Women in Research #LINO24: Emily Kerrison

Emily from Australia is a PhD student at the University of Sydney / CSIRO Space & Astronomy, Australia.

She works in radio astronomy as part of a survey team using data from the Australian SKA Pathfinder (ASKAP) telescope to map the cold gas content of other galaxies. They want to understand how the gas distribution has evolved across cosmic time and how this relates to the ways in which galaxies form, evolve, and interact with one another. She is focused on augmenting their understanding of this gas by extracting extra information from pre-existing datasets and combining them in new ways to complement the new data they are getting from ASKAP.

Emily participated in the 73^rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.

Enjoy the interview with Emily and get inspired:

What inspired you to pursue a career in science / in your discipline?

I think I was probably always interested in science; two of my favorite books, when I was a young child, were on the planets of our solar system and insects, so I suppose in hindsight I was either going to be an astronomer or an entomologist! But for a long time, I wasn’t sure that I would pursue science as a career; I just knew that I enjoyed it, and I wanted to keep doing it for as long as possible. No matter what, I definitely owe a lot to my mother who really encouraged me to be curious and think deeply about the things that interested me from a young age.

Who are your role models?

I’m very lucky to be surrounded by many inspirational people, from other PhD students doing cutting-edge research, to postdocs who are incredibly generous with their own time even as they build their careers through research, teaching, and outreach. Recently, I’ve also been fortunate enough to work closely with Prof. Ron Ekers, an Australian radio astronomer who also has a keen interest in the history and philosophy of science. I very much admire how he has built up a decades-long career in radio astronomy, conducting extremely technical research and taking on a number of directorial roles to foster highly impactful collaborations. Even now, he still maintains a keen interest in both the science itself, and the sociological processes which go into producing the science which is, I think, a relatively rare but powerful combination of interests.

How did you get to where you are in your career path?

I initially did a double bachelor’s in arts and science as I was unsure about what direction I wanted to go in. Toward the end of my degree, I was fortunate to be selected for two short summer research programmes, one with my home institution and one with the CSIRO, which is a national research organization in Australia. I was even more lucky that I found some supervisors through these programmes with whom I work extremely well with and who gave me options to pursue postgraduate studies.

What is the coolest project you have worked on and why?

At the moment, I’m doing a little bit of work with a team performing space weather observations, which is quite different from the rest of my thesis work. They use short-duration radio frequency observations of the sky to map the solar wind as it passes in front of bright sources and makes them twinkle, but we can actually use the same data to study the background sources as well. To me, this project is really exciting because from only a few seconds of data, we can pull out a very broad range of scientific results that have implications for everything from terrestrial communication systems to the evolution of other galaxies millions of light years away. It’s a really nice demonstration of interdisciplinarity and a good lesson in maximizing the scientific output of your data!

What’s a time you felt immense pride in yourself / your work?

Late last year, I had the opportunity to work with an undergraduate student as a mentor for the first time. They were using one of the tools I’ve developed to perform an investigation into the nature of some radio galaxies. Watching them take something I had developed, learn to use it, and then build on my suggestions to conduct their own study was really gratifying for me (and hopefully for them, too!). It’s always nice to be able to see the impact your work has on others, and in this case, being able to share my knowledge directly with someone just starting their research journey made it that much more special for me.

What is a “day in the life” of you like?

Typical days for me are spent in an office working on code or reading papers, perhaps with a little bit of undergraduate teaching during university semesters. A lot of my work is quite distributed, though, so meeting with my supervisors could mean sitting down side by side to look over a plot or hopping on a call because we’re spread across different cities. Occasionally, I’ll have some observing to do, which can happen at any time of the day or night, and sometimes that even means I get to travel to the telescope site (though that is not an everyday activity!).

What are you seeking to accomplish in your career?

This is a really difficult question! I think if I can produce a body of work that brought me joy in the making and that others find helpful in some capacity, that’s about all I can ask for as a researcher. As a scientist, I also want to ensure science itself is both accessible to and trusted by the public in an ever more complex world of fake news, deep fakes, and AI-generated content.

What do you like to do when you’re not doing research?

I’m involved with a community called The Future of Meetings (TFOM), which promotes best practices in scientific meetings. We have built up a really fantastic community of people who volunteer their time to explore digital approaches to connection using new technologies like VR, so some of my time is spent with them. But when I need some time away from screens, I fence and love to go outdoors. I’m very fortunate to live not far from a national park, and others are only a train ride away, so when I’m not researching or TFOM-ing, I enjoy exploring new walks or revisiting familiar ones.

What advice do you have for other women interested in science / in your discipline?

Don’t be afraid to reach out to someone you’re interested in working with, whether that’s for research supervision, a new collaboration, or even some informal advice. Sure, sometimes people are busy or unable to respond, but so many researchers are incredibly generous with their time and happy to help others get started or find their own unique path into research.

In your opinion, what will be the next great breakthrough in science / in your discipline?

Another tough question! In astrophysics at the moment, there are whole teams of people dedicated to detecting the ‘Epoch of Reionization’, when the first stars and galaxies formed after the Big Bang and began to ionize all of the gas once more. It is a lot of hard work trying to push down the noise floor to a level where this signal would be detectable, so making this detection would be a massive breakthrough in our understanding of the Universe, and it would, I think, also mark a significant advance in our instrumentation too, which is likely to have far-reaching effects across disciplines.

What should be done to increase the number of female scientists and professors?

As with all STEM disciplines, there is a very long pipeline of education to get through before someone makes it to the point of calling themselves an astrophysicist (or astrophysicist-in-training, in my case!). So, I think the biggest gains will still be made by promoting STEM careers and education amongst preschool and school-aged children.