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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

  • [student:] The most interesting thing I learned is the fact that the astronomy community, including the astronomers at NITARP, were very collaborative and certainly friendly. I usually just assumed astronomers kept to themselves and/or thought that they were too good to help a high school student like me understand their research. This welcoming community did not at all follow my expectations and showed me that the professional astronomy field, and hopefully other STEM fields, are friendly.
  • I do not think I can properly put into words what it meant to me for you to take the chance on me. I appreciate everything I have been given and will pay it forward to my future students. What an amazing experience!
  • [student:] NITARP showed me that astronomy means more than looking up at the sky, and it also showed me that astronomers, and especially the ones at NITARP, are friendly and collaborative. Also, to add on, it showed me that astronomers are surprisingly sociable, and that astronomy requires communication skills considering they must present their research.
  • I believe this experience will make me a better ambassador of my college and my fields (sciences and education). I have a renewed interest in working within all science disciplines, unafraid to meet the interests or questions of my students. The NITARP experience was the perfect opportunity at the perfect time. I hope to get involved with more research groups, beyond my campus.
  • [At the AAS,] Teachers and students experience real, dynamic science as it lives today, where there may be no answers, explanations that change with new data, and most importantly there is discourse between scientists so that they may learn from each other.

Related Teams

AAS - 2020