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AAS - 2015

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 2014 and 2015 NITARP teams attended the 2015 January AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. The 2014 class was presenting results and the 2015 class was starting up. We had many alumni raise money to come back as well. We sent about 50 people to the AAS and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS. All of the posters we presented are here:

Quotes

  • [student:] I started this project knowing absolutely nothing about astronomy. My idea of an astronomer was a man (or woman) in a spacesuit prancing on the moon. I was completely unaware of the breadth of astronomy as I have never taken a class and have never been exposed to anything close to astronomy (haven't even taken a physics class before). I now realize that astronomers are one of the most friendliest, smartest, collaborative bunch of people, and that they don't have to be covered in white bubbly suits to be called astronomers.
  • For some reason, introductory astronomy textbooks tend not to focus much on SEDs or color-color plots. However, these tools have cropped up in each of my NITARP projects. I imagine this is not a coincidence! I’d like to find a way to introduce these two key concepts in my introductory astronomy course.
  • [student:] I was worried I wouldn't understand anything or that I wouldn't be able to answer questions asked of me. I felt none of these things, and everyone was super friendly, nice, and personable.
  • [student:] I plan to now major in astronomy before going to law school, so that I can do science based law. Someone at the conference suggested this to me when I mentioned that I really love law, and they told me that since space travel is an upcoming field that I should look into that.
  • [student:] I don't always have to be right to be successful. Sometimes, it's okay to take several roads and make mistakes, as long as there is a somewhat clear goal in mind and a will to work.

Related Teams

AAS - 2015