A break in our regular programming
By Mark Richardson, May 29, 2019
Hi everyone! I wanted to take a week off in our regular programming to introduce myself. I’m the Education and Outreach Officer at the Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute based out of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, with several partner institutes across Canada. I have been working with our fantastic contributors to kick off the Astroparticle Bites program. I hail from Halifax, Canada where I did my undergraduate degree in astrophysics at Saint Mary’s University. I then did a PhD in Astrophysics in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ. My dissertation was on comparing simulations of galaxy formation models to better understand the processes that influence the formation and evolution of galaxies. I continued working in this field as a Beecroft Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford University, and then did a Davis Postdoctoral Fellowship at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City. Finally I moved to Kingston to join the McDonald Institute team in August 2018. I work to bring different educational opportunities to a broad range of audiences, usually in the context of astroparticle physics!
I also want to welcome Benjamin Tam, our newest contributor who will be providing an article soon. Ben received a BSc in Physics from McGill University in 2016 before pursuing an MSc in Particle Astrophysics at Queen’s University. Under the supervision of Professor Mark Chen, he was promoted directly to the PhD Programme in 2018. Working at an intersection of physics, chemistry, and engineering, Ben is upgrading the Nobel-prize winning Sudbury Neutrino Observatory in order to study the fundamental particles of the universe at a level of detail hitherto impossible.
Ben is also passionate about science outreach and communication. He is the lead outreach ambassador for the Arthur B. McDonald Canadian Astroparticle Physics Research Institute, President of the Queen’s Graduate Physics Society, and a recipient of the Malcolm Stott Teaching Award. Outside of physics, Ben enjoys coaching competitive speed skating, backpacking in the Canadian Rockies, and irritating those around him with awful puns.
Finally, I would like to thank our co-bites sites, Astrobites, and Astrobitos, who have begun cross-posting some of our posts! We hope this helps spread the fruits of the efforts of our group. And if you would like to join our contributors and submit a post, please reach out to me at Outreach@McDonaldInstitute.ca. See you all next week!
