On November 29, members of the Chanticleer Intelligence Brief (CIB) met at the Coastal Science Center Complex for the fall 2023 CIB Awards Ceremony. The ceremony is a longstanding CIB tradition that marks the culmination of the semester. The event aims to recognize the hard work of CIB recruits, members, analysts, and senior analysts, and to renew everyone’s pledge to make help grow the organization even more in the coming year.

This semester’s celebration marked the 16th CIB Awards Ceremony, in the tradition of the group’s first-ever ceremony, which was held in May of 2016. In terms of numbers the membership of the CIB remained strong throughout this semester, and many great projects were brought to fruition by members at all levels of the organization. The Awards Ceremony provided the CIB with an opportunity to recognize a number of individuals and groups who did outstanding work in the past several months.

During the ceremony, the CIB recognized its most promising members based on the consistency of their work output this semester. The head of each desk nominated a member for the Regional Expert Award, which is given for distinguished semester-long performance as a CIB member. The award winners were: Luke Miller (Americas); Nicholas Utermahlen (Europe); Joshua Koval (Russia); Aubrey Belanger (Africa); Alex Wiggins (Asia); Metan Patel (Middle East); Samuel Luckett (China); and Jordan Maple (Cyber/Transnational).

Additionally, the editors of the CIB’s Weekly Intelligence Brief publication recognized one of the contributors this semester whose work for the publication represents the highest standards of content selection, analysis and written delivery. The award recipient was Samuel Luckett (China).

The organization recognized its Critical Mission Center (CMC) directors, who completed their internships in the Applied Intelligence Project this semester. These are: Brandon Macallair (CMC SIERRA), Hannah Albert (CMC WHISKEY), and Alejandro Olivares. These Directors were surrounded by 9 Critical Mission Center Support Officers, who are now eligible to complete this internship in a subsequent semester.

The following awards were presented to the following CMC participants: The Highest Quality Oral Intelligence Product Award, presented to the CMC Director with the best overall delivery of oral intelligence briefs, went to Brandon Macallair (SIERRA). The Highest Quality Written Intelligence Product Award, presented to the CMC Director with the best overall written reports, went to Hannah Albert (WHISKEY). Finally, the Critical Mission Center Support Excellence Award, which recognizes the two most valuable CMC Support Officers of the semester, went to Mason Marlowe (SIERRA) and Ryan Lindsey (WHISKEY).

On behalf of the CIB Executive Team, CIB Faculty Mentor Dr. Joseph Fitsanakis recognized the longstanding work of our Executive Officer, Sierra Mason, who will be heading to California to complete a prestigious internship in the spring 2024 semester. Sierra will be succeeded by Europe Deputy Head of Desk Sarantis Markaris. Longtime CIB member and executive officer Scott Boster (currently the CIB’s Chief Operations Officer) was presented with the CIB Achievement Award. This recognition is offered by the CIB Executive Team to an individual member of the organization who has gone above and beyond the call of duty in contributing to the CIB’s efforts.

The final recognition of the evening went to the CIB Americas Desk, headed by Scott Boster, for winning this semester’s CIB Weekly News Trivia Quiz. The Americas Desk placed seven points ahead of the Europe Desk, which did not win this title for the first time after three semesters of dominating the CIB Weekly News Trivia Quiz. The Africa Desk won this semester’s Cool List Award.

The CIB wishes to thank all of its Executive Team officers, its senior analysts and analysts, as well as its recruits, for a highly successful semester. Our organization looks forward to continuing to strengthen our work and output in coming semesters. We also want to congratulate our graduating members and wish them our very best as they embark on their next steps in life.