• Question: what type of things do you do during the day and do you guys have twitter?

    Asked by ellenluxton to Adam, Geoff, Rob, Sheila, Suzie on 23 Mar 2011 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Robert Simpson

      Robert Simpson answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      On an average week (if there is such a thing around here) I am usually doing a few main things:

      1) Writing code for our websites, either to add new stuff to them or make them work more efficiently.
      2) Writing computer code to analyse our data, or writing up results of data analysis.
      3) Having meetings about new or existing project with either own usual team or with external people like other universities or the BBC or something.
      4) Speaking with the public in some capacity – schools, astronomy groups (even the IAS website!)

      In addition to this my work involves some travel – this year I have been to Seattle and Chicago and may be going to the USA again later in the year – as well as all around the UK.

      Busy busy busy! But I love it 🙂

      You ask about Twitter. I use that a lot (@orbitingfrog) and so do a lot of astronomers I know. In fact I even run a conference series all about astronomy and the internet (@dotastronomy) which involves a lot of twitter. We also use Facebook and stuff, to promote our sites, but to talk with other scientists I find twitter is tidier.

    • Photo: Sheila Kanani

      Sheila Kanani answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      @saturnsheila of course!
      during the day i stare at a computer until i start to see interesting shapes in my data that i can use to convince people that saturn is a really interesting place. and if i cant do it i write a computer program to make my pc do it 😀

    • Photo: Adam Tuff

      Adam Tuff answered on 22 Mar 2011:

      I’ve got more detail on my profile! I work on my computer codes usually, and teach undergraduate classes. I sometimes talk to schools or visiting students, or go to lectures or guest speaker talks. Sometimes I go abroad to work on experiments – if I’m there I monitor experiments from the control room, or help set up the equipment.

    • Photo: Suzie Sheehy

      Suzie Sheehy answered on 23 Mar 2011:

      Hiya, well the past week and a bit I’ve spent lots of time online chatting to you guys and answering questions!! But usually i do spend quite a lot of time at my computer, writing programs to calculate things for me and doing simulations of designs for particle accelerators. I spend probably too much time on twitter, and I also write a blog (highheelsinthelab.blogspot.com) – this week I’ve been blogging about “I’m A Scientist!”

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