Hello there, welcome to my blog!
I am going to be doing research at UC San Diego for Professor Adam Burgasser (This guy) and Professor Carl Melis. Professor Burgasser is an observational astrophysicist whose main field of study are these stars-but-not-stars-planets-but-not-planets called Brown Dwarfs Stars (there will be an actual blog post about those). (Which were discovered by none other than..... Professor Takashi Nakajima! [That would be my physics professor. Funny how everything connects]) and Professor Melis is a guru at doing radio wave observation of various stellar objects. I am beyond excited to work under both of them.
My name is Russell. I am a college student in San Diego currently working towards a degree in physics. When I first tell someone my major that followed up by my future dream of going to grad school for astronomy/astrophysics, I get a few reactions:
1) A blank stare followed by a disinterested "oh that's pretty cool"
2) The "I hated physics and math when I was in high school" response
3) Starts to ask me questions about string theory, general relativity, or something way beyond anything I know and expects me to answer.
This whole fascination with physics and our universe started in the 8th grade when my science teacher, Mr. May (an ex-physicist himself), based his class heavily on the universe. Seeing pictures of asteroids, distant suns and galaxies, black holes, and such just always grasped my interest.
I am going to be doing research at UC San Diego for Professor Adam Burgasser (This guy) and Professor Carl Melis. Professor Burgasser is an observational astrophysicist whose main field of study are these stars-but-not-stars-planets-but-not-planets called Brown Dwarfs Stars (there will be an actual blog post about those). (Which were discovered by none other than..... Professor Takashi Nakajima! [That would be my physics professor. Funny how everything connects]) and Professor Melis is a guru at doing radio wave observation of various stellar objects. I am beyond excited to work under both of them.
This blog will (hopefully) follow my day-to-day life during this 2 month period of being a researcher! I will also probably post some miscellaneous math and physics stuff along the way to take breaks from research! Hope you enjoy!
- Russell