When the day starts, I'm a mom. Michaela wakes before me, sometime between
5:30 and 7 am. She's about one year old and she can be LOUD. I feed Michaela while Mark
showers and prepares Michaela's bottles for daycare and leaves. I shower then dress and
change Michaela. I eat breakfast and feed Michaela some oatmeal. I brush teeth for both
of us, put on Michaela's coat and booties, and if all has gone well we're out of the
house by 9-9:15. Why do I bother telling you this? Because this is the most carefully
orchestrated and choreographed part of our day.
I drop Michaela off at daycare. I usually spend about 15 minutes there unpacking and
talking to Ann, the supervisor, about Michaela's morning so far and any concerns we might
have. Finally I'm commuting to the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), about
20 minutes away by interstate. I'm at work by 10 am.
I go directly to my office and login to my workstation. One of my daily tasks is to
monitor the activity of the archive "hotseat", an email site that astronomers can write
with questions regarding the Archive, where all of the data from HST is stored. Most of
this data can be accessed by anybody who wants to. Part of my job is making sure that the
scientists and educators who need the data for professional reasons can get it fairly
easily. There are usually about 20-30 email messages waiting for me, mostly messages
asking for help with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST data archive. I page through those,
scanning for the ones with science content. I read the posted replies to all messages
since I just started this job, I don't know the answers to all of the questions. Often
I also have email from collaborators who want some images or plots, and I zip those
files off as soon as I can (or I forget). It often takes me an hour to sort through
email in the morning.
Depending on my deadline and meeting schedule, I try to block out my time for the rest
of the day in as large chunks as possible. The tasks that I have include: calibrating and
analyzing telescope science data, writing and researching papers and proposals for future
work, calling and emailing other scientists with questions, meeting and guiding the work
of a science data analyst, and what is called my "functional work." I spend about half of
my time on this kind of work.
I don't mind this part at all. The "real" part of my job is to enhance the scientific
usefulness of the data archives. All of the data that HST sends back to Earth is stored
on optical disks at the Institute. Eventually, all of this data is made public, available
to anyone who wants to use it. But data is worthless if no one knows how to access it or
use it. Most of the people who work with the archive are computer and software experts
who know a lot more than I do about databases and data storage. But they are not as
familiar with the science and how an astronomer might want to use the data. That's where
I come in. Since I actually use HST data for my own research, and I plan to study more as
it becomes public, I can be an interface between the computer scientists and the
astronomy professional. Right now I'm helping develop a user survey and I'm updating the
archive manuals. I'm also involved with expanding the archive to include other sources of
astronomical data, like the 10-meter Keck telescopes on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. I am not
directly responsible for any of the day to day activities regarding the care and feeding
of the Hubble Space Telescope.
The other 50% of my job is occupied by scientific research. I am going to repeat a
little of what I said in my bio. I study clusters of galaxies in order to learn about
the origins and contents of the Universe (cosmology) and to study how galaxies evolve in
dense environments. I use a lot of tools to do this, from space telescopes like HST to
ground-based telescopes in Arizona and Chile, to computers to analyze data and to
construct software-based models of clusters of galaxies. I don't just use HST, because
HST only gives me one way of looking at clusters of galaxies. HST is very important
because it is the only telescope which can see the structure of very distant galaxies.
From the ground, distant galaxies look like fuzzy blobs; above the atmosphere, HST shows
that many of these fuzzy blobs have disks, spiral arms, regions where massive stars are
forming, just like in galaxies near to us. The difference is since these galaxies are
very far away, we are seeing them as they were many many years ago. Looking at them is
like looking into the Universe in the distant past. I use other telescopes, like orbiting
X- ray telescopes, because clusters of galaxies also have huge amounts of very hot gas in
between the galaxies, but bound to the cluster along with the galaxies by gravity. The
only way to see this gas is by using telescopes and detectors sensitive to X-rays.
Deadlines place the biggest pressures on my job. So far I am most familiar with the
scientific deadlines. For example, each observatory accepts proposals for the use of
their telescopes about once or twice a year. I have access to all the orbiting telescopes
(like HST), and to ground-based observing at the national observatories at Kitt Peak in
Arizona and Cerro Tololo in Chile. The proposals contain a description of the project
that I'd like to do, why it's an important project, and why it's possible to do it at
this or that telescope and instrument. Sometimes the proposals also request money, for
travel to the telescopes, for presentation of research at professional meetings, or for
publications. The biggest proposals also ask for money to support salaries. I don't need
money for my salary, but if I'd like to support a data analyst or a post- doctoral
researcher, I must get funds. These proposals are entered into a competition with other
proposals for the same telescopes and money, so they must be good and well-written to
succeed.
As a scientist, I am evaluated by my papers, so I must both write papers AND write
good papers. Right now I have several projects going in various stages of completion.
Since I was pregnant with Michaela, I knew I wasn't going to have a lot of new data to
analyze, so I made myself write up a backlog of projects, rather than start new ones. So
right now, I'm NOT in the midst of writing a paper, but I am planning a new paper with
my husband. He worked on the theory and I planned the experiment and took the data, so
we're both going to write and submit the paper. We have done this several times before;
we're a good team.
My Normal Day usually ends around 6 (Mark picks Michaela up). I try to run every other
day at least. If Michaela is feeling well, she goes to bed all fed, bathed, and warm
around 9-9:30, leaving me some time to do more reading (recently I had to read 24 NSF
proposals in order to evaluate them, and report to a proposal-evaluation panel.) It
requires a lot of discipline on our part to give Michaela the time she needs, and work,
and do minimal health-maintenance, but so far we're doing ok. As I have alluded to
earlier, all bets are off when Michaela is sick because she can't go to daycare and she
isn't so predictable. Then I'm glad I'm in a position where either Mark or I can take
time off to take care of her. In a most sticky crunch, one of us can even sub for the
other.
The highest stress time (but also one of the most emotionally rewarding times) is
observing at a ground-based telescope. I'll write about that in a future journal, because
it is a rather special time for astronomers.