Aaron came to the AAVSO to take a break from the dotcom world. His time here rekindled his childhood love of astronomy and a short break in 1998 turned into a career change.

Aaron is a PhD student in the Department of Education's Math, Science, Technology and Engineering (MSTE) program. With a BS in astronomy, Aaron has worked for the AAVSO since 1998. In that role, he specialized in public outreach (specifically, professional/amateur collaboration) and developing IT and databases while also conducting a modest personal research program. He continues to work at the AAVSO part-time during his education at Tufts.

At Tufts, his academic advisor is Prof. Hee-Sun Lee and his content advisor is Prof. Eric Chaisson. His office is at the Wright Center for Science Education and he also participates in the Spatial Cognition Laboratory run by Prof. Taylor.

Research Interests

He is primarily interested in how technology can be used to used to support learning of highly spatial scientific concepts - especially for those who have trouble with spatial reasoning. In particular, he is working with stereoscopic ("3D") representations. He is also interested in cognition within extreme ranges of scale - both spatially and temporally. Recently, he has also began research projects in informal science education and lifelong learning.

In astronomy, Aaron's research has focused on cataclysmic variable stars. He is also very active in the education and public outreach community within astronomy.

Selected Publications

Education

• Price, A. & Lee, H. S. (accepted/2009). Assessing spatial cognition in stereoscopic environments. Journal of Science Education and Technology, (link)
• Price, A. & Lee, H. S. (submitted) Exploring the relationship between college students' categorization of spatial and temporal concepts of scale. Journal of Research in Science Teaching.
• Price, A., et al. (2009). The Astronomy Education Research Charter. Astronomy Education Review, 8, 3 (link)
• Price, A. (2008) "Podcasting". In J. Pasachoff, Rosa M. Ros (eds.) Innovation in Astronomy Education. Cambridge: Cambridge Press
• Price, A., Gay, P., Searle, T. and Brissenden, G. (2006). A history and informal assessment of the slacker astronomy podcast. Astronomy Education Review, 5(1), 53-69. (link)

Astronomy

• Price, A., Masiero, J., Henden, A. H., et. al. (2009). Polarimetry and the long awaited superoutburst of BZ UMa. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 121, 885
• Price, A., Henden, A. H., Foster, G., et al. (2007) SS Cygni outburst predictors and long term quasi-periodic behavior. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 119, 1361-1366.
• Price, A., et al. (2006). “Planetary Transits of TRES-1”. Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. 32, 29.
• Price, A. and Klingenberg, G. (2005). “Secular Evolution of Z Tau”. Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers. 32, 19.
• Price, A., Gary, B., Bedient, J., Cook, L., Templeton, M. et al. (2004) A new cataclysmic variable in Hercules. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 116, 1117-1122.
• Aaron's complete astronomical publication history.

Achievements

• Co-I and principal author of a 3-year National Science Foundation grant for informal science education (NSF grant No. 0840188 - 2009)
• Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award, 212th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (June, 2008)
• First Prize, 11th Annual Graduate Student Research Symposium at Tufts University (April, 2007)
• Blue Ribbon Technical Award, 2nd National Virtual Observatory Summer School (September, 2005)

More Info

• Video describing one of his stereoscopic projects with galaxies
• Citizen Sky - web site for the citizen science project funded by the NSF grant he wrote
• C.V.

His favorite astronomical joke:
Q: How many astronomers does it take to change a light bulb?
A: 1 +/- 3,091,211.47