The Academy's Annual Meeting and Awards Banquet is one of the premier events of the year, featuring:

• A program that typically includes a world class speaker. This year, we have Dr. Brendan Kelly, of the Office of Polar Programs at NSF. Brendan, a marine biologist, uses a trio of seal-sniffing Labrador retrievers to locate ringed seals at their snow-covered breathing holes. He learned how to use the Labradors to find ringed seals from an Inuit hunter in the Northwest Territories of Canada. Brendan claims that the dogs are the co-program managers; Brendan himself is there only to take notes. Note however, that Brendan -- not the dogs -- will be making the presentation.
  
• An awards ceremony that on more than one occasion has anticipated a later Nobel prize.
  
• A venue (Meadowlark Botanical Gardens) that has been voted among the top three event locations in suburban Washington DC, by the Washingtonian magazine. The building features a two-thousand square foot skylight, an indoor stream and fountain. Glass walls look out on The Atrium's outside gardens which showcase some of the best ornamental collections at Meadowlark.