ASS Meeting 2011

The AAS Executive Office is located on the fourth floor of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) building. The building is at the intersection of 20th Street and Florida Avenue, NW, one block from Connecticut and S Streets.

The AGU building was designed with science in mind. Completed in 1994, the front sidewalks have a model solar system embedded in the concrete, with the aphelia of the planets on Florida and the perihelia on 20th. The lobby is designed to represent the folded layers of the Earth's crust and the front desk is a large slab of petrified wood. The outer façade features surface patterns — tan bricks with blonde brick stripes and red accents — that suggest geological striations as well as a narrow belt of relief sculpture, which is a pattern of the Earth, Moon and planets. The overall building structure features an angular steel-and-glass form, reminiscent of a crystalline mineral growing out of the building. It resembles an art-deco building with modern influences.

Nearly all AAS staff members, with the exception of the journal editors and staff for the ApJ, AJ and AER, work in the DC Office. The Press Officer and Education & Outreach Coordinator currently works from home in Boston, Massachusetts.

AAS members are welcome to visit the Executive Office at any time and should contact us to arrange a visit. Regular visitors include AAS Officers, Division Officers, members attending Congressional Visits Day and members that help sort meeting abstracts. Members may rent the small conference room. The building is secured. Visitors must sign-in at the front desk.

AGU is an American Institute of Physics sister-society and has been our landlord since 1986. The AAS has always rented office space and has never owned its own building. Former landlords include AURA, Princeton and the Optical Society of America. Further historical details on the Executive Office were published in