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Honors Down Under: Lessons in Astronomy and Life

Naomi McClure-Griffiths '97 had been in Australia about a month. Just two days earlier she had met her research associate, a research fellow at Sydney University who was ten years her senior and who already had his Ph.D. degree. She was still having trouble understanding his Irish-Australian accent. And here she was standing with him at the base of the 200-foot-diameter radio telescope in Parkes. As she pondered the climb up the steep, narrow, open ladder to the observation room at the center of the tower-about the equivalent of 10 stories up-her knees began to tremble at the thought of the height.

Nothing like starting honors research with a bang!

It's a good thing that she overcame her fear, because that moment was the beginning of what McClure-Griffiths acknowledges was the pinnacle of her Oberlin education.

McClure-Griffiths' honors project, titled "A Scintillation Study of the Eclipsing Pulsar PSR B1259-63," analyzed the radiation emitted from a pulsar-and the variations in its movement and intensity-as a way to "see" what lies deep in the galaxy between that pulsar and Earth. Her field research kept her in Australia for five months, from August 1996 to January 1997, and writing her thesis took another three months.

"A pulsar is a compact rotating star that emits a finite beam of radiation, like a lighthouse," she explained. "It's basically a dead star. You can't see what's between us and the pulsar, but you can get a sense of it by what the radiation does, how it moves around. If there's a big clump of something it has to go through or around, you'll see that," she said.

Her pulsar was nearly 5,000 light-years away, and the magnitude of the distance and time, the size of the galaxy, was awesome to McClure-Griffiths. "I love the idea that the radiation I collected in the telescope left 5,000 years ago," she said.

During her stay in Australia, McClure-Griffiths traveled to Parkes to use the telescope four times, and each stay was four or five days. "Those were fabulous times," she said. "I felt really important when we'd go out to the telescope. I'd be the astronomer on duty!"

In particular, she remembers the last visit she and her research associate, Simon Johnston, made to Parkes. They'd been up all night observing, and at about 5:30 in the morning he called her outside to see the most spectacular sunrise she'd ever seen. It's a moment that will stay with her forever.

The rest of her time was spent in labs at Sydney University (which, like a native, McClure-Griffiths refers to as "Sydney Uni") and at the Australia Telescope National Facility (ATNF) in Epping, a suburb of Sydney that was 45 minutes away by train. Here McClure-Griffiths worked on computer analysis of the data she collected at the radio telescope. Once or twice a week, she and Johnston would meet with Oberlin Associate Professor of Physics Dan Stinebring to go over progress and "talk concepts." (Stinebring, who supervised McClure-Griffiths' project, spent 1996-97 on a sabbatical leave in Sydney.) She admitted that she found the computer work less exciting, but there was one part of the office routine, "the truly Australian part," that she greatly enjoyed.

"Around 10:30 in the morning and 3 in the afternoon, we would take tea," she said. "All the scientists would stop and we'd go into this courtyard and drink tea. We'd talk about science and about other things, then we'd go back to work. I had a great time drinking all the tea. It was a very nice way to meet people."

The intensity of her work did not leave much leisure time, McClure-Griffiths said. She did find time to attend a performance at the Sydney Opera House, to visit the Great Barrier Reef, to explore Sydney, and to relax on the beach. She found Australian wildlife-birds in particular-extremely interesting. "Wild parrots were everywhere-bright green, red, and blue. They were just fabulous."

It was through Stinebring's professional associations that McClure-Griffiths' honors project came about. He also made arrangements for Joshua Kempner '97 to pursue a collaborative project in Australia. Stinebring supervised both students' field work, and once they returned to the Oberlin campus, he kept track of progress on their theses via e-mail.

Physics is still primarily a man's field, even at Oberlin. According to Registrar Lori Gumpf, of the 96 students who have graduated with physics majors in the last 10 years, just 12 have been women. McClure-Griffiths, however, never doubted that she'd major in physics. Her love of astronomy, an offshoot of her major, was cultivated by study and work with Stinebring.

"I was always good in math, so I wanted to do physics," she said. "I was looking for research opportunities, and Dan offers a lot of opportunities. I started working with him, and then I took both of Oberlin's astronomy courses. Suddenly I found myself in love with the subject." So much so that next September she'll enroll at the University of Minnesota for graduate study in astrophysics.

This kind of confirmation of a professional interest is a major benefit of Oberlin's honors program, which is quite rigorous. About 10 percent of seniors pursue honors work each year, and those students must be recommended by their department or academic program area. Projects vary widely-students may attend seminars, do field research, prepare a performance, or complete intensive individual research-but all projects include independent work under the supervision of a faculty member.

McClure-Griffiths gained far more from her project, though. "I was very nervous about going to Australia," she said. "I was extremely intimidated, professionally. I didn't feel like I knew enough of anything." Then there was the personal nervousness of leaving Oberlin friends and being 10,000 miles away from her home and family in Portland, Oregon.

Through her honors work she learned that she has the mettle to tackle new situations and new environments. She learned about working in an office, about commuting by train. She gained professional and personal confidence. And she learned about Australian people and culture.

"I got to branch out while I was there," she said of her time in Australia. "Now I know half the pulsar community in the world."

--Anne C. Paine

Return to the ATS-May/June 1997 Table of Contents