Chelen Johnson
This virtual team collects all independent research presented in 2017, and done by NITARP or Spitzer alumni with (or without) students outside of a formal NITARP team.
I thought the talks and posters were great. Watching scientists talk to each other and question each other was interesting.
[The most interesting thing during the summer trip was] the change in the students and their growth in confidence. The a-ha moments when the big picture came into focus for them. The tour of
JPL was fantastic, too.
The "new" astronomy has become something we all knew was coming: handling huge chunks of data and learning how to mine this information from sets so large that it is simply mind boggling. The interesting thing is that many people are not aware of this, notably teachers in the trenches.
