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AAS - 2014

The Winter American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting is the largest meeting of professional astronomers in the world. NITARP educators attend an AAS first to meet their team, then they go home and work remotely for much of the year, and then attend an AAS to present their results.  At any given AAS, then, we could have two NITARP classes attending - those finishing up, and those getting started. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The 2013 and 2014 NITARP teams attended the 2014 January AAS meeting in National Harbor, MD (outside of Washington, DC). The 2013 class was presenting results and the 2014 class was starting up. We had a lot of alumni raise their own money to come back as well. We sent about 75 people to the AAS and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS. One of our participants, Peggy Piper, participated in a Congressional briefing on Thursday! All the posters we presented are linked from the team's pages below, except for HG-WELS and SIRXS, because they are the two new teams.

Quotes

  • [student! :] This experience has changed the way I work in the classroom in that I am applying simple scientific practices to the way I study and do homework, collaborating with others to ensure I have a full understanding of the whole picture.
  • [student:] I went to the public policy session that had a panel of people from the government. †I was surprised to learn that the people who act as advisors and such for science policy in the Congress actually have strong backgrounds (PhD/experience) in science.
  • [student:] Seeing the same people giving the talks coming into the cold to see stars made me realize that they were incredibly passionate about their work, not only as a scientific subject but as a personal mission. For me as a student, it helped me realize that it's more important to pursue a subject because you want to do it than to do so for the sake of pursuing a subject, and it will have a definite influence on my academic decisions.
  • [student:] Overall, I learned that astronomy is much more of an organized community than I otherwise imagined.
  • It was great to see the finished projects the NITARP teachers and students worked on. We made a few new friends and valuable connections with other scientists.

Related Teams

AAS - 2014