjee – Bronze Medal
Sara Anjum – Honorable Mention
Hariharan Sezhiyan
8th IOAA
Luke Finnerty – Bronze Medal
David Wang – Honorable Mention
Claire Burch – Honorable Mention
Evan Tey – Honorable Mention
7th IOAA
Bryan Brzycki – Honorable Mention
Luke Finnerty – Honorable Mention
Claire Burch
Roohi Dalal
Silas Grossberndt
