• 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

  • 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.
  • I did not realize how much I would enjoy the experience. I know this sounds weird but [...] “astronomy is my weakest science”. I wanted to be a supporter of all sciences and that strategy is difficult when you do not “see” yourself as being an astronomy researcher/ scientist. I believe I felt this way because I had never been immersed in a group of people so in love with the discipline. I was constantly making easy connections with biology, chemistry, physics, and engineering. I walk away from this experience better able to help my students, and in turn their [future] students, understand how accessible the field is for anyone. There are literally countless ways that astronomy can relate to one’s life and future career path.
  • [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.
  • [student: The most interesting thing I learned was] The amount of work that astronomers put into research in relation to the small amount of time that they present it.
  • What I’m excited about is building my skillset and credibility as an authentic astronomer in research.

Related Teams

AAS - 2020