Chelen Johnson
Mining current optical and infrared databases to find variable active galactic nuclei.
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."
Words can't describe my delight and gratitude to NITARP for the "over the top" experience at AAS 217th convention in Seattle. The breadth of conveyed knowledge, the phenomenal networking, the latest science discoveries, the business and career opportunities and the educational options were astounding.
I love learning about the myriad ways astronomers figure out how to make lemonade out of lemons. It almost seems like cheating sometimes, but it isn't. Astronomers are just so crafty when it comes to figuring out how to make the best use of the data they have.
