How I Became an Astronomer

The First Spark

I began my journey with astronomy when I was fourteen. At that time, Halley’s Comet was visiting and for some reason unknown to me, I felt I needed to see it before it disappeared for another 76 years.

I was entrenched in art at the time. I took many art classes in junior high school, and was an art major in high school (this was extra major designed to groom students for art school and prepare them for a career in art). But, I also knew, deep down, that I was not a uniquely talented artist. My growing interest in astronomy provided me the motivation to switch gears and move in a different direction in my life.

I transformed from being an unmotivated student who was average, at best, to a focused absorber of all things astronomy. I taught myself the night sky, dropped the art major and elected to replace it with an Astronomy 101 course from a local college for my senior year of high school. Oh, and I did catch Halley’s Comet too.

Eyes on University

I spent my summers working on research projects with my Astro 101 professor, Dr. David Bradstreet. I mainly did photometry on binary stars and began modeling star spots.

I attended a university that would admit me on my less-than-stellar grades and SATs, and for two years took all the math and physics I could to see if I could do it. Convinced that I could, I transferred to a university with a dedicated major for astrophysics.

My undergraduate experience was really great. It was a mid-size department and had no graduate students, so the undergrads worked directly with the faculty to gain research experience and even published papers. We also taught our fellow non-science undergrads the astronomy lab sections. As an undergrad I worked on eclipsing binaries, modeling star spots, and did a little work on cataclysmic variables, which resulted in several publications.

The most valuable thing I learned as an undergrad was computer programming. When I was plunked down in front of a computer for the first time in my life (this was 1991—it was unusual to grow up with computers, and there was no real public face to the internet yet.), it was a struggle to learn how to use it, let alone understand the intricacies of the C programming language. But, I eventually mastered it. And, I’m very happy that was the first language I learned.

Falling Out of Love

I received a B.S. in Astronomy & Astrophysics, and pursued a graduate degree; however, while in graduate school, I came to the realization that research was not what moved me to pursue astronomy. While my master’s thesis was about a third of my PhD dissertation, I made the decision to leave graduate school and get going with life.

I presented my Master’s thesis (modeling the winds and ionization fractions around rapidly rotating hot stars) at a meeting of the AAS. While there, I glanced at the job postings and, while almost all of them weren’t what I was looking for, there was one that intrigued me.

Creating Opportunity

I tracked down the person who was hiring and we sat and talked in the lobby of the hotel for over an hour. He grilled me on my knowledge of astronomy, the night sky, and physics. He asked for my thesis, which I provided the following day. I had the combined skills of knowing the night sky, knowing the graduate-level physics, programming experience, and teaching experience.

Two weeks later, I found myself in my new job, at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. It was a frantic time—we were trying to complete the Rose Center for Earth and Space, set to open in eight months. Exhibits needed finishing, a space show was needed to open the planetarium—it was an “all-hands-on-deck” time, and we delivered.

Since then, I have been working on various projects over the years at the museum. I mainly work on building an atlas of the cosmos called Digital Universe.

If you have questions about how to become an astronomer, feel free to email me. I have an unconventional path, but I work within academia and in a research department.