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AAS - 2016

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 2015 and 2016 NITARP teams attended the 2016 January AAS meeting in Kissimmee, FL. The 2015 class was presenting results and the 2016 class was starting up. We had many alumni raise money to come back as well. We sent about 50 people to the AAS and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS, and a special article on NITARP alumni at the AAS. All of the posters we presented are here:

Quotes

  • [student:] This program has made me want to be the smartest I can be and never stop learning. I want to be be knowledgable about everything (an impossible task) and this experience has taught me to self educate and never stop looking for an answer and a new question.
  • [This experience changed the way I thought about astronomers] Quite a bit. I was not exactly sure what astronomers did. What I mean is how they worked. I thought they all knew about stars and the formations they formed in the night sky. Not so. Turns out they know generalizations about most stuff but quite a bit about their area of expertise. It was interesting to ask an astronomer questions that was not in their field and have them answer, “well that is not an area I know much about…here is what I think…but it would be best if you go ask ….. that is their area.”
  • It’s addictive—this is not like any other program that you have ever been through, where you participate for a while and then finish up and then it’s just something that you did once. I have found that I don’t want to stop[...] A certain percentage of us, at least, can’t put this down once we are exposed to it.
  • [student: This program] teaches us teamwork and about the the specific astronomy subject at hand. It also gives us an excellent environment to practice and perfect the skills we learned through the process. It creates a great applied education for the people who are good with hands on learning.
  • Watching the students present the research we had been working on the last year was absolutely the best part of the experience for me. They made me so proud. [..] they charged straight ahead. Answering questions and holding their own with these professionals. They knew their limitations and when they reach them they admitted it and did not try and fake their way through.

Related Teams

AAS - 2016