Dr Anne’s Log: Encounters of the Astro Kind (Stardate: 2017.73)

‘We do cutting edge science research, write about it, give talks…..and a couple of times a year we jet-set to locations worldwide.’

Following on from the previous post, I’m afraid to say that this is the reason for my blog silence – many apologies!

Since I last updated you it has been all systems go here at StarFormMapper. For my part in the project, I have been developing a new statistical tool called INDICATE (‘INdex to Define Inherent Clustering And TEndencies’). This tool, which will eventually be available to the public, quantitatively tells user how spatially clustered stars are in the Galaxy’s stellar nurseries. This is really important for SFM as we need to know if there are differences in the way young stars behave in there natal environments.

Unlike other jobs, simply creating a tool like this is not enough in the field of astrophysics. We even have a catch phrase: ‘Publish or Perish’, meaning you need to regularly publish your results for other scientists to review or you will make yourself unemployable(!)… So like any good astrophysicist who wants to remain employable this is exactly what I’ve been doing: writing a paper to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, giving talks, presenting posters and networking at conferences/workshops about INDICATE. Most recently I attended MODEST’17 conference last week in Prague, Czech Republic which was great fun! And if you ever wondered what I look like, here I am presenting a poster:

Anne Buckner presenting INDICATE at MODEST’17, Prague, Czech Republic

(Yes, I love bright colours)

Well I’m afraid to say I must once again be off, but if you were traumatised by my absence (as why wouldn’t you be 😉 ) check out our twitter @SFM_Project for frequent, if not short, updates in between blog posts.