• NASA
  • IPAC

AAS - 2014

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 2013 and 2014 NITARP teams attended the 2014 January AAS meeting in National Harbor, MD (outside of Washington, DC). The 2013 class was presenting results and the 2014 class was starting up. We had a lot of alumni raise their own money to come back as well. We sent about 75 people to the AAS and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS. One of our participants, Peggy Piper, participated in a Congressional briefing on Thursday! All the posters we presented are linked from the team's pages below, except for HG-WELS and SIRXS, because they are the two new teams.

Quotes

  • Being at AAS was overwhelming, but enormously informative. [..] the best thing about the event was simply seeing how business is done. Some questioners at talks are part of informed discourse, some are competitive, some are off the wall, and some have an axe to grind. But mostly what came through powerfully -- and really changed my image of the field -- is how intensely collaborative the work is for the most part. I had never been to a poster session at an academic conference before. When I’ve seen high school poster sessions they seemed contrived to me. Now I understand what they are trying to model.
  • My students now see themselves as capable of more than they had before but more importantly see themselves has having a future in the world they saw through the program. Attending the AAS is an important culmination of the experience that ties the importance of science research together and offers an important glimpse into a world of possibilities for students.
  • [student:] Thank you so much for the extraordinary opportunity that this program offered me. I truly enjoyed the entire experience and am exhilarated to say that I participated in real research. The opportunity was incredible and one that I will treasure forever.
  • I really enjoyed meeting members of the other NITARP teams and comparing their experience to mine. Everyone’s experience was different, but there seemed to be an overwhelming consensus that NITARP was the most significant, educational, and enjoyable professional development experience they have ever had. I could not agree more.
  • [student:] I left [the AAS] wanting to look at the next BRC and want to keep learning astronomy.

Related Teams

AAS - 2014