AAS - 2017

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 2016 and 2017 NITARP teams attended the 2017 January AAS meeting in Dallas, TX. The 2016 class was presenting results and the 2017 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. All of the posters we presented are here:

2016 teams:
- Science Poster - Orr et al., "Finding High Quality Young Star Candidates in Ceph C Using X-ray, Optical, and IR Data"
- Education Poster - Orr et al., "STEM Education is Missing This ..."
- Science Poster - Kilts et al., "Searching for Short-Term Variable Active Galactic Nuclei: A Vital Step Towards Using AGN as Standard Candles"
- Education Poster - Kohrs et al., "NITARP: Changing Perceptions of Science Among Secondary Students and Teachers"
Returning Alumni teams:
- Education Poster - Bensel & Cool, "Are We Alone? GAVRT Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) Project"
- Education Poster - Tran et al., "Analysis of Visual Double Stars"
- Science Poster - Johnson et al., "An Infrared Search for Young Stellar Objects in IC 1396"
- Science Poster - Wilson et al., "Searching for Infrared Excesses around White Dwarf Stars"
- Education Poster - Linder et al., "Confirming and Improving Ross Variable Star RV Del"
- Science Poster - Linder et al., "Rotational Study of Ambiguous Taxonomic Classified Asteroids"
NITARP Management:
- Evaluations And Impact (presented as education poster): Rebull et al., "The NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program (NITARP): Lessons Learned"

Quotes

[student:] At the beginning of the program I wanted to be a medical examiner. Then throughout the year I learned more about astronomy and the processes that astronomers go through and I just want to do more of that. I still want to be a medical examiner, but astronomy, discovering exoplanets, whether or not they could potentially sustain life, how stars, planetary systems, galaxies are formed, that is what really sparks my curiosity. At the conference I got excited about everything there that I forgot to eat and even got up early. I basically ran on excitement because everything was so fun to learn about that, and I want to always feel like that.
[student:] I would say that I learned how to do research, understand space and the formation of stars, how data from telescopes is used, how to be more confident, how to ask more questions, and how to work better in a team. I experienced the joy of discovering my passion, and I started on a path to my dream job.
[student:] After this experience I find astronomy more interesting and I see it as a bigger field than what i thought it was before.
Before attending AAS, I didn’t realize astronomy was so “specialized.” I thought about astronomy in general terms, but didn’t realize how narrowly focused astronomy can be (stellar astronomy, cosmology, astrobiology, etc.).
The scientific method cannot be narrowed down to 6 simple steps. The process is very much ingrained in trial and error and coming up with new solutions to problems.

AAS - 2017

Quotes

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