• NASA
  • IPAC

AAS - 2025

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 2024 and 2025 NITARP teams are attending the 2025 January AAS meeting in National Harbor, MD. The 2024 class is presenting results and the 2025 class is starting up. We had alumni raise money to come back as well. We sent about 40 people to the AAS and had a grand time. Please see the press release on NITARP from the AAS, and the special online article about NITARP at the AAS. All of the posters we presented are here. (In addition to the iPoster sessions as listed here, the physical versions of the 2024 teams' posters were up at the IPAC booth all day Tuesday.)

2024 teams:

Alumni:


Quotes

  • [student:] I really enjoyed this, and I am now certain that I will try some astronomy research in college.
  • [student:] I thought astronomy was more about looking and observing the pictures and less about the numbers and math.
  • [My] most memorable moment [...] was having breakfast with my NITARP team and discussing our project. In particular, it felt surreal to ask Varoujan simple questions about black holes & then learn so much about the fundamentals of how gravity works & the properties of the electromagnetic field. I teach astronomy & felt like I had a pretty good grasp of these concepts. However, I realized that when I follow my knowledge down to a very fundamental level, my understanding becomes shakier & shakier. I'll definitely keep asking these basic questions while I have him as a resource!
  • This experience absolutely changed the way I perceived astronomy & astronomers. Learning about the research process was an eye-opening experience. Knowing where to find readily available data [...] was impactful. Astronomers are the nicest, funniest and most inclusive community.
  • This helped me feel like I was involved in something that went beyond just my campus and tiny little world. This experience has made me more confident to try for challenges outside my comfort zone and look for opportunities to contribute to the greater educational community.

AAS - 2025