• NASA
  • IPAC

AAS - 2020

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 2019 and 2020 NITARP teams attended the 2020 January AAS meeting in Honolulu, HI. The 2019 class was presenting results and the 2020 class was starting up. We had 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:

2019 Teams:

NITARP Management:

Returning Alumni Teams:

Quotes

  • It was great to experience working with students more as colleagues than students.
  • [As a result of this experience,] In my engineering course, I’ve revised the labs to generate more data, and am building more Excel work into the projects. In Algebra, I’m finding more opportunities to use Excel, and in Geometry I’m incorporating astronomical concepts and experiences.
  • [student:] I think the most interesting thing was to see the number of females within the astronomy community as it feels as though women go underrepresented in many science fields. I did not anticipate as many women to be at IPAC or at AAS and I enjoyed seeing that.
  • Students learn more from doing and by doing a real research project they learn more than any standardized test could ever hope to measure.
  • [student:] This experience definitely changed my thoughts about astronomy and astronomers. I thought that it would be a bunch of old, white guys who were socially awkward. After getting to meet astronomers and work with some, I realized that was not the case. They are a diverse and extremely friendly group who are more than happy to help you learn.

Related Teams

AAS - 2020