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 currently a full-time PhD student in the Math, Science, Technology, Engineering Education program at Tufts University (that's him in the video on their web site) and he is housed at the Wright Center For Science Education at Tufts. His research interests are spatial cognition, learning technology, and - of course, astronomy education. Aaron has a B.S in astronomy from Swinburne University. Aaron now works for the AAVSO half-time while working on his studies.

Thanks to school, Aaron is a dormant observer (visual and CCD) with a 10" f/6.3 LX-200. "Dormant" because he plans to resume variable star observing as soon as possible. He goes to all the weekend star party campouts that he can and is a member of the local amateur club. His favorite stars are SS Del and SS Cyg.

Aaron created the Slacker Astronomy podcast and blog which is now run by AAVSO members Michael Koppelman and Dr. Doug Welch.

His favorite aspect of the AAVSO is its membership and his favorite activity is attending the AAVSO meetings so he can interact with those members. It was at his first Annual Meeting that he got the AAVSO "buzz" and never looked back.

At the AAVSO, Aaron is responsible for the technology needs including the data pipelines and many of the web site applications. Recently, he has been spending more time writing grant proposals. He has also published a few astronomy research papers during his tenure at the AAVSO and in 2008 won the AAS' Chambliss Astronomy Achievement Student Award for this poster report on BZ UMa.

For more information on his scholarly endevours, visit his web page at the Wright Center for Science Education.

Aaron got married in August 2004 to a wonderful woman (that's her in the picture) who allows him to work from home, as long as its after she is asleep.

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