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AAS - 2022

The Winter American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting is usually 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 2020/21 and 2022 NITARP teams had planned to attend the 2022 January AAS meeting in Salt Lake City, UT. However, the meeting was entirely cancelled due to COVID. We still have this special article about the NITARP teams finishing and starting up. All of the posters from the 2020/21 teams we presented are here. Most of the 2020/21 teams came instead to the June 2022 AAS meeting in Pasadena, CA instead. Those posters were iPosters, so the PDF versions that are here are still the versions from Jan 2022, but the numbers are from June 2022.

The 2022 class got started on Jan 9, just before when the winter AAS would have been held. There are two teams in 2022.


Quotes

  • The most interesting part of the whole experience was getting a glimpse of what real Science research is like–and just how variable it can be. I thought it was amazing that when the data wasn’t showing us what we expected, we were able to use different tools and shift our understanding fairly quickly.
  • The most interesting thing continues to be the experience of being treated as a social peer of scientists. This improves my confidence in the classroom when working with any kind of science. And I believe this confidence, rooted as it is in both the NITARP social experience AND the experience of actually having done some science (!!), is palpable to my students. This confidence makes me a more qualified emissary of Science to my students.
  • [student:] I have always wanted to be an engineer, and although NITARP hasn’t changed that ultimate goal, it has given me an extreme passion for research. Now, I want to get involved with undergraduate research as soon as possible in college, and without NITARP, I don’t think that interest would have emerged.
  • YES this experience transformed the way I think about astronomy and astronomers. There’s so much that we don’t know and are constantly learning.
  • [student:] After NITARP, I am definitely going to look out for more authentic experiences (especially when it comes to research) where I can do new, original work in a self-enriching manner. There are a lot of programs out there, many of which I have gone through, that are very structured and “follow the procedure” type experiences. NITARP is nothing like those experiences and teaches you to be innovative, creative, and original, and I’ll definitely be looking for more experiences like it.

AAS - 2022