Professional Service

Sorry about the slow posting this week!  I've been busy getting ready for a trip and Thanksgiving.  By themselves, they aren't that bad but I still need to get my regular work done so I've been trying to get ahead on that.  Hence, I haven't been on the blog as much as I'd like.

In my "About Me" section, I mention the 3 main parts of being an academic: research, teaching and service.  I've already talked about my research and teaching, so let me tell you a little about professional service.

Service covers basically any activity that enriches your profession but doesn't come in the form of teaching or performing research in whatever it is you do.  This could be sitting on a committee that helps ensure that the working environment is comfortable or you can serve the larger community through professional societies.  For physicists, the main professional society is the American Physical Society (APS) but I am also a member of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

This week, I am traveling to the APS Board and Council Meetings.  I sit on the APS Council as the representative of the Forum on Graduate Student Affairs (FGSA).  The Council is the legal decision making body of the APS and we vote on everything from general statements, to journal subscription rates.  Councilors are elected to the Board after 2 years (of a 4 year term) on the Council.  The Board does more behind the scenes discussions on matters before they are brought to the Council for a vote.  The Board meets 5 times a year and the Council twice (luckily for me, 2 of the Board Meetings happen the day before the Council meetings).  I will be sure to post later this week on what happens at these meetings.

Service is often seen as thankless work.  In many ways, it is.  That is one of the reasons I try to find ways to serve that I personally feel are fulfilling; that way even if no one notices the work I do, I still feel good about it.  Serving on the APS Board and Council is not only fulfilling, but I also feel deeply honored since I was elected by my peers to these posts.

Photo by Ken Cole, APS

The picture above shows Gay Stewart (University of Arkansas), Stefan Zollner (now of the New Mexico State University), and me at the LaserFest gala event that was held at the Smithsonian National Museum of American History on February 12th this year.  All of us are on the APS Council and were invited to represent the APS.  For me, this was a night when being nerdy was cool!  I got to mingle with several Nobel Prize winners.  This photo really doesn't show the extent that the Smithsonian went to for this gala.  You can read more about it and see great pictures here.  This is definitely a time when service was not thankless!

Doctors Appointments and Laser Safety

Yesterday was a long day of doctors appointments for me.  Since I was preoccupied much of this summer with my kidney stone, a few of my maintenance doctors visits got pushed to the back burner.

Appointment #1 - Family Medicine

My first appointment of the day started at the family doctor where both my husband and I had appointments (we try to sync appointments like this together since we only have one car and work far away from our doctors).  I was there for blood work and to have my new doctor work with me to get me off some of the many prescriptions my old doctor had me on (this is one of the reasons I changed doctors).  Everything is looking good there and I am pleased with the plan we are working on.

Appointment #2 - Dentist

I had an appointment with my dentist about a month and a half ago to have a filling fixed.  I was in the chair and all of the odds and ends and drill bits were set out when I mentioned to my dentist that, from time to time, I get a slight twitch under my right eye.  It was happening right then and he declared that he wouldn't touch me until I get confirmation from my neurologist that this dental work would not make it worse (he was worried that the anesthetic he intended to use would effect the same nerve he believed to be causing the twitch).  I told him that this is related to my TMJ and if I relax my jaw, it goes away.  He was still uncomfortable and sent me home.

So, with a note from my neurologist in hand, I returned and finally had this taken care of.

Appointment #3 - Eye Doctor

It has been a little over a year since I blew a blood vessel behind my retina and since I wore my contacts (the eye drops they had me used could not be used with contacts).  Now that my retina in better, I needed to see the eye doctor again to have my prescription renewed so I can order new contacts!  To my surprise, my prescription hasn't changed at all!  Yea!

My visit to my eye doctor reminded me of why I go to this particular doctor.  And the story starts the laser safety at LIGO...


Laser Safety at LIGO

When a new employee, student or visitor starts working at one of the LIGO observatories, they must undergo laser safety training especially if they will be working directly with the lasers or if they will be working around the lasers.

The laser used in the last data run here at LIGO was a 35 Watt Nd:YAG laser.  The first thing that makes this laser particularly dangerous is that it is powerful.  35 Watts is the equivalent of shining 35,000 of the common red laser pointers on the same spot (so that the dot is no bigger than if you were only using one laser).  That is plenty powerful enough to burn a hole in your retina and this is an injury that will NEVER heal.  If you are lucky you will simply have a blind spot in your peripheral vision and if you are unlucky you will be permanently blinded.  The other aspect that makes this laser dangerous is that is a wavelength (color) that you can't see.  The laser produces 1064 nm (about 0.0000419 in) wavelength light which is infrared.  Since we can't see the laser at all, it can be especially difficult to avoid it.  If even the reflection of this light (that you cannot see) enters your eye, you will have a burned retina.

For these and other reasons, everyone who will work with or around the lasers must undergo laser safety training, have their eyes examined, their retina photographed and wear laser safety goggles when around the detector.  That is how I came to see my eye doctor here in Baton Rouge for the first time.  This will also not be the last time I see this doctor...  Any time a that there is a suspected laser injury to the eye, that person is sent back to the eye doctor for the whole exam again.  They then compare the how the retina looks now to how it looked before the person started working around lasers (that's why they took the first retina picture) to determine what, if any, damage was done.  Also, when someone no longer works at LIGO, they must go for an exit exam to make sure that there was no damage done that they were unaware of.

I don't have any recent pictures of me in the awful green laser safety glasses, but I do have an old one from the first time I got to take a tour of the inner workings of LIGO.  Below, is a picture of me [right] when I was a graduate student and a very good friend (and fellow graduate student) Tiffany Summerscales [left] by one of the vacuum chambers inside the LIGO Hanford Observatory (the sister observatory in Washington state to the Louisiana one).  This picture is from August 2004:

Louisiana Science Teachers' Association Meeting & X-Rays

I've been away on travel to the Louisiana Science Teachers' Association (LSTA) Meeting last week in Monroe, LA.  LIGO goes to present workshops and to advertise the Science Education Center (SEC) though a booth in the exhibit hall. 

Our booth in the exhibit hall featured a projection of the LIGO documentary "Einstein's Messengers", the Visible Vibrations exhibit from our exhibit hall, 'snacks' (inexpensive, miniature versions of exhibits that teachers can build and use in their classrooms - the Exploratorium has a nice catalog of 'snacks' here), brochures, and posters.  While it was tiring being on your feet all day interacting with the teachers, it was also extremely rewarding!  One of the most inspiring people I interacted with wasn't even a teacher.  One of the security staff was so fascinated by the Visible Vibrations exhibit, that he kept coming back and interacting with it for most of the day!  To see someone who isn't even our target audience (at least that day) exploring the physics involved was extraordinary.  On top of that, he made some of the most spectacular vibration patterns I've ever seen!

LIGO also presented two one-hour workshops.  The SEC director presented one on motors and I presented another one on the LaserFest kits that I based the LaserFest Teachers' Day on a few weeks ago (you can read more about it here).  I had enough kits for 30 attendees, but my workshop was at the end of the day on Friday and only had about 10 teachers attend.  While I was a little disappointed (my ego had me convinced that EVERYONE would want to come to MY workshop), it was also a blessing in two ways.  The first way is that I got to have a lot more one-on-one time with the teachers and they had much more time to ask deeper questions than they would have normally.  The second way is that there were extra kits to be had.  The teachers seemed quite happy when I told them they got to keep their kits and, when I asked if they would like to take another kit with them to share with other teachers at their school, their faces lit up.  Each and every one of those kits has now found a good home in a Louisiana classroom.

Today in History...

Today is the 115th anniversary of the X-ray (if you hadn't noticed from Google's Doodle for today)!  I can't count how many of these I've had in my life and how many times they have saved me from some medical trouble, everything from dental cavities to finding my kidney stone.

Speaking of which, the X-ray below is after I had a ureteral stent placed between my kidney and my bladder to bypass my kidney stone and allow my kidney to drain.  The stent is clearly visible and the kidney stone is the little shrapnel looking thing about a third of the way down the stent.  The top curl is in my kidney and the bottom is in my bladder.  I am so happy that both the stone and the stent are gone!

What I Do When I'm Not Working (and an Anniversary)

Most of the posts I've made to this blog have been almost exclusively about my work even though I want this blog to be about my life, both the scientific and the mundane. 
This passed Thursday, I only worked a half day (I've been working more 6 day weeks than not for a while now) since I had a moderate migraine.  This one wasn't bad as far as all of the headaches I've had in my life, but it was more than enough to make light hurt my eyes and make me want to curl up in bed until it goes away.  So, I took care of the work that had to be done that day (like another conference call) and spent the rest of the day tending to my migraine.  This amounted to the first decent amount of down time I've had in a while.  While I wouldn't wish migraines on anyone, I am sort of glad I have mine since they force me to stop and relax from time to time (they also can hit at times when I simply can't put my life on pause and that is when I curse them).

So, what did I do with my time?  Well, first you have to know a little bit about me...  If I had 3 words to describe myself, they would be 1) physicist, 2) vampires and 3) Halloween.  I adore vampires and have read almost 200 vampire books in the last 4 years.  I also like to get the audiobook versions of books I've already read and liked to go to sleep to; if I have already read them, I won't keep my self awake to find out what happens next.  Since my eyes hurt me too much to read, I rested in bed and listened to my favorite books while I waited for my medication to take effect.  After about 2 hours of this, I felt a little better and proceeded to read a little.

This weekend was Halloween and I ADORE the holiday.  I love all of the dark fun and the idea of getting to be someone else for an evening.  I'm not one to dress up, but since I love vampire books, it is fun to think about what the world would be like if things that went bump in the night were real.

To celebrate, my husband and I went on the haunted trail at the Cajun Country Corn Maze.  (Tip:  If you go around this time of year, just go for the haunted trail since there is no line for this - there was a line almost an 500 feet long just for the maze.  Come back later in November to do the maze.)  Below is me in the pillory at the corn maze.  I think it is just scary how washed out my face looks with a camera flash:

I also love autumn in general!  So much so, that my wedding was autumn themed the day after Halloween.  That's right, today is Derek's and my anniversary!  To celebrate, here is a picture of us just after the ceremony:

Conference Calls and a Poster

Conference Calls

When you work with scientists from around the world, you end up on a lot of phone meetings.  Today (and every Wednesday) I had two. 

The first one was the "Burst" data analysis call and I drew the short straw and got to take the minutes of the meeting.  I am not someone who is good with names (I once had a class of 4 students and I messed their names up all that time - I knew each person well, I just forgot their label); now imagine that you only have a voice to go on.  This is not my strong point but it wasn't too bad today.  We discussed what needs to be done now that our latest science data run is over to complete our analysis looking for gravitational waves.

The second call was with people I collaborate with at Penn State to keep the MATLAB library of software that has been written for various LIGO purposes available and up to date.  That doesn't mean that we write it all (I have only written some of it), but we work with the program authors to make sure that their work makes gets into the hands of the other scientists to use.  Right now we are working on taking some of the programs that have been written to perform utility functions (like checking to see if a time is in daylight savings or doing calculations on where a star was at any given time) and pulling them together into a general toolbox.  Creating a toolbox like this will help keep duplication of effort to a minimum (that is, to keep people from repeatedly reinventing the wheel) and help insure that users are getting the correct values from these basic utilities.  We are right in the middle of going through this pool of computer programs to make sure that they are documented well and up to date.

Poster

Last year, I had the honor and privilege of working with the APS to create a poster on gravitational waves.  It was a wonderful experience getting to be someone who communicated the science of LIGO to the public and I learned much from the APS editors on how to express concepts in more understandable ways.  I wrote way too much content for the poster with the idea that it is better to have too much and cut it down, than to not have enough and have to create more content later.  The side benefit to this is the full version of the text that I wrote was then adapted for the science pages on the ligo.org site!

The poster as premiered by the APS at the joint APS/AAPT Meeting in Washington, DC this past February.  LIGO also arranged to have the posters included with the November issue of the AAPT magazine "The Physics Teacher" and to have the posters mailed to every physics department in the US.  I was thrilled!  So, now I am starting to spot the poster in the wild.

A few days ago, a friends of mine who is now at the Coastal Carolina University sent me a picture of it hanging outside his office:

I also just got my November issue of "The Physics Teacher" and it was so cool to get a copy of the poster in my mail box!

If you would like to get a FREE copy, you can request it (or another great poster on the top 10 reasons to study physics) from the APS here.

Sorry for getting so giddy about this!  This is just one of those things that make your day and remind you why you get out of bed in the morning.  :)

Busy Last Week: SESAPS Meeting and LaserFest Teachers' Day

Sorry for the lack of posts but I have been completely knackered after the events of last week:


SESAPS Meeting @ LSU

The American Physical Society (APS) has regional section meetings across the country and the end of last week saw the Southeast Section Meeting of the APS Meeting at LSU.  Since Initial LIGO was decommissioned a few days before, LIGO opened up a few of its vacuum chambers to the SESAPS attendees to show off the optics that were contained within.  This was indeed a rare opportunity as the chambers are only opened in between science runs AND only when there was crucial work to be done on specific components.  I work on site and I have only ever gotten to see inside a few of the chambers before.

Over 100 (and I believe I am being conservative) guests visited LIGO on Thursday afternoon and toured the Science Education Center, control room and LVEA (Laser Vacuum Equipment Area, otherwise known as the corner of the LIGO detector where all the neat stuff is).

Above is the inside of HAM6 (Horizontal Access Module - it has a table inside in instead of hanging the equipment from the top of the chamber) which is the output of the LIGO detector.  The taller piece of equipment on the table is the Output Mode Cleaner (OMC) which will help insure that the laser light has optimal intensity and phase to be used to detect gravitational waves (you can read a more detailed description of this kind of mode cleaner here).

This is what is inside of BSC1 (Beam Splitter Chamber - the kind of chamber where the equipment is hung from the top of the chamber).  This mirror (which looks like glass, but the front surface has a transparent light purple coating to make it reflective to infrared light which is what our laser is) is called ITMY (Intermediate Test Mass on the Y [south] arm).  (Test mass is our complicated way of saying mirror.)  This mirror sits just after the corner beam splitter of LIGO to intercept the light returning from the end mirror to bounce it back to the end mirror - this bouncing happens about 100 times before the light gets past the ITM to recombine with the light coming from the X arm and go to the output (which you just saw in the previous picture).

This is a picture of me and my husband, Derek (who is an engineer at LIGO).  The bright light you see shining from the left is the spot light that is illuminating ITMY.  This isn't the best picture, but I just had to have a picture of us in front of this mirror before they closed the chamber up - which is exactly what they did just after this picture was taken!


LaserFest Teachers' Day
 

I've been talking lately about the workshop I've been planning for middle/high school teachers of physical science and physics.  Since 2010 is the 50th anniversary of the invention of the laser, this year is also LaserFest.  To that end, the professional societies whose research have benefited from lasers all got together to sponsor LaserFest and to promote the educational outreach of lasers.  Since the SESAPS Meeting was taking place at LSU with physicists from all over the region, I decided it would be great to organize a LaserFest Teachers' Day to focus on the classroom kits the APS is distributing for free to teachers and to invite the meeting physicists to have lunch with the teachers and chat about what they do.

Organizing this event was quite the journey.  The first thing that needed to be done was to find the funding for the event (even if the kits are free from the APS, there are costs for food, recruiting and other miscellaneous supplies) which was supplied by the APS Forum on Education, the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) and the Optical Society of America (OSA).  Then I needed to recruit teachers from the surrounding areas.  I was lucky here since I work with the LIGO Science Education Center and was able to advertise this event through their contact who also helped to spread the word.  Then there is making sure that the supplies arrive in time, contracting catering for the event, making sure that the teachers know when and where to be and insuring that you have all the incidental supplies that are needed (e.g. the kits contain everything a teacher would need except things they should already have like scissors and tape - but I needed to make sure that we had those for the workshop).  I know that none of these things sound like a lot, but this reminded me a lot of the last days before my wedding when all the details needed to fall into place at the same time.

The day started at 9 am with breakfast followed by a wonderful talk by Dr. Ken Schafer who introduced us to the basic concepts that make a laser work, their history and their applications.  We then proceeded to the first of the 4 activities in the 2009 PhysicsQuest kit (which included a laser pointer, and LED light, polarizers, glow-in-the-dark vinyl and colored light filters).  At noon, we broke for lunch and chatting with some of the physicists visiting for the SESAPS Meeting.  The rest of the afternoon saw us working through the remaining 3 activities and the day concluded at about 3 pm.

The picture above is some of the teachers hard at work doing the laser activity where we measured the width of our hair by measuring the diffraction pattern made by shining the laser on the hair.  That explains why the teacher on the left is giving herself a hair cut!

The APS has put together a useful page on arranging a Teachers' Day of your own - see it here.

I know that there are many people out there with poor opinions of our education system and the teachers within it, but I was truly inspired by these teachers who attended this workshop on their own time and without pay so that they can learn how to do these activities and take them back into their classrooms.  These teachers definitely went above and beyond to better themselves and their students!

Initial LIGO is Dead! Long Live Advanced LIGO!

Today (20 October 2010), at 8:00 am CDT (13:00 UTC) the sixth science run of the Initial LIGO detector concluded and, with it, the life of Initial LIGO.

At 11 am CDT time, the announcement was made at the Livingston Observatory that the detector was laser safe (meaning that the lasers are off and no eye protection is needed to approach the instrument).

The 4 km arms (which have not been exposed to the atmosphere for about a decade) have been sealed to preserve their vacuum and the chambers holding the optical instrumentation are being vented (allowing the atmosphere back into the individual chambers).

Work has now officially commenced on the Advanced LIGO installation (whose design and assembly has been going on for years now).

Advanced LIGO is expected to be online around 2014.

Of course, there will be much more detailed information coming to you on this blog in the future.  I just wanted to share this moment in history with you.  I have been privileged to work on LIGO since before our first science data was taken on August 23, 2002 (which is not nearly as long as the pioneers of LIGO have been laying the foundation) and feel even more privileged to be a small part of its history today.  I can't wait for what's to come.

Long live Advanced LIGO!

The illustration above shows the anticipated "reach' of Advanced LIGO (the purple sphere) compared to Initial LIGO (the orange sphere).  Each small dot in the figure represents a galaxy.  Since the volume of space that the instrument can see grows as the cube of the distance, this means that the event rates will be more than 1,000 times greater.  Advanced LIGO will equal the 1-yr integrated observation time of Initial LIGO in roughly 3 hours. (Galaxy map credit: R. Powell, www.atlasoftheuniverse.com.)