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AAS - 2012

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 2011 and 2012 NITARP teams attended the 2012 January AAS meeting in Austin, TX. The 2011 class was presenting results and the 2012 class was starting up. We sent about 60 people to the AAS (the largest delegation to date) and had a grand time. Please see the special article on NITARP at the AAS. We also got a smattering of coverage in local media outlets.

Quotes

  • Astronomy has gone from just stargazing to a rigorous and rewarding field of work in my eyes; before this program I clearly had a misconception of what astronomers did at work.
  • Astronomers dream about above and beyond. They laugh when someone says impossible. When other people say impossible, astronomers say just give me a couple years, a large computer, and some duct tape and I'll have a working model.
  • I think that the most surprising thing about it was how young everyone was! I absolutely did not expect that, maybe because the amateur community is so much older by comparison, and is mainly composed of retired people.
  • I did not anticipate being so challenged in the NITARP research.
  • At this year's AAS conference I was even able to get a grasp of what the speaker was discussing in most lectures I attended.

Related Teams

AAS - 2012