My Astronomy

Its mid April 2012, and finally I have some time to write an entry. Again its been almost an year since my last post - so much for trying to make regular entries - the fact is there is so much going on in the life of an Astronomer + mother combined. In this post I'll try give a glimpse of what has happened over the past year or so, and an outlook for 2012 - which seems to be riddled with meetings! One of the key things that happened last year was the formation of the GALAH survey and team. GALAH... read more ❯

Last week I attended the WiA Workshop here in Sydney. The website is here. I found the workshop very good, even if I didn't get to attend it fully (because of issues related to being a mother)! Having missed the first talk, because I really had to be a parent helper at Year 1 Maths groups, I got there in time to hear the talk by Nicole McKenna from the National Foundation for Australian Women. The point that struck me most was the 'unconscious bias' against female achievers, by both genders. She mentioned a study where students were asked to comment... read more ❯

Ohh dear! Its only a few months short of being one whole year since I last posted...where did the time go? What was I doing all this time you ask? I think its fair to say I have been running between Heaven and Hell with HERMES. :) I introduced my role as HERMES project scientist in the earlier post, but didn't get around to explain what it is and why we are doing it. HERMES stands for High Efficiency... read more ❯

Hello all, I am back!! So where to start on all the crazy things that have happened since January... Well, I am now blogging from Sydney, Australia. Since March, I am a research astronomer at the AAO (which stands for Anglo-Australian Observatory, but from July 1st it will change to Australian Astronomical Observatory). With the offer for this position coming in mid January, I had to unfortunately pull the plug on the Marie-Curie fellowship in Lund, Sweden. So I immediately changed our plans. Flights to Sweden were canceled, school enrollments from my kids in Lund and childcare was canceled, stopped our bid... read more ❯