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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

  • [Qualities of an astronomer are:] Patience, perseverance, passion, adaptability, flexibility
  • Seeing our (the group’s) sample shrink down (from over 6 million possible AGN) to a number of objects we could realistically go through one by one to evaluate visibly was really satisfying. It felt like we could potentially be contributing something real to the field of astronomy through our efforts.
  • 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.”
  • 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.
  • [student:] I learned that the type of research that astronomers do is not my forte which is very beneficial because as a rising senior [I need to know what I don't want]

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2023 - AGNatha