Bay School physics and astronomy teacher David Friedlander-Holm and some of his astronomy students are part of a two-year project with NITARP, the NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program. Their work for 2022 culminated with presenting their research at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Seattle, held January 8 to 12, 2023. As described in the media release from CalTech, "NITARP’s unique approach to 'teaching the teacher' enables NASA to reach thousands of students every year with information about how science really works, what NASA does, and the wealth of astronomy data that is freely available to the public."
The group was paired with Dr. Luisa Rebull of the California Institute of Technology, and also included teachers and students from high schools in Vermont, Wisconsin, Florida, and Nebraska. David served as the mentor teacher for this cohort. Their mission: Search for young stellar objects, or YSOs, in cluster AFGL490. Their methods included searching through existing data to identify possible YSOs and selecting new ones using H-alpha emission and infrared variability. From over 520 possibilities, the group narrowed the field to 22 YSO candidates. 
During the conference, the Bay team met up with alums Noah Tuchow ’11 and Malik Bossett ’19. Malik (second from left in the photo) is studying astronomy at the Honors College of Northern Arizona University, with a focus on exoplanet discovery, which he plans to continue specializing in. Noah (middle) received his PhD in astronomy in 2022; he is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Read more about Noah’s work.
For 2023, the Bay School group will be working with Dr. Varoujan Gorjian of Jet Propulsion Laboratory and IPAC (Infrared Processing & Analysis Center). David will continue serving as the mentor teacher for the cohort.
Read the press release from CalTech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
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