Chelen Johnson
LLAMMa: Luisa, Laura, Alexandra, Milton -- looking for new YSOs in Ceph-C, using IR, optical, and X-rays.
[My first AAS] was an excellent experience all around, and gives me confidence that my team and I will be able to do a good job with our project and be great representatives of the NITARP program.
Finally much of the [AAS 2009] invited talk by Eugene Churazov on Galaxy Clusters and Black Holes I found to be understandable because he used many equations from ideal gas laws that are familiar to high school teachers and their students. In talking with Dr. Churazov after his talk, he re-emphasized how far one could go on this topic with these familiar and seemingly simple equations.
Our lead astronomer, Luisa Rebull, has a very energetic style and pushes her team to the limits. Our group of teachers put in many hours each week for a full year to learn the topic or skill at hand followed by a weekly teleconference. The pressure was on and I loved it!