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Summer Visit - 2023 - AGNatha

The summer visit to Caltech is 4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The AGNatha team came to visit in June 2023. The 5 core team educators attended, plus 10 students.

Quotes

  • One moment that was incredibly impactful for my students was when they heard from other scientists on the web conference and people were talking about “not belonging,” self doubt, and feeling “out of place” in their careers. That really resonated with my students and they told me how relieved they felt when other people said they felt that way too. They seemed much less anxious after hearing that and were more excited to push forward. Both of my students want to pursue Astronomy in some aspect in their higher education and I think hearing those comments from real scientists showed them that they don’t have to be perfect or the smartest person in the room to do Astronomy (or science in general). After that web conference, one of my students said “I’m going to remember this experience for the rest of my life.”
  • The most interesting and important part of my week was seeing how the different databases can be used in conjunction to create a subset of astronomical objects with a specific set of characteristics. We certainly read about this in some of our background papers, but actually doing it brought the process to life in a different way than reading through the literature did.
  • It was really challenging work to do myself, not to mention helping my 2 students learn how to do the work as well. We really needed time to work together in person, especially when using topcat. We needed time and space to discuss the project and really deeply understand what our goal was. I also feel like we really bonded through this process - both teachers and students.
  • For me, the uncertainty associated with some of the data was surprising. In a chemistry context, where the researcher has control of the sample the data is much more direct, associating peaks in spectra with structure in the molecules. The idea that we are starting a project with a catalog of AGN, but are only 90% sure that the objects are AGN (R90) surprised me as I usually think of astronomy as much more mathematical and underestimate the differences in how data is collected compared to chemistry.
  • [Qualities of an astronomer are:] Patience, perseverance, passion, adaptability, flexibility

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2023 - AGNatha