Chat with Emma Bakes 2/4/97 Hi, Emma Bakes here -- I'm from NASA Ames research center and am ready to answer your Qs. Hi Emma - Do you ever wished you stayed in England or do you ever go back to visit? I usually go back to England once a year at most to visit my parents and to see a few old buddies. My parents prefer to come to the USA, because it's more exciting. How come you came form England? Do you think you could get the same type of job there now? Jobs are scarce in the UK and it's a tiny island run like an old boy's club. The USA is much more exciting, dynamic and positivefor astronomy! ********** What exactly is thermodynamics? Thermodynamics is the study of the heating and cooling of solids, liquids and gasses. Can you explain more about what you do? What is star-forming regions and why do you work with that? Star forming regions are just large pockets of dense, hot gas, where stars are born. I started to work on those entirely by coincidence, it was just a fluke, an accident. I'd have much rather worked on cosmology, but my graduate thesis advisor did atomic physics, so I ended up studying stars! Hi Emma - I'm in 6th grade and I'm wondering what really is astrophysics? Astrophysics is the study of the physics [movement] and chemistry [what the stuff is made of] of the stars and the stuff between the stars. Is the study of thing between the stars the study of planets? We are between the stars, aren't we? The matter between the stars that I research is just gas and small "dust" particles. Sure, we are between the stars, sat on our planet, but my work focusses on the "interstellar medium", effectively the material created by stars as they throw off their outer layers. What is your work used for? My work has applications to chemistry and physics. Its use in the real world, removed from astronomy, would probably be in the petrochemicals industry and in firms like IBM, since I do a lot of programming. In academia, my work is used to guide the astronomers trying to understand what their data [from telescopes] represents. Do you do any work with the Hubble telescope? My work can be directly applied to Hubble, definitely, although as yet, I have not succeeded in working with it. You compete with your colleagues for time and since I am a "theorist" and Hubble users are all "observers", they get preferential pick of user time. Obviously, they can use the telescope easily. I'd have to brush up on skills they already have. ********** I noticed that your job title stated you were a "research fellow", what is the differance between this and other research jobs like research engineers, and such? A research fellow is a contractor -- you are employed for a fixed period of time, from year to year, and you collaborate with other people on the subjects you find interesting. Research engineers have a much more utilitarian application and they can work for industry and the like. Astrophysicists aren't too much use to big business, so we don't have the best employment prospects! Emma, do you find your job at NASA different than those you've had elsewhere, and if so how? ]My job at NASA is fairly relaxing compared with previous jobs. The job I held at Princeton was in a much tougher environment, very male biassed and hard to break into. The Vassar job was a great environment, but my research suffered because I had no time to do this due to doing a lot of teaching. NASA allows me to research, I do not teaching and the people are very friendly and helpful. Do you think you'll stay at NASA or do you wnat to try another career? How old are you? I wish I could stay at NASA, but I will have to move on after two years to another job somewhere else. Who knows where that will be. If I was forced to try another career, sure, I would, but I really like astronomy. I'm 28. How come you have to leave in 2 years? One day hope to become an aerospace engineer, does this have any thing to do with your feild of work, and do you have any advise Your job aspirations have a lot of practical applications here at NASA -- we have huge wind tunnels here where they test out the aerodynamics of fighter planes, jets and the space shuttle. Why don't you write to Ames to get further information? Lockheed, I think, does aerospace stuff. Does a research fellow mean you are still in school? A research fellow means you have already got your Ph.D. and are now fighting for grant money in the real world, to fund yourself. Are you actually hired by NASA or is it more like an intership? I have to be paid wages -- so various organisations agree to fund me for a fixed length of time. When this runs out, I have to find another "patron"! NASA cannot fund me forever and I hope eventually that a university will -- i.e. that I will get a professorship. Well, I am hired through the National Academy of Sciences -- to work at NASA. The Government funds me to do work for NASA. ********** As one who went into a very selective field, what was the best thing you did in your teenage years that allowed you to do it? Well, I was bummed out when I learned I had to do physics and math to do astronomy. So the "best" thing, really, was knuckling down to persevere on my worst two subjects at school. What kept me going through this was my hobbies like piano, kung fu and art We think you have such an interesting life and interests. What do you attribute this to? your parents or your environment now? My interests stem from watching a lot of TV and thinking "It would be cool to do that" and also from the example of other people, heroes, teachers and so on. My mother was undoubtedly nurturing and talented, but she couldn't really direct me to the more unusual hobbies I have, like martial arts! What kind of tv do you watch? do you think it interferes with reading and other intellectual things? I got all my best leads from TV. Perhaps TV in England is a bit different -- it's like PBS. I would never have discovered astronomy, art movies, great novelists and classical and modern musicians without the educational TV they have in the UK. But sure, I also read a *lot* and did other things besides watch TV. And my mom would never let me watch it in the weekend mornings. What type of shows would you recommend for our middle school students here that you watch now that might channel their energies into interests such as yours? I'd say watch PBS a lot -- I know people my age who are extremely knowledgeable and I say "Where the heck do you learn this stuff?" and they always say PBS. Also, the Discovery channel is a good one to watch. ********** I'm Sophia A junior in high school, I was wondering, Why do you think that females score lower on ACT's and SAT's in science and math, even though they get better grades in school? I think, in my experience, that while you can spend a lot of time on homework and self confidence at home does not desert you, when you sit an exam, an enormous feeling of insecurity overwhelms you [it used to do that to me]. Nervousness and anxiety brings out all your "inner demons" such as insecurity, lack of self confidence and so on. These then sabotage your exams. That always happened with me. It was *so* frustrating! ********** Did you as, a female ever feel intimidated by teachers or other classmates, because of your gender? Yeah, if you check out my web page on this site, I detail the "gender intimidation". It's not so much I feel intimidated, but I have to fight to be taken seriously in a field containing only 3 % women and 97% men. It gets extremely frustrating to have to prove yourself all the time. And yes, I encountered plenty of bad teachers who didn't like the fact I was good at science. You have to concentrate on the good ones. ********** How long does it take to really learn Kung Fu? It takes a couple of years to get really proficient. It depends on the school -- it can take upwards of five years if your teacher is mellow about your training time! What do you do with your martial arts training? Do you use this for self defense or is it more just exercise. Do you think it helps your concentration? I have never had to use my martial arts training, although I know I could, very effectively. It is a mix for me, between the self defence aspect and the exercise to de-stress aspect. It certainly helps my concentration and relaxes me a lot. But if someone came up to me with a knife, I would just run away very fast! Not wrap a jacket around my arm and fight! ********** Thankyou Emma, you are an amazing woman and a great role model! Thanks Sophia -- hasta la vista.