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 turned into a career change.

Aaron is a full-time doctoral student in the Math, Science, Technology, Engineering Education program at Tufts University (that's him in the pic 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 works for the AAVSO half-time when school is in session and full-time the rest of the year (roughly Jun.-Aug., Dec. 15-Jan. 15)

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 observing as soon as possible. He is proud of having the most visual variable star observations of any staff member in AAVSO history. He goes to all the weekend star party campouts that he can and is a member of the local amateur club.

Aaron created the Slacker Astronomy podcast which he produced along with Pamela Gay and fellow AAVSO staff member Travis Searle.

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. He also puts in some duty on Special and Alert Notices, campaign coordination, and education and public outreach responsibilities.

His papers via ADS.

Aaron got married in August 2004 to a wonderful woman (that's her in the picture) who allows him to do alot of work from home, as long as its after she is asleep. He enjoys techno and classical music, gardening, camping, traveling, cross training and absolutely loves the city of Boston.

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