AAS - 2017

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 2016 and 2017 NITARP teams attended the 2017 January AAS meeting in Dallas, TX. The 2016 class was presenting results and the 2017 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:

2016 teams:
- Science Poster - Orr et al., "Finding High Quality Young Star Candidates in Ceph C Using X-ray, Optical, and IR Data"
- Education Poster - Orr et al., "STEM Education is Missing This ..."
- Science Poster - Kilts et al., "Searching for Short-Term Variable Active Galactic Nuclei: A Vital Step Towards Using AGN as Standard Candles"
- Education Poster - Kohrs et al., "NITARP: Changing Perceptions of Science Among Secondary Students and Teachers"
Returning Alumni teams:
- Education Poster - Bensel & Cool, "Are We Alone? GAVRT Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Project"
- Education Poster - Tran et al., "Analysis of Visual Double Stars"
- Science Poster - Johnson et al., "An Infrared Search for Young Stellar Objects in IC 1396"
- Science Poster - Wilson et al., "Searching for Infrared Excesses around White Dwarf Stars"
- Education Poster - Linder et al., "Confirming and Improving Ross Variable Star RV Del"
- Science Poster - Linder et al., "Rotational Study of Ambiguous Taxonomic Classified Asteroids"
NITARP Management:
- Evaluations And Impact (presented as education poster): Rebull et al., "The NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP): Lessons Learned"

Quotes

[student:] This program gave me the confidence I needed to apply to schools for a major in astrophysics. I always doubted my mathematical capabilities, but I’ve realized that if I truly want to pursue research in astronomy I need to study astrophysics. It is my dream to work in public relations for observatories, universities, or NASA. I want to make science accessible and easy to understand for the general public, so I want to have a strong background in research and experience.
[student:] I did not expect the astronomy community to come together so well. Everyone seemed to be having a lot of fun, both young and old. They talked to each other with so much respect and experienced a lot of enjoyment while listening and explaining information.
[student:] I didn't expect that we would grow so close after connecting during just 5 days.
[student:] [this experience] did change the way I thought about astronomy and astronomers. There is a lot of time and effort put into the research the astronomers do. Astronomers also have to have pretty good social skills to be able to present their findings to other people.
This experience will be hard to top. I may try to create a partnership with staff at a local university or community college to do more research projects. I also want to get better at programming. That is a valuable skill to share with students. NITARP helped me to see these opportunities.

AAS - 2017

Quotes

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