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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 changed my views not just about astronomy, but science in general because it showed me just how much little things interact with each other and form a big picture understanding. This will change the way I look at almost all my subjects, as now I will start thinking from the get-go where everything fits in the goal I am trying to achieve, whether it be economics or physics.
  • What amazed me was how ingenious astronomers were with using data to its fullest and finding patterns in data that one set of astronomers see as unwanted “noise” in their data. One astronomer's noise as another astronomer’s treasure!
  • Overall, this experience was one of the best experiences educationally, personally and professionally. It was great to be part of a project and it forced me to learn, very quickly. I liked how I didn’t know everything about my project to begin with. It made me become a better learner because I was asking the questions for understanding the content. In the end, I was in charge of my learning and I learned so much because of it.
  • I will definitely be using the skills and the knowledge that I acquired in the NITARP program in the future for my own and for my future students’ research.
  • [student:] This experience made me realize that astronomy is a lot more complicated than what we think. I am so happy I got to have this experience at such a young age because not that many people have gotten a chance to do anything like this in their lives.

Related Teams

AAS - 2014