Hello everyone! How many of y'all have Twitter? A few of us Perry Lab people do, and we mainly use them for work - following and communicating with other scientists, learning about exciting recently published papers, etc. If you have a Twitter, I highly recommend following @PSU_Anthro and @PennStateBio because both of these accounts will retweet posts from members of each department. Then you can more easily find tweets from some magnificent people like Tina Lasisi -----------------------------> |
Tina (super cool Anth Ph.D. grad student in Nina Jablonski's lab) collaborated with Maggie Hernandez (another super cool Anth Ph.D. grad student in the Perry Lab) to post a guest blog about outreach on Tina's website. I would like to shamelessly borrow this idea for my Sci Comm section. I've mentioned all of the members of the Perry Lab in previous blog posts, but would love to feature each of them individually and highlight all of the awesome things everyone does for their research, as well as how they got to be where they are now, tips/suggestions for a career in academia, etc.
If people enjoy reading about the members of Perry Lab, I'd love to expand to others in the Penn State Anthropology and Biology departments, PSU researchers from other departments (like our blog for today), as well as past and present scientists I've collaborated with. If this becomes a popular feed, I might even be able to convince visiting speakers to participate :) Instead of focusing on each person's research, I'm hoping these posts will allow you to learn about who these scientists are as people - I worry that sometimes those who aren't in a research-heavy field might consider scientists to be rather robotic and unfeeling and/or think we're all scheming to take over the world one day. I figure a Q&A format would be a neat way to achieve this goal and to make each of these posts similar to one another (as you'll see in my very first guest blog below). So please leave some comments and let me know what you think! I'd love to know what you would like to learn about these amazing people.
So without further ado, I am happy to introduce my very first Sully Asks A Scientist guest blog post featuring my partner, because he's my favorite test subject. Enjoy!
Daniel T. Schussheim
Pennsylvania State University - Physics Ph.D. Graduate Student [4th year]
Gibble Lab
Pennsylvania State University - Physics Ph.D. Graduate Student [4th year]
Gibble Lab
What is your elevator pitch? AKA what do you do/study?
We’re building a new atomic clock using cadmium atoms. Basically my job requires building these stable laser systems at many different frequencies. We have a ton of different colored lasers in our experiment: green, blue, ultraviolet, infrared. We use these lasers to control cadmium atoms, make them super cold, levitate them, move them around, and measure their frequency to make an atomic clock. |
Let's get to know you a little bit better.
Do you have any pets? The Moo [left] and the Miggy [right]. | Who do you vent to when things are going wrong? Alexis, and my parents. What language do you want to learn? Any. I only know English. What are your top three favorite/coolest organisms? In no particular order: giant squid, cats, pufferfish. What are some of your hobbies? Rock climbing [see below] and video games. |
If you could have any superpower, what would it be?
Stop time.
Stop time.
If you could travel anywhere, where would you go? I’d like to go to Lac Manicouagan in Quebec, Baffin Island, Himalayas by Mount Everest, Patagonia, Antarctica, Great Barrier Reef. There’s a ton of places I want to go. What sorts of music do you listen to? Everything but the worst pop music. |
Ok, now let's get down to business.
What is something you wish the general public knew about your field?
That physics is useful, and was used to make almost everything we use on a day-to-day basis.
That physics is useful, and was used to make almost everything we use on a day-to-day basis.
When/how did you know you wanted to get into the world of scientific research?
College, maybe junior year or so. It was just after doing two summer projects with two of my professors at Colgate. One was a computational project and the other was a low-temperature experiment.
College, maybe junior year or so. It was just after doing two summer projects with two of my professors at Colgate. One was a computational project and the other was a low-temperature experiment.
What are your strengths/weaknesses as a researcher?
Strengths: Persistence and focus.
Weaknesses: I wish I could have more self-confidence, better listening skills, and troubleshoot problems more effectively.
Strengths: Persistence and focus.
Weaknesses: I wish I could have more self-confidence, better listening skills, and troubleshoot problems more effectively.
How do you attempt to maintain a work-life balance? It's hard. I try to make my time at home count, we'll do things like cooking or watching movies, thing that we like to do together. What do you like/dislike about your research? Like: Actually learning exactly how all these parts of a complex experiment really work in detail. I also really enjoy getting to make things, and the physics that we’re doing is cool. Dislike: The day-to-day frustration you have to deal with in research. And my seeming inability to figure out how to work efficiently. |
What do you like/dislike about academia (AKA research/higher-ed community)?
Like: Getting the opportunity to study something cool and learn a lot.
Dislike: Low pay. It also bothers me that I have no idea when I’ll be “done” – I don’t know how long everything will take, I don’t know all of the details of the project. The lack of a hard date is both good and bad, but I don’t really like the uncertainty.
Like: Getting the opportunity to study something cool and learn a lot.
Dislike: Low pay. It also bothers me that I have no idea when I’ll be “done” – I don’t know how long everything will take, I don’t know all of the details of the project. The lack of a hard date is both good and bad, but I don’t really like the uncertainty.
What is something that fascinates you from a field that is not your own?
I don't necessarily know what is involved, but freshwater ecology.
I don't necessarily know what is involved, but freshwater ecology.
What advice would you give five-year-old you? What about fifteen-year-old you?
5: Keep looking under logs and searching through streams.
15: Get a job.
5: Keep looking under logs and searching through streams.
15: Get a job.
Where do you hope to go with your career?
This question scares me. I want to live somewhere cool and build cool stuff. It would also be nice to have the opportunity to teach physics at some point.
This question scares me. I want to live somewhere cool and build cool stuff. It would also be nice to have the opportunity to teach physics at some point.