Chelen Johnson
The team examined the Spitzer Enhanced Imaging Products catalog to find the most unusual and faintest infrared excess objects serendipitously detected by the Spitzer Space Telescope.
I also really like helping new teachers, let them share what they know fill in gaps, help them feel included and not overwhelmed. I want to do more of this, and need to find ways to direct this more effectively in my school and district.
This experience convinced me even further that I can push myself to learn even more each and every day. I started out feeling very overwhelmed and unprepared last year. I forced myself to work through my unease and wound up much more comfortable. I learned that astronomers are much more down-to-earth than I envisioned a lot of them to be and so many of them are very willing to go out of their way to explain things when we have questions.
It was very special to be in the room when the announcement of planet Kepler 10b (an estimated 1.4 X the size of the Earth) was discovered. I turned to my student Inga and asked, "How does it feel to be one of the first people on planet Earth to know about this discovery?" She replied, "I never thought of it like that ... it's pretty cool."
