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AAS - 2013

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.

We were out in force at the AAS 2013 meeting in Long Beach, CA! A record number of NITARP-affiliated people attended, including the 2012 class finishing up and the 2013 class getting going. The 80 or so NITARP-affiliated folks made up about 3% of the AAS attendees.

Special article on AAS attendees!  And don't miss Danielle Miller's blog!

Quotes

  • Before ever having experienced an American Astronomical Society meeting, I thought I was well versed in the astronomer's culture. After taking numerous classes, doing hands-on labs, and even having worked in the field of astronomy education for several years now I also thought I knew what an astronomer did. My experience has been one of culture shock. [...] The AAS conference is a factory for knowledge and truth about the Universe. As David Helfand, president of the society said in his opening remarks, "We do astronomy because it defines us as human beings." I'm just now truly beginning to understand.
  • I found it most interesting to see the scientific process in action. Scientists were questioning scientists, sometimes fairly aggressively.
  • I was hesitant at first to speak to folks at their posters for fear of being judged unfit for discussion, but everyone I talked to was open to conversation and gladly talked about their work at a level I could process. I think many were happy that someone cared enough to stop by their poster.
  • [My scientist was] fantastic! .. helped us understand our research goals very quickly and made some difficult concepts very easy to understand [...] good at helping us see the big picture behind our project.
  • [student:] I realized that astronomers are very nice people, and very helpful. They love to talk about their research, which is not something that I'm complaining about. Listening to them talk about everything they've done made me almost as excited as they were!

Related Teams

AAS - 2013