Chelen Johnson
This virtual team collects all independent research presented in 2012, and done by NITARP or Spitzer alumni with students outside of a formal NITARP team. Two different teams presented posters in 2012.
Attended Kepler announcement of the new planets. Later that day teachers who were actually teaching in my high school e-mailed me to tell me about the planets just discovered. I had to tell them I'd known about that for hours. I was there at the announcement by the scientists involved.
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.
I did not anticipate the amount of people that were not "NITARP" but instead simply "fellow" astronomers and researchers that came by our team's poster to discuss our findings. That for me was [..] was a most pleasant surprise.
