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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

  • I believe that no one can walk away from the NITARP experience unchanged. Everyone talks about the learning curve, and it is definitely steeper for some of us than others. I believe the “powers that be” need to know how this year-long astronomy boot camp not only builds discipline knowledge but also group learning dynamics. I have never been so proud to say that I have been part of an exceptional group, and in turn organization. I not only learned what it means to be a teacher leader, but assist in making teacher leaders.
  • I was intimidated at the start of this project because I felt like many of the people on my team and people that I saw present at the AAS last year knew more than me. But, after the whole experience is now completed, I have learned that the area of astronomy is so vast that no one is an expert on everything. I learned to appreciate the skills/knowledge that I brought to the team as well as everything that I learned from my teammates.
  • [student:] I think that NITARP showed me that working with others is better than working alone, so I’ll think I’ll try my best to work with other others for my assignments. I say this because I usually try to work alone, but I learned so much from my NITARP team members this experience, and so maybe I’ll learn something from someone else at school.
  • [student:] This experience has changed my career plans by directing me in the direction of a research-based career. [...] This experience, especially the conference, has made extremely excited for college and has made me seriously consider graduate school.
  • [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