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AAS - 2011

The Winter American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting is the largest meeting of professional astronomers in the world. NITARP educators attend an AAS first to meet their team, then they go home and work remotely for much of the year, and then attend an AAS to present their results.  At any given AAS, then, we could have two NITARP classes attending - those finishing up, and those getting started. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The 2010 and 2011 NITARP teams attended the 2011 January AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. The 2010 class was presenting results and the 2011 class was starting up. Special feature article on AAS attendees!  There were nearly 60 NITARP-affiliated folks, about 2% of the attendees at the AAS meeting!! We presented 9 posters. Also see Luisa's blog entry about this.

 

Quotes

  • It was neat that Kepler's first confirmed terrestrial planet was announced during the conference.
  • I kept wishing this program would have been available when I was a kid. Wanting to be a scientist, I had no role model or support and never pursued it.
  • Although I'm sure none of us understood every word of what these professionals said, the fact that we could wrap our minds around even parts of it proves that we've come a long way in our studies.
  • [My students] were amazed to hear other scientists say "Well, I understood half of that talk," and they repeatedly heard astronomers make jokes about research itself - the not knowing, the knowing and then getting proven wrong, etc. The experience made a huge impression on them and that was food for my soul.
  • When we first met to discuss what our project was about, I admit that I felt a little overwhelmed and ill-informed. [..] By the end of Tuesday's sessions, I felt that I had a better general understanding of [my subject]. I will still need help learning the analysis, but I think I'll be able to catch on pretty quickly.

Related Teams

AAS - 2011