The Two-Body Problem: Relationships and Physicists

THE PROBLEM OF DUAL CAREER RELATIONSHIPS IN ACADEMIA

One of the more difficult things about being a physicist in a relationship is that your partner is usually also a professional in a technical field as well.  Working in specialized fields make finding jobs in the same location as your partner difficult.  So many of us have experienced these issues that we have a special name assigned to it - the two-body problem (re-purposing the phrase referring  to the physics of two masses interacting, say in orbit).

The problem isn't about finding work, but finding work working in our specialties.  For example, I am a skilled physics educator and every college and university teaches physics at some level so there are job opportunities for me in that respect.  Of course, these jobs are still very competitive to earn, but you get the idea that there is work out there.  But many of these jobs would likely be strictly or mostly teaching without much in the way of research opportunities.  I could be employed but I would likely not be able to continue my LIGO research which is important to me.  There are about 80 institutions from across the country and around the world that work in the LIGO Scientific Collaboration (click here for a list of these institutions).  While this sounds like many, the odds of not only landing a job at one of these institutions and having fulfilling job prospects for a spouse isn't great.

My two-body problem was made official in 2003.

MY TWO-BODY PROBLEM

This is usually most difficult for us academics as we finish our degrees (or when an appointment ends if the relationship started when not a student - mine did so this is what I reference).  For me, it was especially stressful since I finished my doctorate before my husband finished his.  My solution to the two-body problem: take a mini retirement.  He was supposed to graduate next semester so I figured that I would wait for him.  Besides, after writing my dissertation, I was quite burned out on research.  Well, next semester turned into the next next semester and I started to quickly lose my mind as I wasn't nearly as burned out as I thought.  I had a small contract teaching job at Penn State, but it was something that I had been doing for years as a graduate student and it wasn't challenging or time consuming.  Then I discovered vampire books and decided to do a normal person job for fun (almost all of my work previously has been in academia).  One of my students gave me tips on where to apply for a waitressing  job.  I was looking for something in the evening, like in a bar, but I ended up with breakfast/lunch service at a hotel restaurant.  Except for the very early start time (I had to be there for 6 AM, which I know isn't that early, but doesn't exist in my universe), I loved the work!  I met lots of new people and none of them treated me like I was odd because I was a physicist (since they didn't know).  This did come at a potentially steep cost professionally since effectively being out of the field for nearly a year (like I was) is usually career suicide.

Finally, there came a job I was willing to suffer a long distance relationship for - the one I have right now.  It was pure serendipity that they were also hiring engineers with my husband's skills at the same time.  We both got jobs and we are both happily employed at LIGO now.  This is EXTREMELY rare.

Now my concern is maintaining the ability to sleep under the same roof with my husband in the future.  My job here is a postdoctoral scholar is temporary, much like a medical doctor's residency.  I've been at this job for almost 5 years now (I did get promoted to senior postdoctoral scholar after my third year) which is a long time to be a postdoc at the same place.  That's not to say that it's unusual to have several postdoc appointments at different places for more than 5 years.

What to do now?  Well, I am trying to work out a new position but I don't want to jinx by talking about it here now.  This solution would let me stay put but definitely mix things up a bit for me.  Fingers crossed!

THE TWO-BODY PROBLEMS OF MY MENTORS

To give you an idea of how lucky I am to live with my husband through our transition from student to scientist, I've had two advisors on my way to getting my Ph.D. who both had extended long-distance relationships due to the two-body problem.  The first was Gabriela Gonzalez who left Penn State to go with her husband (also at Penn State) to LSU where he was offered a prestigious position and she would be able to work much closer to LIGO.  Before they found the Penn State (and then LSU) solution to their two-body problem, they worked for about 6 years hours apart from each other (you can read about their story here - you may need to register, but it's free).  When I turned down the opportunity to go to LSU with her (due to my own relationship), I then worked for Sam Finn at Penn State.  He and his wife also spent about a decade apart before they found their solution.

Conclusion, I am lucky beyond belief to not only have a job that I love but to have the one I love with me as well.

Read More:

A Dual Dilemma  (NatureJobs.com)
Is the Husband Going to be a Problem?  (New York Times)
Women in Academia: The Two Body Problem  (Persephone Magazine)

Meeting Aftermath

I flew home to Louisiana from the LIGO-Virgo Meeting in California on Saturday.  The rest of this week has been a bit crazy for me since! 

I have been preparing for a talk I am giving at Rice University on Monday (the ad for it is here).  I love giving overview talks on LIGO and its potential so I am very much looking forward to it.  That being said, I don't do 'canned' talks (those are talks that are generic enough to be given with little notice and to varied audiences).  Well, I just lied a little - I do have a very basic talk that introduces LIGO to an audience that has little or no previous knowledge about gravitational waves.  I think that I have given that talk 4 times.  The talk I am giving at Rice is very different in that I am talking to other physicists (faculty and students) who are knowledgeable in physics, but are not experts on relativity or gravitational waves.  The most difficult part is figuring out how best to pitch the talk so that everyone stays interested but no one gets lost.  And then there is the issue of what cool things to talk about and what other things to leave out (I only have a 55 min slot and that includes time for audience questions).  Those are some of the hardest choices.

And then life always likes to make everything more complicated...

I was having an odd toothache since just before the I left for the meeting.  I got the first dentist appointment that was available to have it looked at.  I made a horrible mistake of taking some Advil before my appointment (it hurt) which made it difficult for him to figure out what was going on (since it didn't hurt anymore then).  Since there was something suspicious on my X-rays he was worried that I may need a root canal and that would need a specialist my roots on that tooth are curved irregularly.  So off to the root canal doctor the next day (no stress - it's not that I'm scared of a root canal, I just had so much work to do, a talk to polish and I didn't want to be recovering from a root canal while giving the talk).  GOOD NEWS!  It turns out that I brush my teeth with a little bit more enthusiasm than in healthy for my gums.  I have a little bit of recession which exposes a bit of dentin which causes sensitivity and repeatedly exposing those teeth to cold/hot/sweet/etc. was causing the ache.  I don't think the root canal doctor gets someone to smile as big to him as I did when he told me I needed some Sensodyne toothpaste and not a root canal!

<sigh>  It is a little odd writing my mundane blog posts after the post about the "Big Dog" blind injection got so much attention.  But the whole point of this blog is to let you see what it is like to be a LIGO scientist for real.  The bottom line is that there are some days where great and interesting things happen, but most days are just like everyone else's.  Right now, I need to clean up my house, I need to get groceries (I haven't gone for more than bread, etc. in a few weeks and I am out of everything), I have a pile of laundry with my name on it (and my husband's name since he helps out with that - I have a great man at my back) and a movie from Netflix that has been sitting by my TV for almost 3 weeks.  Yup.  This is my life and I like it just the way it is!

Here's a little LIGO fun to get you though the weekend.  This compilation of Beach Boys parodies was made by a group of LIGO REU (Research Experience for Undergraduates) summer students.  I guess we didn't keep them busy enough :)

 
Research experiences are priceless for physics students, especially those considering going on to graduate school.  If you are interested in the LIGO REU, you can find more information here.  It is too late to apply for this summer, but consider applying for next summer!  Most students end up working at Caltech (like the students in this video) but you may get to work/visit LIGO Livingston and meet me :P

Becoming a Physicist II - The Cost $

One aspect that I didn't discuss in my last post about becoming a physicist is how to finance your education.  Here are some thoughts and advice based on my experience...

COLLEGE

Going to college can be expensive.  I know that first hand and this was a huge factor on where I chose to get by bachelor degree.  I didn't have the best grades (yup, that's right - you don't have to be a genius to be a scientist) but they were nothing to sneeze at either.  I ended up getting a large scholarship to a small school in western Maryland that almost no one has ever heard of (Frostburg State University, Frostburg, MD) and smaller offers from more notable schools.  I chose Frostburg because I knew when I was in high school that I would need a graduate education to be the kind of physicist I wanted to be.  And, honestly, not many people care where you got your bachelor degree from once you have your doctorate.  A big name school can help you get into a good grad school, but it doesn't carry as much weight as you may think.  At Frostburg, I was truly able to spread my wings and distinguish myself more than I feel I could have at a bigger school.  (However, I don't know that for sure since I never really gave the big schools a chance.)  It was these distinctions that made me attractive to graduate schools (for example, I graduated in less than 4 years with a good GPA).

In the end, I got a good education and into a great graduate program with a minimum of cost.  Overall, I think I made the right choice for me.  Remember, your situation will be different from mine - you need to do what is right for you.


GRAD SCHOOL

One of the questions I get asked most often when I talk to undergraduates about going to grad school is, "Great...  And how much will that cost me?"  They are almost always surprised when I tell them that you usually get paid to get a graduate degree in physics (or biology, chemistry, astronomy, engineering, etc.).  The only science centered graduate training that I know costs a lot of money is medical school (and since this is what most people are familiar with, they apply the cost for med school to any graduate science training).

When you are accepted into a graduate program (usually Ph.D. - many physics programs, at least, do not require you earn a master degree on your way to your doctorate), you are usually accepted with a tuition wavier (meaning you don't pay any tuition) and a stipend you earn through an assistantship (usually a teaching assistantship in your early years and a research assistantship when you are performing your thesis research).  I paid nothing for my Ph.D.  They paid me to work as a physicist (remember in my last post I mentioned that grad school is more like an apprenticeship than course work? - this is an example of what I meant by that).


CONCLUSION

When working to become a Ph.D. physicist (or pretty much any scientist other than a medical doctor), the major cost involves getting you bachelor degree.  After you are accepted into grad school, costs like tuition usually disappear and you start getting paid to do what you love (I hope you love it at this point!).

This picture (about Fall 2005) is of me and some of my best friends while we were in grad school.  We all gathered at one of our apartments and made pizza from scratch - crust and all.  It was a great time!  I also like this picture because everyone in this picture ended up getting married!  (The now wife of my friend third in from the left was taking this picture.)  My husband and I are the last two on the right.

Becoming a Physicist

Lately, I've been looking back on the experiences that brought me to the point I am at now - working with LIGO as a scientist.  It made me realize that many things happened throughout my education which brought me here today.  So, for any readers out there who are thinking of becoming a scientist (not just one for LIGO) here is my advice.


HIGH SCHOOL

The bottom line about the high school experience is to learn as much as you can.  It was a little bit disappointing when I got to college that no one cared about what great things I did when I was in high school.  Colleges and universities stop caring about things like that once you have gained admission.

Therefore, the most important thing you can do is learn as much about what you want to do as you can.  I was lucky to already know what I wanted to do when I was that young, but if you don't that's fine too!  Just learn about what interests you the most at that time.  It may turn out not to be something you want to do for the rest of your life but you will still have the knowledge you gained which will help you do whatever you end up doing.  And you never know - your interests in high school may end up being your calling.

Since I knew that I wanted to be a physicist, I took all of the science that my high school offered me.  In the end, I had 1 year of biology, 1 year of chemistry, 2 years of physics, a half year of astronomy, a half year of geology and a half year of ecology.  If your high school doesn't offer this range of topics, that's fine!  Just learn as much as you can in general.

COLLEGE

In college is where you start to make choices.  What do I want to major in?  What do I want to do with my degree?  Do I want to continue on to grad school for a masters or Ph.D. or do I want to stop with a bachelors degree?

Don't panic!  Most colleges do not make you declare a major until the end of your sophomore year BUT some majors require four years worth of coursework.  Look at the requirements for the majors you are seriously considering and start taking some of the introductory classes.  This will help you figure out if this is something you want to do for a living while making sure that you have some of the course work done if you decide it is (and if it isn't, introductory classes usually count towards your general education requirements).

Once you have decided to be a scientist, you need to think about what kind of scientist you want to be.  I'm not talking about subject matter (biologist, chemist, physicist, etc.) but how much education you will need to do the work you are most interested in.  This is a good time to seek out your advisor and start telling them about what you want from your education overall, and ask what degree you will need to do that work.

If grad school appears to be in your future, you need to make sure that you get the best grades you can in the classes that are part of your major (and overall too, but a bad grade in economics is easily overlooked when you have good grades in your major field) and gain some form of research experience.

A student who has research experience has an advantage over students who don't when applying to grad schools since research is the largest component to earning a graduate degree.  There are many programs out there for you to get this experience over the summer.  For example, the NSF gives grants to colleges to have undergraduates work with professors over the summer on their research.  This program is called Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU - click here for more info).  There are also similar programs out there.  Caltech has the SURF program (Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowships) that do a lot of work with LIGO (including at the observatories in Livingston, LA and Hanford, WA) and the University of Florida has an International REU program where you can work on LIGO related research in a different country.  (Find out more about these programs on ligo.org here.)

If you are going on to grad school, you will also need to think about what you want to specialize in.   Let's say you are finishing your physics bachelors degree.  All of your work so far has been very broad and covered the foundations of physics.  In grad school, you will specialize in a particular part of physics.  I specialized in gravity.  Therefore, I am an expert on that subject matter, but if you ask me something about particle physics (like the Large Hadron Collider) I will only be able to tell you very general things about that since I am not an expert.  It is a lot like asking your neurologist (brain & spinal cord specialist) about your upset stomach - he knows generalities but you would need to see a different specialist for a deeper answer.  Having a good idea of what you want to specialize in will be helpful when applying to grad school so that they admit the right number of people for each specialty.  That's not to say that you can't change your mind later, though.


GRAD SCHOOL

Now you have your bachelors degree in hand and you have been accepted to a grad school to work some subfield of your major.  Your first year will be filled with very challenging classes that will make you think again about if this is something you REALLY want to do.  Don't lose heart!  The first year is always the hardest and when you make it through that, it gets much better.

Make sure that you find an advisor to start performing research with.  After your first 2 years or so of grad school, the rest of the time you are there will be doing research for your thesis.  Many people think that grad school is like signing up for more school like you had from 1st grade through college - classes.  Grad school has some of that, but most of it is learning by doing research.  Grad school is more like an apprenticeship than "school" as we normally think about it.

Fast-forward a few years.  You are finishing your thesis and you are getting ready to finish your masters or Ph.D.  What now?  Well that depends on what you plan on doing next.  Many people with masters degrees go on to work in industry.  Most Ph.D.s are planning on going to a position in academia (college/university faculty positions).  The interesting thing to consider is that most of these people will end up in industry and that's not a bad thing.  For those getting Ph.D.s, they have been guided to this point by other Ph.D.'s who have usually never worked outside of academia.  Therefore, they are being guided by people who don't necessarily have the experience to talk about doing anything else with their degree.  Surveys have shown that those who move on to industry are just as happy, if not more so, than their classmates who went on to become college faculty.

If you are getting a Ph.D., chances are that you will be doing a postdoctoral (postdoc) appointment next.  This is what I am doing right now and it allows to you better establish yourself in your field by doing more independent research and publishing your results.

Regardless, you are a bona fide <whatever it is you majored in>.  One of the best but scariest things about my life right now is what lays ahead...  Can I find a permanent position where I am (I would love that) or will I have to look elsewhere?  Where am I going to end up?  I really don't know the answers to these questions (yet) but I do know that I love doing LIGO research and will continue doing that wherever I end up!

Questions?

If you have any questions about becoming a scientist, feel free to contact me.  Just leave a comment below or email me at amber@livingligo.org and I will be happy to talk with you!

Origin Story

One of the things that I'm surprised scientists don't talk about more is why/how they became what they are. The feeling I get from others is that we've each had a 'calling' that led us to where we are and we just accept it as that. Or perhaps it is that many scientists don't have the best interpersonal skills and discussing something this personal may be uncomfortable. I really don't know. But when I have gotten colleagues to discuss the matter, the stories I've heard are varied and compelling. So, here's my origin story...

I grew up in Western Pennsylvania outside of Pittsburgh. Way outside and mostly in rural areas and then later in suburban areas. I have always 'known' on some level of what I wanted to be and it centered around science and space. As a child, the hero job that fit the bill was astronaut. Later, I discovered that there are many careers in science and decided that astronomer was much closer to my aspirations. I was fortunate enough to get a first class science education at my high school and took 2 years of physics, 1 year each of biology and chemistry and took a semester each of astronomy, geology and ecology. It was my physics teacher (the same for both years) that first exposed me to relativity and that is when I was hooked! It was mind blowing learning how time is not constant nor is length or mass for that matter! I didn't know exactly how I was going to use this, but I knew that this is something I wanted to pursue.

Then came college. I knew that I wanted to go on to graduate study, so most of my time in college I spent trying to excel in the physics major hoping for acceptance into a respected doctoral program. I went to Frostburg State University and graduated early. While there wasn't much to do as an undergraduate in relativity, I focused my attention on astronomy and was able to perform independent study in astrophotography.

When looking for graduate schools, I wanted to choose a research project that would allow me to work in both astronomy and relativity. I was admitted to Penn State and started work on the LIGO project. And today I work at one of the 2 LIGO sites.

While I feel like I've been privileged to always have a sense of direction as far as my career is concerned, I was not so focused academically. I was a horrible student! Sometimes when I work with visiting school groups to the observatory, I am asked if I really am a scientist and if I'm a genius. Yes, I am a real scientist but I am far from a genius! I had difficulty all though school and only started to find my academic focus once I was in high school. (One marking period in 4th grade, I received 4 F's on my report and they wanted to put me back in 3rd grade.) Establishing yourself as a scientist doesn't mean that science has to come easy to you - all you need to do is be persistent in learning the material and scientific methods. Even in college and grad school, I struggled and it just took hard work and persistence to get through it. Now that I am done with school, there is still no end to the struggle - but it is a struggle that I enjoy and the rewards are worth much more than the costs.

Are you a scientist and want to share your origin story? Feel free to leave a comment! Are you a student and think that you would like to be a scientist? Please leave a comment with your plans!

A special thanks goes out to: Mr. R. C. Bowman of Hempfield Area High School for exposing me to Relativity for the first time, to Dr. George Plitnik and Dr. Greg Latta for guiding me through college and to Dr.s Gabriela Gonzalez and Sam Finn for seeing me through grad school and establishing me in LIGO!