Josh Adams — There Are No Repeat Jobs University of Texas graduate student Josh Adams hails from Des Moines, Iowa. More »
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Carlos Allende Prieto — This could be exciting! Carlos Allende Prieto is a research scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. More »
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Fabio Barazza — Interested in where everything comes from Before coming to The University of Texas as a post-doctoral researcher, Fabio Barazza spent most of his life in Basel, Switzerland. As a youth, he says, he spent most of his time playing soccer and studying. More »
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Tom Barnes — Coffee. Lots and lots of coffee. While some astronomers may like to focus the telescope on a single astronomical object for several hours, playing video games or listening to music to pass the time, "That's not my style of observing," Tom says. He says he might change targets and adjust his observations every fifteen minutes. The key ingredient that keeps him awake while observing at night, he says, is "coffee. Lots and lots of coffee." He prefers Starbucks when he is at home in Austin, but straight, strong, black coffee gets the job done when he is at McDonald Observatory. More »
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Amanda Bauer — Unexpected Opportunity Astronomy always fascinated Amanda Bauer as a child, but she never thought that it could be a feasible career. More »
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Jacob Bean — Georgian Astronomer The Southern flavor in Jacob Bean's drawl is almost imperceptible as he speaks about growing up in a small mountain town in northern Georgia. In fact, Jacob seems quite refined despite having lived in an area where simplicity is favored over complexity, the life of a woodsman favored over that of a scientist. However, with some prodding, one quickly learns that Jacob's aspirations and musings have motivations that are cloaked in simplicity. More »
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Fritz Benedict — A love for sailing Fritz Benedict, Senior Research Scientist at the University of Texas who claims that he is “still in the process of growing up,” loves to sail. More »
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John Booth — Because I'm lost. A lot. Maps adorn the office of John Booth, the chief engineer of McDonald Observatory. A map of the world on the north wall, a globe standing in the far corner, a map of Austin on the door, and engineering diagrams for the Hobby-Eberly Telescope lying on the table all reveal how this engineer at McDonald Observatory thinks about his work and, indeed, his life. More »
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Luzma Cairos — We are always learning. That’s fun. Luz Marina Cairos Barreto knows what it’s like to be away from home. She grew up in Tenerife, in the Canary Islands, where she was born five minutes from the beach and learned to love swimming. However, she is currently working in a post-doctoral position at the Astrophysikalisches Institut Potsdam in Germany, when she isn’t traveling for astronomy. More »
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Bruce Carney — I love to learn about our origins Bruce Carney is an astronomer with the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. He is an expert on the distribution and history of older stars and the formation and evolution of our Milky Way galaxy. More »
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Barbara Castanheira — Studying Abroad in America The profession of astronomy comes with both rewards and sacrifices. When graduate student Barbara Castanheira decided to study abroad in America, she left behind her family and her native Brazil because the rewards of her profession were just that great. More »
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Dean Chandler — Astronomy is a Great Hobby Dean Chandler loves astronomy, he says, even though he’s 'not a vocational astronomer.' Dean spends most of his daylight hours doing electronic design work for the consulting firm that he founded. The other things that occupy most of his time are the wonders of the night sky. Currently, Dean is president of the Central Texas Astronomical Society and is helping UT astronomers with exiciting research searching for planets around the dead stars known as 'white dwarfs.' More »
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Joy Chavez — The fulfillment of my childhood dreams Joy Chavez is a graduate student in astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin. More »
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Damian Christian — It's just you against the track and time. Astronomer Damian Christian of Queen's University Belfast, in Ireland, can remember wanting to be an astronomer as early as age 12. More »
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Frank Cianciolo — Taking care of visitors. Let us be frank with you. The image that you hold of astronomers -- that they are nerdy guys and gals who sometimes wear black socks with sandals -- is mostly true. However, occasionally, you find someone who breaks this mold, someone like Frank Cianciolo. Frank is the "Senior Program Coordinator" of the McDonald Observatory Visitors Center. Basically, he ensures that the people who visit this mecca for astronomy have everything that they need. More »
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Lucas Cieza-Gonzales — From Buenos Aires to Austin Sometimes fate is kind, allowing a person to find a career that’s a perfect match for their talents and temperaments. Lucas Cieza-Gonzalez, graduate student at The University of Texas, seems to be one of these lucky few. More »
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Anita Cochran — Cycling, Square Dancing, and Sipping Twelve-year old Anita Cochran visited Brookhaven National Laboratory near her hometown of New York City. More »
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Bill Cochran — You can discover new worlds ... very strange and interesting worlds. The explorers of old forged into new lands and uncharted territories, pursuing conquests for their queens and kings and forming a legacy of adventure to follow them for centuries to come. Over the next few hundred years, the feats of these explorers will slowly be forgotten and replaced with those of the likes of Bill Cochran, an astronomer at The University of Texas. More »
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Mark Cornell — Afflicted from youth ... Astronomer by day, astronomer by night, Mark Cornell, is one of those lucky people whose careers intersect their hobbies. More »
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Harriet Dinerstein — You don’t see many stars in Manhattan. UT astronomer and professor Harriet Dinerstein grew up in the middle of New York City. The light pollution of this vast city made it impossible to see the stars at night. However, Harriet was inspired by her visits to the world-renowned Hayden Planetarium, now replaced by the Rose Center for Earth and Space Science. More »
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Niv Drory — I just happened to end up in astronomy. "I had a strong interest for astronomy as a teenager, but when I started studying physics, I wasn’t actually sure I would end up as a researcher in astronomy. I just happened to end up in astronomy." More »
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Jacqueline Dunn — Love for the stars is in her blood With the intention of steering clear of astronomy as a profession, Jacqueline Dunn says she began her undergraduate education at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth with an astronomy minor paired with a major in environmental science. But that's not how it turned out. More »
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Michaela Döllinger — Fom Munich to West Texas Michaela Döllinger is a graduate student studying astronomy at Munich's Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Germany. Her scientific interests lie in high resolution spectroscopy, the study of the abundances of chemical elements in stars, and the study of variations in radial velocity of K giant stars. More »
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Heinz Edelmann — It's fascinating — no star is exactly the same like another star. As a young boy in Nuremburg, Germany, Heinz Edelmann was fascinated with astronomy. He would use his four-inch Newtonian reflector telescope to look at the stars and planets, dreaming about the cosmos. More »
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Mike Endl — The incredible feeling The best part of astronomy for Postdoctoral Fellow Michael Endl is the "excitement of discovery," he says. More »
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Neal Evans — The Search for Origins In the search for the origins of stars and planets, there are few who can match the invested time, interest, and enthusiasm of astronomer Neal Evans. More »
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Mike Fanelli — Studying the evolution of galaxies Mike Fanelli is a faculty member in the physics department of The University of North Texas. His research interests include evolution of galaxies and their stars - and he looks for patterns in the formation of massive stars, both in three-dimensional space and over time. More »
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Steven Federman — Pretty PicturesSteven Federman from the University of Toledo often uses the telescopes of McDonald Observatory. More »
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David Fisher — From factories to floors to telescopes. David Fisher grew up in Waxahachie, Texas -- a mile from the now defunct main campus of the Texas Superconducting Super Collider. Little did he know then that Physics would become a part of his life. More »
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Bi-Qing For — I Was Amazed You could say that gravity drew Bi-Qing For into studying astronomy. When she was a young student growing up in Malaysia, she recalled being awestruck when she watched comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crash into Jupiter, and knew then that she wanted to study physics and astronomy. More »
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Anna Frebel — Girls don’t do science? There was a time in Anna Frebel’s life when she had to choose between sewing and science. More »
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Anibal Garcia-Hernandez — An Island Astronomer The Spanish Canary Islands dot the Atlantic Ocean just off the coast of Morocco. They are ideal for stargazing — multiple observatories sit atop the isles’ extinct volcanoes. It is no wonder that Anibal Garcia-Hernandez, who was born and raised in the Canaries, became an astronomer. More »
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Jian Ge — Teaching and Researching at Penn StateJian Ge is an assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State University. More »
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Karl Gebhardt — You get to drive really big trucks! If faculty member Karl Gebhardt wasn't an astronomer at the University of Texas, he would want to be a construction worker. More »
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Christopher Gerardy — Like a puzzle Chris Gerardy enjoys the fact that astronomy is like a puzzle. "I like figuring it out," he says. "And it’s really great when I’ve figured something out and I’m the only person who understands it." More »
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Doug Gies — Interested in the stars since childhood. Doug Gies grew up in Canada and, from a very young age, was interested in the heavens. He spent much of his time as a child gazing at the stars and, as he went into high school, worked hard to understand the concepts revealed in physics and mathematics. More »
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Guillermo Gonzales — An astronomer was all I could imagine being.Guillermo Gonzalez wanted to be an astronomer from a very young age. “I got a tiny telescope for Christmas when I was about 6 or 7 years old,” Guillermo said. “After that, an astronomer was all I could imagine being.” More »
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Earl Green — Jack of All Trades When things start going wrong with the telescopes at McDonald, there is a team of engineers that work to keep the decades-old machinery running smoothly for astronomers to get their data. The head of the observing support team, Earl Green, is in charge of three areas: computing, instruments and optics, and electronics. More »
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Dirk Grupe — Carl Sagan’s Cosmos According to Dirk Grupe, an astronomy Postdoctoral Fellow at Ohio State University, Carl Sagan’s Cosmos was one of the first things that interested him in studying the night sky. More »
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Judit Gyorgyey Ries — In love with astronomy When Judit Gyorgyey Ries was in the 6th grade in Hungary, she read a book about astronomy whose title is roughly translated as Tales of the Moon. It was this book that made her "totally fall in love with astronomy." Once she was hooked, she charted a course for her future that allowed her to study her new favorite subject. More »
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Gerald Handler — Party away all night. The tunes of Judas Priest wafted from the 0.9-meter Telescope dome at McDonald Observatory while Gerald Handler observed pulsating stars. That's what he likes most about observing; he says he can "turn up the music really loud and just party away all night." More »
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Paul Harvey — Been in physics and astronomy since elementary school. Paul Harvey is a professor of astronomy at the University of Texas. He is an avid rock climber, and, in addition to studying the light from young stars, he also builds his own instruments with which to observe this light. More »
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Artie Hatzes — I’d rather be sailing. Artie Hatzes is an American astronomer and the director Germany’s Thuringia State Observatory. More »
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Mary Kay Hemenway — To teach, or not to teach. That is the question. During the 1960s, most college women were strongly advised to get a teaching certificate. In order to do this at Notre Dame of Ohio, Mary Kay was required to take a certain psychology class, which she adamantly refused because, as she says, "I was so sure I didn’t want to teach." Instead, after rejecting a possible major in chemistry and receiving encouraging advice from physics professor Sallie Watkins, she decided to pursue physics. More »
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Gary Hill — Who is your model astronomer? How about a person who likes music, is in awe of old cathedrals, and first became interested in astronomy while having his appendix removed? Well, Gary Hill is all of these things and more.
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Peter Hoeflich — Soccer, Sailing, and Science As a young boy, he says, Florida State astronomer Peter Hoeflich spent many nights looking at the stars. His four-inch telescope introduced him to a hobby and a profession that he would follow into his adult life. More »
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Jennifer Hoffman — Well, I'll go Jennifer Hoffman’s interest in astronomy was crystallized into a career goal by the space shuttle Challenger accident. More »
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Sehyun Hwang — Exploring the Wonders of the Universe One of the first things that Sehyun Hwang, a graduate student at the University of Texas, admired about the United States was the snow. “In the winter in Wyoming, we had lots of snow, almost every day, and I loved to go skiing with my friends.” More »
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Rob Hynes — I’d much rather observe from inside the heated control room. When Rob Hynes grew up in England, he liked to stargaze and even had his own telescope. However, the outside environment tended to play a major role in his astronomical plans. More »
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Elizabeth Jeffery — I love going to the Observatory Astronomy graduate student Elizabeth Jeffery grew up in Roy, Utah. She was always interested in astronomy, she says. More »
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Shardha Jogee — Boundless Career Plans Born on the island of Mauritius, Shardha Jogee has studied astronomy in England and the United States. She specializes in the study of spiral galaxies, and has worked on several major galaxy surveys with Hubble Space Telescope. Now, Shardha is an assistant professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin. More »
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Chris Johns-Krull — Studying T Tauri Stars Chris teaches astronomy at Rice University, in Houston, Texas. More »
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Jackie Kessler-Silacci — From the very beginning, I had an interest in science. Jackie Kessler-Silacci is an astrochemist who has studied the formation and destruction of dust and molecules in regions of our galaxy where stars are known to be forming. More »
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Mukremin Kilic — The Vastness of the Universe Mukremin Kilic grew up in a city outside Istanbul. After attending a math and science high school, he majored in physics at the Bogazici (Bosphorus) University. He recently completed his doctorate in astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin, and is now a post-doctoral fellow at Ohio State University. More »
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Eiichiro Komatsu — Big Fun with Baseball Eiichiro Komatsu, assistant professor of astronomy at the University of Texas, loves to play and watch baseball. He says he feels a kinship with the current Japanese baseball players playing for the major leagues here in America because they came to U.S. about the same time he did. More »
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John Kormendy — I never succeeded in making pure nitroglycerine Well known for his work on supermassive black holes in galactic nuclei, John Kormendy has done substantial work in other areas as well, notably the study of galactic bulges, the evolution of elliptical galaxies, and dark matter halos of galaxies. More »
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Pawan Kumar — A Theorist and a TeacherPawan Kumar perhaps does not fit the popular conception of an astronomer -- he is rarely to be found burning the midnight oil in an observatory. More »
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John Lacy — I use him as an example for my non-science majors. John Lacy did not consider himself an amateur astronomer. He's always liked looking at the stars, and his father pointed out constellations to him when he was a boy, but it wasn't until a friend in high school convinced him to join the astronomy club that he became more interested in astronomy. More »
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David Lambert — I don't know why I chose that book David grew up in Kent, England, just south of London. He attended an all-boys grammar school (i.e., high school). As a junior there, he won a competition for which the prize was thirty shillings towards the purchase of a book from a local shop. David went to this bookstore and, from its shelves, he pulled Frontiers of Astronomy by Fred Hoyle, a book about general astronomy. "I don't know why I chose this book; I may have just rummaged around and found it." Regardless, he was enamored by the study of astronomy and, specifically, the nucleosynthesis of elements in stars.
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Dan Lester — You’ve got to punch it. Whenever research scientist Dan Lester needs to blow off some steam he turns to the relaxing powers of dough. Since watching his mother when he was child, one of Dan’s favorite hobbies has been to bake bread from scratch. More »
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Earle Luck — It piqued my interest. Earle Luck is a visiting astronomer at McDonald Observatory, but his "visits" have been persistent for many years as he uses the Otto Struve 2.1 meter telescope to observe nearby stars. More »
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Pamela Marcum — There’s nothing else I wanted to do.Pam Marcum says she first became interested in astronomy in her early teens after reading a book on stellar evolution. She was fascinated by the idea the Sun wouldn’t always be the same as it is today and "that stars change in a very predictable way." More »
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Howie Marion — Well, I've had an interesting path. Indeed, Howie Marion, a recent graduate of UT Austin, has had an interesting path. More »
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Travis Metcalfe — Me to go up in space Travis is an astronomer at the High Altitude Observatory and frequently uses the telescopes at McDonald Observatory More »
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Anatoly Miroshnichenko — From amateur to professional astronomy Anatoly Miroshnichenko was born in Leningrad (now known as St. Petersburg, Russia). As a teenager, he became an amateur astronomer. So, it wasn’t a far stretch to move from his college studies in mathematics and mechanics to specialize in observational astrophysics during his final undergraduate year. More »
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Mike Montgomery — A Musician and a Scientist If he weren't an astronomer, Mike Montgomery says he would have become a professional musician. Mike plays violin, and enjoys playing what he calls “root-based music. Old-time music, bluegrass, blues, and jazz.”
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Sharon Montgomery — Pennyslvania Professor Sharon Montgomery is an associate professor and chair of the Physics department at Clarion University in Clarion, Pennsylvania. More »
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Anjum Mukadam — I was always looking at the sky. Anjum Mukadam is a Hubble Post-doctoral Fellow at The University of Washington at Seattle. She was born in Bombay, India, and since she was 10 years old, she has known that astronomy was the career for her. More »
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Fergal Mullally — I wanted to travel, and this seemed like a pretty good place to go. A fascination with space and space travel led Fergal to wonder about planets outside of our solar system. Being adventuresome, he decided he "wanted to travel," and so he left Ireland to study in Texas.
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Jeremy Murphy — Brand new and exciting. Graduate student Jeremy Murphy loves astronomy because it’s dark and mysterious. “Astronomy is one of the oldest and most mysterious of all the sciences, and dark matter is one of the most mysterious aspects of astronomy,” Jeremy said. More »
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Douglas O'Neal — Exciting and Romantic Astronomy Doug O’Neal says he remembers perusing children’s books on planets when he was as young as eight years old. More »
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Steve Odewahn — It's a good diversion.Steve Odewahn in a research associate at McDonald Observatory. More »
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Diane Paulson — I got here as quickly as I could. Diane completed her Ph.D. at The University of Texas at Austin, in which she searched for planets in the Hyades star cluster. In her spare time, she enjoys hiking with her husband, John, and her dog, Chebyshev, a 110-pound Great Pyrenees. She has a great love of board games. More »
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Lee Powell — Desert Gazing at an Early Age "I don’t even remember what we looked at, but I fell instantly in love," says William Lee Powell as he reflects on his childhood encounters with astronomy. More »
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Lisa Prato — Late-comer to Astronomy Lisa Prato was an English Literature major for much of her college career. By her third year, she reasoned that while reading and writing could be done anytime, science would be more difficult to learn independently. After taking a class on solar system astronomy, she "got hooked." More »
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Robert Quimby — Turning a hobby into a career Robert Quimby didn’t plan on being an astronomer. In fact, as he was growing up, he says he was encouraged by his family to take up engineering. But when he graduated from high school and it came time to pick a direction for his life, he didn’t feel that engineering was what he wanted to do. Instead he decided to follow astronomy, then only a fun hobby, and make it into a career. More »
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Ivan Ramirez — From Childhood Stargazer to Astronomer In Lima, Peru, there aren’t too many stars to see in the sky. With a population of about eight million, the bustling city isn’t very good for stargazing. Despite this, it’s the place where University of Texas astronomer Ivan Ramirez grew up, and calls home. More »
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Bacham Reddy — From India to Texas and BackBacham Reddy is an astronomer at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics who works closely with astronomer David Lambert in observing the spectra of stars within our galaxy. More »
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Seth Redfield — The Songs of the Heavens "Tell them life is worthwhile when you come from a place like Nebraska," sings the state ballad for the Cornhusker State. Indeed Nebraska-native Seth Redfield’s contentedness with life is obvious as he muses on the people and events that have passed through it. He speaks fondly of his fascination with music. Likewise, the songs of the heavens have caught his ear, so he now tries to untangle their tune as an astronomer. More »
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Mike Reed — Studying Pulsating Stars Mike Reed's reseasrch focuses on pulsating stars. He often uses the Whole Earth Telescope, a world-wide consortium of astronomers and observatories working together to study these stars constantly over long periods of time. More »
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Rob Robinson — Varied research interests Rob's research interests have been varied throughout his career. He has studied pulsating white dwarf stars, cataclysmic variable stars, and neutron stars. More »
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Ian Roederer — A Hoosier in the Lone Star State In Indiana, basketball is a way of life. Both of Ian Roederer's parents are University of Indiana alumni. Ian says the first song he ever learned was the Indiana fight song. Now, he still watches Indiana basketball, but Ian has also adopted Texas football as a passion since he came to the University of Texas as a graduate student in astronomy. More »
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Brian Roman — Astronomer, Cook, and Little League CoachBrian Roman is a Research Engineer/Scientist Associate at McDonald Observatory, but his part-time college career involved cooking. More »
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Roger Romani — Something truly new. Roger Romani grew up in Davis, California. He says he had a "department store telescope" as a kid, but astronomy wasn't his dominant interest — although he did like science. In fact, it wasn't until his senior year in college that he decided to pursue graduate studies in physics. More »
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Sarah Salviander — I've always wanted to run a Scandinavian restaurant. Fortunately, Sarah’s husband Sami is just the right person to have around in case she ever does open a Scandinavian restaurant – he’s from Finland! More »
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Simon Schuler — The beer is terrible! Simon Schuler grew up in Hastings, a small town in southern Michigan, but now he finds himself on the other side of the world. Simon is working in a post-doctoral fellowship at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. He enjoys his job, he says, though he says the challenges of living in a foreign country were hard to adjust to at first. More »
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Greg Sherman — Homegrown AstronomerGreg Sherman grew up in Houston. His innate interest is science was cultivated by tours of NASA and visits to Space Center Houston. More »
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Matthew Shetrone — A Love of Exploration As a young child, Matt Shetrone loved to explore. He says he’d go hiking with his Boy Scout troop, marveling at archaeological finds. Later, he embarked on travels to Australia and Europe. Today, Matt has expanded his horizons to exploring extrasolar planets, massive galaxies, the early universe, and other phenomena. More »
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Greg Shields — Early Fascination with AstronomyGreg Shields says he became interested in astronomy around third grade as he was growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska. In fifth grade he bought a four-inch telescope to see the close approach of Mars, similar to what took place in August 2003. Greg still has that telescope, perhaps as a reminder of his early curiosity or simply because it still provides occasional backyard observing time. In seventh grade, he tried his hand at experimentation in astronomy by building his own telescope. More »
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Mike Siegel — Books and BaseballMike Siegel is a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. More »
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Roberto Silvotti — Italian Astronomer Roberto Silvotti is a research astronomer at the Observatorio Astronomico di Capodimonte in Naples, Italy. More »
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Jennifer Simmerer — Studying the Disk of the Milky Way What can the composition of stars tell us? Jennifer Simmerer enjoys studying the elements that are present in stars in the disk of the Milky Way. More »
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Verne Smith — A question of  Verne Smith is nearly certain that life exists in places other than on Earth. In fact, he is fairly sure that life will turn up in our own solar system, perhaps on the planet Mars or Jupiter's moon Europa. More »
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Jonathan Smoker — I was hooked! Jonathan Smoker would rather be outside. He loves high-altitude hiking and being in the countryside. When working at the Very Large Telescope in Chile for three years, he loved to camp outside, sleeping in a bivvy bag, which keeps a camper warm and dry without a tent. More »
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Chris Sneden — There was never a Plan B. "I can remember the exact moment when I became interested in astronomy," says astronomer Chris Sneden, professor at The University of Texas. He was at his home in Pennsylvania, listening to a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game on the radio. During the commercial break, he heard an advertisement for Saturday morning astronomy classes at the Pittsburgh planetarium. Since then, he says he "never, ever wanted to do a single thing other than astronomy. There was never a Plan B." More »
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Nick Sterling — It started with a birthday present Nick Sterling's birthday present as a child kindled an interest in astronomy that wasn't stirred into flame until late in college. More »
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Shadrian Strong — Astronomy just happened. Graduate Student Shay Strong celebrated her sixth birthday in 2004. Shay hasn't had many birthday parties -- she was born on Leap Year Day and only gets to honestly celebrate every four years. But, this lack of parties hasn't prevented her from having fun with her many interests. More »
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Jocelyn Tomkin — Little did he know… Jocelyn Tomkin, Research Fellow at The University of Texas, has always been fascinated with astronomy. Even as a child, he enjoyed stargazing with his small refracting telescope. Little did he know, as he looked through the telescope in his backyard, that he would grow up to be a professional astronomer. More »
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Ted von Hippel — I always wanted to be a scientist. Ted von Hippel invests long hours in teaching others to be sound scientists. In fact, teaching others is one of the reasons that Ted became involved in astronomy.
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J. Craig Wheeler — Potatoes and a nuclear reactor Astronomy professor J. Craig Wheeler has never been a stranger to science. Even before he began to study astronomy, he was certainly influenced by his father’s physics-related career. More »
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Ron Wilhelm — Gazing at the endless universe By the tender age of four, Texas Tech astronomer Ron Wilhelm already knew what he wanted to be. From gazing at the night sky with his family, to reading Astronomy magazine, to building his own telescope when he was 12, Ron was well on his way to being an astronomer. More »
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Kurtis Williams — From a cardboard telescope to the real thing Kurtis Williams is a National Science Foundation post-doctoral fellow at The University of Texas at Austin. More »
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Chris Willott — An Interesting Job Chris Willot grew up in urban England, in the heart of North London. As a teenager, he says he had great interest in both physics and astronomy. As he grew older, he says, his hobby turned into a profession. More »
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Beverley Wills — Gosh, that's ridiculous! Bev Wills, an astronomer at The University of Texas at Austin, is brimming with excitement as she talks about the loves of her life: her husband Derek, baroque music, a recent interest in running, painting abstract and impressionistic art, and, of course, astronomy. More »
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Don Winget — Astronomy and Horses “I can't remember a time when I wasn't interested in astronomy and horses,” says Don Winget. Don is a professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin, and currently serves as chair of the astronomy department. More »
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Rob Wittenmyer — Star Trek got me into astronomy Since age five, Rob Wittenmyer has had a passion for astronomy. He says he can remember, as a young boy, watching Star Trek with his dad and being fascinated. More »
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Peter Yoachim — Astronomy was More Fun Peter Yoachim learned in college that his two loves, math and astronomy, would never work together. “Astronomy has ruined my math skills,” Peter said. “I can’t do a formal proof to save my life anymore. In astronomy, as long as you have the right order of magnitude, it’s right. Not so in math. Finally, I had to choose between the two, and I chose astronomy, because to me it was more fun.” More »
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 This program is supported by the National Science Foundation under grant AST 0227870. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.
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