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AAS - 2012

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 2011 and 2012 NITARP teams attended the 2012 January AAS meeting in Austin, TX. The 2011 class was presenting results and the 2012 class was starting up. We sent about 60 people to the AAS (the largest delegation to date) and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS. We also got a smattering of coverage in local media outlets.

Quotes

  • We put so much time and effort into this project, and it was very rewarding to see the finished poster at the convention with all of the graduate students and scientists. Being able to present our work to these people and understand what I was talking about was my favorite part of the convention. It was satisfying to see how much we impressed all of these professionals when we are only in high school.
  • I was bombarded with a lot of information in a short period of time. I had no idea there was so much research going on in Astronomy. Astronomers are very eager to explain their research and future goals. A very friendly bunch.
  • I did not anticipate the amount of people that were not NITARP but instead simply "fellow" astronomers and researchers that came by our team's poster to discuss our findings. That for me was unanticipated but instead was a most pleasant surprise.[..] It was truly surprising yet very exhilarating as I answered questions and then asked them about their research and how they tackled certain problems.
  • I did not anticipate being so challenged in the NITARP research.
  • I assumed that [this project] would require a great deal of data analysis, what I didn't grasp until after this meeting was how focused and detailed the analysis would be. The steps in understanding that are gained through the analysis are much smaller than I anticipated they would be for the amount of work that is done.

Related Teams

AAS - 2012