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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:

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 tended to lump astronomy in with theoretical physics and its stagnation to some extent. Obviously, the opposite is true. The pace of discovery and analysis is amazing.
  • NITARP has expanded my vision and increased my confidence.
  • I had no idea, perhaps idiotically, how much data analysis went into astronomical research. I learned that in order to be a successful astronomer you need to be able to code and understand raw data very well.
  • 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.
  • I did not anticipate that my students would develop such a strong bond with Varoujan. They learned quickly that they could ask him questions on the videoconferences and the summer meetings and he would patiently explain, sometimes more than once. I saw a huge amount of growth of my students, especially in their identities as scientists.

AAS - 2023