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AAS - 2020

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 2019 and 2020 NITARP teams attended the 2020 January AAS meeting in Honolulu, HI. The 2019 class was presenting results and the 2020 class was starting up. We had 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:

2019 Teams:

NITARP Management:

Returning Alumni Teams:

Quotes

  • [student:] This experience made me realize how many jobs are under the umbrella of astronomy – how many different things you can do and learn under that umbrella. You could have any number of skills or interests and still be able to work in astronomy.
  • I would not have been able to do this on my own. It wouldn’t have even occurred to me to try! Being a part of this group provided the instruction, encouragement, and feedback necessary to get started, and to work through the challenges.
  • [student:] The most interesting thing I learned is the fact that the astronomy community, including the astronomers at NITARP, were very collaborative and certainly friendly. I usually just assumed astronomers kept to themselves and/or thought that they were too good to help a high school student like me understand their research. This welcoming community did not at all follow my expectations and showed me that the professional astronomy field, and hopefully other STEM fields, are friendly.
  • Students learn more from doing and by doing a real research project they learn more than any standardized test could ever hope to measure.
  • [student:] NITARP showed me that astronomy means more than looking up at the sky, and it also showed me that astronomers, and especially the ones at NITARP, are friendly and collaborative. Also, to add on, it showed me that astronomers are surprisingly sociable, and that astronomy requires communication skills considering they must present their research.

Related Teams

AAS - 2020