Shawn Domagal-Goldman (NASA HQ) preps everyone before the 7 PM FameLab finals at AbSciCon.

Daniella Scalice (NASA Ames) scouts the room.

MC Nichelle Nichols (aka Uhura) warms up during the rehearsal.

Judge David Grinspoon (Denver Museum of Natures and Science) is distracted by a larger force-field.

Mary Voytek, head of Astrobiology at NASA HQ.

Mary acts out the pre-show.

Our three judges share David's burrito.

Judge Linda Billings (GWU / NASA).

Judges Bill Margol (National Geographic) and David Grinspoon.

Judge David Grinspoon (Denver Museum of Nature and Science)

Contestants line up in the ballroom...

FameLab-er Heather Graham catches up on some live-blogging before the main event.

Kate Follette (U of Arizona).

Lucas Joel (UC Riverside) looks for inspiration beforehand.

Parag Vaishampayan (JPL).

And on to the first contestant!

Michael Chaffin (U. Colorado), "Does Science Require Faith?'

Judge Bill Margol.

Judge Linda Billings.

The three judges have assembled. Two of the three have swapped their beers for bottled water, while David Grinspoon holds out.

Kate Follette (U of Arizona), "They Call it Space for a Reason."

Speaker #3, Heather Graham (PSU), on "#OccupyTheUniverse"

Noah Hammond (SETI) discusses "The Late Heavy Bombardment: The Solar System's Civil War."

Lucas Joel (UC Riverside) on "The Curious Case of the First Animal Movement" !

Brendan Mullan (Penn State) tries to answer the question "Where are All the Aliens?"

Liz Percak-Dennett (U. Wisconsin) advocates for 5' 10" of geologic time.

Aomawa Shields (U. Washington) talks on ____.

Rebecca Turk MacLeod uses her prop to bolster the case for "The RNA World."

As Uhura watches over!

Parag Vaishampayan (JPL) talks about ____.

And finally, FameLab Atlanta contestant #11, Nicole Yunger Halpern, tells why it is true that "I Love the Smell of Evolution in the Morning... It Smells Like Physics."

The FameLab clock counts down from 3:00.

With the contestants finished up, the judges have receded to their chambers. Now it's Nichelle Nichols' turn to tell highly entertaining stories of the early days of her career... pre-FameLab.

All eleven contestants...

Steve Burgess (Cheltenham Science Festival -- the UK organizer of FameLab).

Shawn's nametag may be misspelled, but that does not prevent him from getting the audience ready for the judges' results.

And the "People's Choice" winner is...

...

Aomawa Shields!!!

Woo-hoo Aomawa!!

And the overall winner is... Brendan Mullan!

Hi-fives all around to Brendan (who had been doing the same to everyone else during the rest of the show).

The crowd in Atlanta.

Congratulations to everyone. (That's NASA HQ exobiology program officer Michael New at the center.)

Live long and prosper!

Group shot with all the Atlanta participants, as well as everyone in Atlanta who participated in the FameLab prelims held in DC, Denver, and __, plus the judges and organizers.

All the Atlanta FameLab contestants...

Atlanta FameLab contestants with judges and organizers.

Aomawa, Uhura, Brendan...

Grinspoon covets the orb.

The organizers are bit disorganized...