Chelen Johnson
Hertzsprung-Russel diagram for Active Galactic Nuclei (HR4AGN): Using space and ground based ultraviolet, optical, and infrared images to find a correlation between the color and luminosity of gas emission and dust emission around supermassive black holes at the centers of galaxies.
NITARP also gave me a lot of confidence to explore other projects and other ways to do professional development. It's given me a lot of ways to further explore astronomy, and it's given me the confidence to do that.
I think the best part about the trip and NITARP as a whole is the chance to do authentic research and learn the methods and techniques used to tease as much information out of the data as possible. It still amazes me (and this is what I try to instill in the students in my astronomy classes) that we can learn so much from a tiny point of light if we are just clever enough to know how to look at it.
The middle schoolers [from NITARP 2012] fielded questions from an astronomer from the Keck observatory like old pros -‐ very professional! I can’t wait to see my students do the same.