• NASA
  • IPAC

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:


Quotes

  • [student:] There are so many parts and places and people working on the same thing but in lots of different ways. I better understand why adults go to conferences and why they are important – so many ideas and people talking about their work.
  • [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’ve learned to be less critical of myself. I’ve realized that the actual learning process is much more valuable than always getting the correct answer. I’ve been less discouraged when I get confused because I know understand that it is good to be confused, and that even the greatest astronomers get confused by problems.
  • I have realized how many different things there are to study in the universe and the different roles that people in the community can take on. Astronomy research can be complex, involve multiple layers of investigation, and play out over long time scales.
  • [student:] I think that the level of independence we were given was very good along with support, we weren't given the answers, but instead the materials to find them.

AAS - 2017