This week, we saw another example of the importance of software in astronomy research. We are pleased to announce the establishment of an annual software prize from the UMD Astronomy Department for research software written by a registered undergraduate or graduate student while the student was at University of Maryland, College Park. The source code of the software must be open and assigned an acceptable open source license.

The prize consists of a certificate and a cash award, which will be presented at the Astronomy Department annual award ceremony. We reserve the right to withhold the prize if the criteria are not sufficiently met.

More details will be available later; if you would like additional information, please contact us.

Peter Teuben, teuben@astro.umd.edu
Alice Allen, aallen@ascl.net