• 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 understood how math-heavy astronomy is, but the amount of raw data that must be sifted through gave me an appreciation of the programming knowledge necessary to conduct large-scale studies.
  • This experience turned out to be more work than I thought it was going to be but it was a welcome challenge and I was so surprised of the amount of work that we accomplished and the new understandings that I was able to conceptualize.
  • [student:] No NITARP program can teach us to be tenured astronomers in a week. But what NITARP can do is show us what we’re capable of, give us an unforgettable experience in the heart of American science, and let us earn our spot to contribute a tiny bit to better understanding the universe we live in.
  • I feel like I got a better understanding of how those amazing images of objects in space are captured, analyzed and distributed to the public.
  • [student:] I believe with the NITARP program it just made me realize just how much more I want to pursue astronomy later in life or at least throughout high school with more internships. The AAS conference made me see just how many other people share this passion for astronomy and it made me want to continue my research.

AAS - 2025