AAS - 2023

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 2022 and 2023 NITARP teams attended the 2023 January AAS meeting in Seattle, WA. The 2022 class was presenting results and the 2023 class was starting up. We had alumni raise money to come back as well. We sent about 30 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:

2022 Teams:

Ciambra et al., A More Complete List of YSO Candidates in AFGL 490
Benter et al., Survey of the Spitzer Enhanced Imaging Products (SEIP) Catalog for Potential Debris Disks Around Main Sequence M Class Stars
Bonham et al., NGSS Science and Engineering Practices in Secondary Education through Real Astronomical Research
Swigert et al., Teacher Roles within NITARP: a 13-month Research Collaboration

Alumni:

Granucci, "Does a Solar Telescope generate more interest in astronomy than Night Observing Telescope?" (talk)
Kniezewski, "To Rain or Not to Rain: Correlating GOES Flare Class and Coronal Rain Statistics" (poster and press release; student alumna!)

Quotes

I keep going back to something Varoujan said to us when someone asked the question, “How often do you get the result you expect when you do research?” and he said “Almost never.” It was refreshing to know that not everything works out the way you expect it to, and that’s OK. This is how we learn. I think I had this misconception that scientists have all the answers, which is silly, because I know they don’t and that is the reason we do research.
[student:] I did not anticipate how tedious research actually is. It did change the way I viewed astronomical research. Before, I viewed astronomical research as much more exciting, as if you were getting to actually see the things you were studying. However, it turns out that most of the research is just through graphs with little to no visuals.
[student:] This experience exceeded all of my expectations. Going into the program, I had no conception of all the amazing opportunities and experiences that I would get to be a part of. It was amazing getting to attend the AAS and be surrounded by so many famous and up-and-coming astronomers doing exciting research. Their passion for their work and the field of astronomy was super infectious and inspirational to witness.
[student:] This opportunity has opened my eyes to what research really is. I still am firm in believing it was the most striking thing I learned. I always saw research as having a set answer that we look for. However, I have learned that there are so so many stages and sometimes those stages are open-ended.
What I already knew about astronomers/astronomy that was confirmed was that you need to work really hard to do research and that often there are things you see in the data that you can’t necessarily explain right then and there. There is still a lot we don’t know and so much archival data still to go through.

AAS - 2023

Quotes

Related Teams