Chelen Johnson
This virtual team collects all independent research presented in 2010, and done by NITARP or Spitzer alumni with students outside of a formal NITARP team. Four different teams presented results in 2010!
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.
One of the things I love about astronomy is the very fact that we are not laboratory-bound scientists. Our lab is the universe, a constantly changing petri dish in the sky, so to say, and if you aren’t looking, you miss it!
I now have scientific street cred with my students!
