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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

  • What I’m excited about is building my skillset and credibility as an authentic astronomer in research.
  • [student:] through this past year I was able to see the impact of having people in professions that are “like” you. For me, this is the idea that there are women astronomers that aren’t necessarily the stereotypical science type, but women who are smart and powerful but also are in touch with their feminine side and still dress up and do “girly” things. I remember when our team first found out that we were working with a female astronomer we all freaked out and got so excited for the chance to work with that specific astronomer.
  • [student:] I’ve always been interested in space, but I wasn’t ever sure of what I really wanted to do. When I was probably ten, I used to say I wanted to be an astronomer. As I grew older that idea sort of faded because I ended up connecting it things like ancient Greeks, and a science whose importance has faded. NITARP really showed me that there are a lot more avenues to astronomy that I had thought.
  • I have a much better understanding of how to mine big data sets to discover or understand something. It has refined the way I think of science and astronomy, and how it is done. This growth will be evident in what I say/teach about the process of science and astronomy, and how I answer questions about them.
  • This was an amazing experience that I will treasure for a very long time!

Related Teams

AAS - 2020