Hello everyone!
We can now all say it! 2020 is finally over! Now, a lot, if not all of us, can happily say goodbye to 2020 because it has arguably been one of the worse years in my life time. A year of infections, fatalities, job loss, reveals of injustice towards minority races, and political divide have left the world in a state of unease. Before Christmas, everyone was looking forward to 2021, waiting for it to offer a new glimpse of hope with the pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines rolling out to front line workers and high risk patients and hoping life will return to a sense of normality. However, the year has started off a bit shaky. COVID cases have spiked over the holidays in countries all over the world, with the worse hit being Canada, USA, UK, France, Spain, India and Brazil. This is because people did travel to other households despite lockdown measures and warnings and New Years parties. I cannot say I am surprised since people justified having parties during Halloween and Thanksgiving when they were told not to. The start of 2021 is going to be one of these situations where it will get worse before it gets better. We have to keep hope alive and follow the health guidelines set by local health administrations and governments. Now I don't want to make this blog post a gloomy one since it is the start of a new year and I don't want to ruin anyone's day reading this. I just wanted to quickly address what has been happening around the world and where I live before I jump into the topic of this post.
Now it would not be a GavinOnTheMoon post without a meme to start the New Year :D
Start of January Research Update
In this post, I want to talk about a new science communication initiative I am starting this year. Before I get to it though, I want to write a start of January research update just to keep you all up to date on where I am in my PhD degree. At the end of December, I sent off two manuscript drafts for edits and I am expecting to receive them some time next week. These revised drafts are to be sent to my co-authors afterwards so I can prepare both manuscripts for publication. I have started to prioritize and list the tasks I need to complete for this month and it has already started to pile up. Good thing is, it won't get really busy until next week so it gives me a bit more flexibility this week to work on postdoc applications and sending emails to professors who may have postdoc opportunities in planetary science. Starting the second week of January, classes will be resuming online and my teaching assistant duties will be revving up. The course I am a teaching assistant for is the final one before I aim to defend my PhD in late summer. It has not really sunk in that this will be my final time teaching as a graduate student, but I have a feeling it will soon. I am an assistant for the 'Exploring the Planets" online course where students learn about different planetary bodies in our solar system and have to complete three labs and submit a group report and poster about the Cassini-Huygens mission. I am looking forward to marking the reports and posters (excited to mark assignments!? Maybe I have finally gone crazy haha) because I find the Cassini-Huygens mission fascinating and I love continuously learning more about the icy moons of Saturn.
My other tasks for January involve submitting a postdoc application to the Lunar and Planetary Institute. The postdoc research project involves the use of visible to near-infrared (VNIR) spectroscopy, experimental petrology and a radar properties lab to learn more about the petrology and mineralogy of the Venusian surface. I am currently writing a 2-3 page research interest and plan statement explaining the skills and interests I have gained using remote sensing data to study planetary volcanism and how I could apply them to the research project. It is due February 1st so I am aiming to have the application completed by mid-January so I can give my referees enough time to submit references.
I have signed up for a couple of workshops but they do not start until February so I will let you guys know either in the mid-January or end of January research update post the purpose of the workshops and what I learned and gained from them.
Now let us move to the science communication initiative I am starting up this year!
Science Communication Initiative
Ever since the pandemic locked down the world in March 2020 and everything moved to a virtual set up, I, and many others, lost the opportunity to be more involved in science communication over the summer and fall term. I had a lot of plans to be involved more with the outreach team at Institute for Earth and Space Exploration at the University of Western Ontario, Canada and to take up more leading roles on the institutes communication team. I had to try and adapt after March, and I ended up running into a lot of challenges. With everything online and a lot of parents having to stay home and work whilst looking after their kids, outreach and scicomm online events became the last things on people's minds. Normally, the idea of going to an outreach event at school or a museum would attract attention, but the virtual aspect has put a lot of people off. Online events do not have the same impact because you miss the in-person experience of learning about planetary science and participating in interact activities. I tried moving to Instagram and Twitter to post about space exploration mission updates, cool facts about space, and in general share updates about my work. Instagram I had no luck since I struggled to keep up with the constant updating and posting of my Instagram story, and Twitter I was only successful in increasing my presence in the professional side of planetary science. For months, I struggled to find ways to use social media to help me stay engaged in scicomm and planetary science outreach.
It was not until November I realized that I had the wrong approach and had not applied my strengths towards getting more involved. I turned to podcasting. I am already part of a podcast group called GradCast and I have some experience being a guest on other podcasts (Cosmic Cast and How To PhD). It is a world I am not a stranger in and I had a good understanding of how to run one and how to reach out and communicate with guests. I decided the best way for me to be more involved in planetary science communication was to start up my own podcast. I have always wanted to start my own podcast to work on the side along with my research, but I was always put off by the fear of people not liking or listening to it. I had an idea for a podcast show in mind where I would humanize the space sector to make it more accessible for people outside of the field.
My Own Podcast
I am starting a podcast called "The Diaries of Space Explorers" with the aim to bridge the gap between the space sector and the general public. I want to highlight the inspiration and journey of people from the space sector, conducting planetary science research, and involved in space exploration so we can explain to everyone outside of the field why space exploration and the technology that is developed for it can and has benefited everyone's daily lives. I feel space agencies and companies spend too much time on developing missions and technology and starting new research projects and not enough time trying to explain to everyone (1) why they are doing it, (2) why it is important, and (3) how it will or has benefited people's every day lives. I don't think a lot of people realize that the alarm system installed in health monitoring machines in hospitals was modified from the alarm system used to alert mission control when astronaut health changed or that packaged food is safer to eat thanks to the system used to package and sanitize food for astronauts during the Apollo era. If people understood why students, educators, engineers, scientists, and entrepreneurs work in the space industry and how the space industry has and will benefit them then they would be more inclined to help ensure humanity has a huge presence in space and one day on other worlds.
Logo of my podcast 'The Diaries of Space Explorers'
I have already reached out to people and I currently have ten people signed up to be guests. Ten! Can you believe it! I was really nervous that I was not going to get any one to come on the show and I still can't believe I got ten people. I will be releasing their names as the weeks go on by. I am actually recording four of the podcast episodes this week and several more later this month.
If you are interested in listening to the first episode, which will be posted next week, follow @DiariesofSpace on Twitter and the_diaries_of_space_explorers on Instagram :)
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