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Summer Visit - 2012 - SOFIA

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos.

The SOFIA team came to visit in May 2012. This team is unusually small for NITARP teams; the only teacher is Tim Spuck, and he brought one student. The scientist mentors are Dr. Mike Werner and Dr. Raghvendra Sahai.


Quotes

  • Astronomy is a lot less black and white than what I expected from a research project. You can't replicate observations and are always working within the limitations of the telescopes, data rendering processes, etc. There isn't always a clear-cut answer or right way to do things.
  • I was surprised at how quickly we moved through different steps and tasks when able to focus on it all day and work together at the same time.

The application period is now closed for NITARP 2025. We will release our selection for the 2025 class at the 2025 January AAS.