Sabbatical

Sabbatical isn't all laying on beaches soaking up the sunshine. Indeed, it can be one of the busiest parts of an academic's career! There is still some time for R+R, however, such as at the famous Whitehaven beach, pictured above, on the Gold Coast of Australia near Airlie Beach.

I should warn you at the start: my colleagues tell me: "John, you're doing sabbatical wrong!" But what is a sabbatical anyways? Why do many (though not all) university professors get to take one? And what purpose, if any, does it serve? As I come to the end of my first sabbatical it seemed like a good time to reflect on what I felt I did right, what I would change for my next sabbatical and to take a few minutes to answer some basic questions.

5 years, 7 months and 25 days (Tenure)

You may think it's a bit silly, but I do have a thing for a well-made watch. I have a tradition of picking up a new one for major milestones at work (if you can call something you've done twice a tradition!). At right is the Seiko Premier Moonphase from my hiring as an Assistant Prof in 2012, the 62MAS Prospex Diver at left is the latest addition, doubling the size of the "collection." There's something about the simplicity and clarity of the latter that I appreciate now, much as I did the clockwork complexity of the former six years ago.

On the 26th of July this year, I finally got the good news from my President - I have been granted tenure! For those fans of this classic post that makes it 5 years, 7 months and 25 days since I began work at York University as an Assistant Professor. It's significantly longer than I spent as a postdoc and just a shade over the time spent in graduate school (5 years, 4 months and 7 days). I would have posted earlier, but I've been processing this news. In fact, I'm still processing. But, as is typical for this space, I'm feeling the itch to write and so I'm sharing my half-formed thoughts with you now.

But first; not all of you might be familiar with the concept of tenure. Why does it exist? What does it mean? Why do I/we care? And, what is it for? Perhaps a little background is called for. At most Universities, (but notably not all) most starting appointments, what would be in Canada and the United States called an "Assistant Professorship," is in fact a limited-term contract. The deal is that you will teach, research, serve the community/university and mentor graduate students for a period of time (typically 5 years). At at the end of that time, your fellow professors (Associate and Full) will weigh in and determine whether or not you meet the standards of your profession and merit being awarded a continuing position. Deans and other Senior Administrators also get a vote on this, however, at least at York it tends to be the lower-level committees that present the largest hurdles.

A Long Hiatus

It has been a year, 4 months and 10 days since I last posted, which I'm pretty sure is a record for this blog. Decidedly, it has been a very long hiatus. It's not so much that I stopped writing - very hard to do that - and indeed, I did write quite a few posts that are more or less ready to go. But in all that time, I just couldn't bring myself to hit the post button. So much second guessing about how others might read and interpret what I had to write*. Not to mention a great deal of wondering about why I should bother. Overall it just seemed to be an easier thing to simply put this conversation on hold.

While I was away, I've been busy. There's been a fair bit of stress, some unexpected challenges and a great deal of soul searching. I'd love to tell you that's all done now. But I don't think I'm quite there yet. Still, I've been feeling that it's time once again to put digital pen to digital paper, just in case this record is of any use to any of you. It's certainly been therapeutic for me, once or twice over the years! Besides, this has never been a sanitized "best life" record of my career. Frankly, I have a hard time understanding how such things are useful to anyone, including their authors.

So, in the interest of moving forward, allow me to sum up what has been going on in the last 16 months. 

There have been some definite highs in there: As of last August, I'm now a tenured professor at York and I was inducted into the Royal Society of Canada (!!!) last November - something I wouldn't have dreamed possible when last I posted (though I do know that even things we dare not dream can come true). I'm also now the director of a $7 million research network - which is thrilling and terrifying in equal measure; though I've found more confidence and encouragement than I expected when I took on the role.

However, on the other side, there have definitely been some lows. The tenure process is not an easy one and I must admit that I'm still working through some of what happened and what was said in the process. I'm told by colleagues at other Universities that this is not uncommon. I also served on a jury in a major criminal trial, something which permanently changes you in ways you don't expect. Last but far from least, my ophthalmologist likes to say that the warranty on a human being expires around the age of 40. For me, that seems to have been more like 37. I've spent 8 of the last 16 months on medication and my doctors cannot seem to figure out the problem. I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise to someone who works on the edge of a physical science that there is a huge gulf of the unexplained in medical science. Only TV medical dramas seem to tie up all the ends neatly with a diagnosis and cure within the hour; for the rest of us reality intervenes.

So there you have it. Look to this space over the coming weeks for a number of long-delayed posts. I might even have something to say about my Sabbatical which I'm currently enjoying down in Canberra, Australia with my unbelievably gracious hosts here at the Australian National University. Not to mention some of the exciting ideas for upcoming work that have been brewing.

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*Ahh the tenure process, is there a better crucible in which to forge self-doubt?

State of the Blog (2016-2017)

 

The members of TEPS and our guests at the Université de Montréal in June. This year saw enormous growth in our program, something very satisfying to see as an author of the proposal and as a member of the team!

It's July and that can only mean one thing, here at HTWT: time for the annual State of the Blog update! Unlike last year, I did manage more than zero posts with 8 in all. I also kicked off a new Blog for my lab over at http://york-pvl.blogspot.ca/ which has had 33 posts describing life, research and teaching amongst my students and trainees. The content over at our new location has been rather good and some of the posts have been very popular - in all we've had about 2,600 visitors over the year, not a bad start at all.

The big news over the last year will be no surprise to our regular readers. To my utter shock and amazement I published an article in Nature. If you talked to me a year ago, I would have thought you crazy to suggest that such a thing could happen. But this business is full of surprises. I won't spill much digital ink rehashing the experience (but if you want to rehash, by all means click for my description and background commentary) other than to say that I'm pleased that I can still learn new things about the business of getting science published despite having been doing planetary for 14 years. It was also very nice to be honoured by York University as a Research Leader for 2016 as a result.

State of the Blog (2015-2016)

 

This past year was all about expanding my boundaries . I wrote my first sole-author paper about some simulations of water moving on the Moon (a new body of work for me, scientifically speaking) and I teamed up with Ray Jayawardhana (Dean of Science here at York) to propose a $7 Million training program that brings together planetary scientists, exoplanetary astronomers and instrument designers. The program, which was selected, is called TEPS: Technologies for Exo/Planetary Science. It's going to be an exciting six years, as we ramp it up!

It finally happened. I've gone a whole year without posting once! I could use the usual excuses - (I've been busy!) - but the fact of the matter is that I just haven't felt that itch which is satisfied only by posting. Certainly, I've had plenty to write about, as you'll see below, and I'm actually coming around to the idea that it would be good for my career to talk more about my work and what my team is up to here in this space. But motivation is key, and that capital has all been allocated elsewhere this past year.

I went a bit crazy with grant applications and did quite well. Perhaps buoyed by my six papers from last year, everything I wrote in 2015 ended up being funded. I'd love to tell you all about it, but granting agencies have the right to announce successful applications and I respect that.

My success in the funding realm has led directly to a substantial increase in group size. Last year at this time, we were 1 Undergraduate, 1 PhD, 1 MSc and 1 PDF. Today, we have 5 Undergraduates, 6 MSc students, 1 PhD and 2 PDFs. While I am feeling the growing pains of that increase, it also means that we can research so many more things simultaneously! Indeed, our projects have proliferated to the point where there isn't a body in the solar system over 900 km in diameter which isn't the subject of someone's project.

State of the Blog (2014-2015)

A Swarm of accepted Papers, including two companions describing cube-sat micro-probes at Jupiter in IJSSE (and as pictured above in a simulation from co-author Isaac DeSouza).
It has been a banner year for publications!

 
So, here we are again - another year gone and a busy one at that. The entire pulse of six papers I submitted last year were ultimately accepted which saw my list of first author papers expand to 14*. Meanwhile, the predictions made by my GRL paper about Siding Spring were verified. Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you are a Mars-orbiting spacecraft) Siding Spring settled down substantially, coming in on the too quiet to be detectable for organic dusts side of the equation rather than the "Meteor Hurricane" that was predicted by early modelling. I find it fascinating that some comets flare so large while still so far away from the sun, but in that respect, Siding Spring is hardly alone.

State of the Blog (2013-2014)

 A cropped version of Jerusha Lederman's artwork that appeared in ScienceNOW. This artwork was originally commissioned by CRESS for the cover of GRL which accompanied my article on Comet Siding spring. This is the first time my work has ever been given the cover of a publication!

Those of you out there (if indeed anyone is left!) may have noticed the substantial downtick in blogging over the last year or so. Instead of the more typical every other week activity, this space has essentially gone dark with two exceptions. While one of those exceptions, describing how to make a petrographic microscope from easily obtained materials, has proven to be rather popular there is no arguing for a relative lack of published activity in this space.


Largely this is the result of two factors. The first, discussed when I got this job back in 2012 and finished up my first term, is that in some ways I feel a bit more constrained than I once did.

The second and more important is that the fraction of my brain available for dreaming up posting topics has decreased. The most surprising thing to me about being a professor is in how many directions you are simultaneously being pulled. Between applications, collaborations, committee work, teaching, administration and keeping on top of the projects and division of labor between students my thoughts tend more towards the temporal these days. That means that my prime creative hours - on the bus into York and in that time before my colleagues and students arrive at work - are now largely spent putting out fires via email or trying to get ahead of the deluge.

State of the Blog (2012-2013)

In some ways the last year since the 201-2012 state of the blog has been very quiet, certainly there have been relatively few posts. But in other ways, under the digital surface, it has been one of the biggest years yet for me! From the landing of MSL to my hiring by York University, it has truly been a year of monumental changes. Yet, my daily routine has changed little (well except for the added mechanics of teaching, granting and committee work) - I still head into York on the 196 and try my best to learn a bit more about the planets and how to unlock their secrets each day.

Dare Mighty Things, Canada

Canada was the 3rd country to build a satellite, Alouette, shown above (Photo courtesy CRC). From the very start, ours was an international effort, but one that has been fraught with many ups and downs as my recent reading of "Canada's Fifty Years in Space" (written by the resident of the neighboring office to mine at York, Gordon Shepherd) has revealed. On this anniversary, I can't help but wonder, what might the future hold?

2012 was a significant year for space exploration. Not only was this past year the 50^th anniversary of the launch of Canada’s first satellite, Alouette, but it was also the 50^th anniversary of the start of planetary exploration with Mariner 2’s voyage to Venus.

Our exploration of the planets continues to this day. Just this past August, as millions around the world watched, the Mars Science Laboratory Rover Curiosity achieved a daring landing on the dusty soils of Gale Crater in equatorial Mars. Over the next two years, the largest and most capable planetary rover ever developed will climb the five-kilometer high Mount Sharp and will search for the tantalizing clues to why a place that was once very much like the early Earth diverged to become a frozen desert. It will also help to determine if those early conditions might have led to life on our neighboring world.

I was fortunate to be at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena on the night of the landing. As I cheered them on from mission control, the team that successfully met the challenge of delivering Curiosity to Mars celebrated. A product of eight long hard years of work, the landing was a great triumph for the United States as a Nation and a message to the world that their country can still accomplish inspiring things.

In a small way it was a triumph for Canada as well. For a relatively meager investment of $17.5 million, Canada was able to provide Curiosity with an indispensable tool – the alpha particle x-ray spectrometer that will determine the proportions of different elements in the Martian soil. In turn, a team of Canadian scientists was welcomed into the fold.

Some might say that this is another example of Canada “punching above our weight” on the international stage. After all, Canadians make up over 5% of the team that will decide what the rover will do each day, despite having contributed less than 1% to its costs.

However, such a statement ignores the fact that, compared to the United States and even ailing Europe, our Space Program is relatively undersized both in absolute terms and proportional to our population. Despite drastically reducing its commitment in the years since Apollo, the US still spends nearly $60 per citizen per year in space, Canada under $7.

The present situation contrasts strongly with our history. Canada, the third nation to build and place a satellite in orbit, was an early achiever. From the Canadarm to RadarSat to the CCDs that captured Curiosity’s first glimpse of the Martian surface our expertise remains world class.

Furthermore, as a nation spread across a vast expanse we stand to benefit more than most from investments in space. Orbiting spacecraft are the only effective way that we can communicate across the distances that separate us, seek out the natural resource wealth lying undiscovered beneath our territory and monitor the health of our atmosphere, oceans, forests and cities in trust for future generations.

The innovations that improve our daily lives and our ability to accomplish these goals come from technologies that push the limits of what is possible. It is not a stretch to say that the techniques being pioneered today on Mars, where the conditions and challenges are more severe, will lead to tomorrow’s advances. If we do not, as a nation, choose to do these things, those spoils will not be ours.

Fortunately, robotic exploration is economical. We could actually lead! Had Canada been responsible for all aspects of building and launching Curiosity it would have cost us just a tenth of one cent for every tax dollar spent in Canada. Projects like this would give us a robust exploration program that would enhance our expertise at home and enable our space industry to become more competitive abroad while making us stronger partners in international projects.

But beyond our ability to calculate monetary costs and benefits, planetary exploration is an inspirational exercise. Today, these robots are the true explorers, their cameras give us a human perspective on worlds that until recently were nothing more than points of light in the sky. Such images are the reason why many of us choose Engineering and the Sciences as a career. Couldn’t we all take pride if spacecraft made right here at home were opening up new vistas of their own?

At the press conference that followed the touchdown, Charles Elachi, Director of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory cited the Olympics. He said that he felt his team had won the Gold medal with their picture-perfect landing. Like the Olympics, some cite Space Exploration as a dream not worth the cost. It is also said that, as Canadians, we pride ourselves on being a pragmatic people. But are Peace, Order and Good Government all there is to us? For my part, on the eve of our next 50 years in space, I feel Canada also can dare mighty things. 

__________

Originally, I had intended to submit this as a Newspaper Op-Ed, but in the end decided that this was the better venue. I'd also like to thank a former professor of mine and a current colleague on MSL, Dr. Laurie Leshin, for help with editing. 

3 years 11 months and 11 days

"Like a Tree With the Passage of Time" 

That's the motto of my undergrad alma mater. That's where it all began. 

I now find myself back in that same city ready for a new start. 

I can now reveal to you that my stated purpose when I began this blog has now been achieved. As of December 1st, 2012, I will be an Assistant Professor, tenure track, at York University. Thus my time in postdoc purgatory will come in just shy of four years. Somehow it feels like it was much longer. Certainly, the period was a not a great one for my mental state. However, if you deal well with uncertainty you probably would manage better than I did.

In particular, I had the issue of not really knowing where I fit in an academic department. What is a planetary scientist? Is that an astronomer who stays close to home? A geologist who travels far? Or maybe an engineer who gets their inspiration by looking beyond their machines? Really it's all of these things and yet none of them exclusively. That's a problem for many traditional departments. But now the market has spoken and its answer in my case is loud and clear - I'm a Renaissance Space Engineer. I couldn't be more excited to join the talented group that will help create the Lassonde School - how often, as an academic, do you get to contribute to build something novel at the organizational level?

I'll have more to say about Lassonde later, but given that some of you may actually be reading this record to figure out how you yourself can proceed from PhD to something permanent, I'll distill (as best I can) my advice on what worked for me below, under the cut. As always your mileage may vary and in a very real sense, given the balkanization of science and engineering, my case may not be applicable to yours.

State of the Blog (2011-2012)

Yes, folks it's time again for the annual year-in-review here on HTWT. I'll link to last year's post so that when I come back here next year I can follow the digital trail of breadcrumbs into my own past. Without fear of reversal, I can say that this past year was truly an exceptional one on just about every level. Right now things are really looking up for the future and I hope that my current streak continues.

In Memoriam: A Tough Year for Planetary Science in Tucson

The ephemeral Ocotillo flower as photographed by the author in 2005 on Tower Peak in the Tucson Mountain Range. The spiny stalks of the Ocotillo appear dry and dead to the casual observer for most of the year, but within hours of rainfall they burst into life.

Until a couple of years ago, my planetary science heart belonged entirely to that little valley in Arizona tucked in between the Santa Catalinas, the Tucsons, the Rincons and the Santa Ritas. But it has been a difficult year for that city and for my alma mater. This past year has seen the passing of several great planetary scientists from the Tucson community both from the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Planetary Science Institute.

Lessons Learned

August is the 8th anniversary of my enrollment at the University of Arizona's Planetary Science program. As such, I figured this might be a good time to present some advice for the incoming class of '16 (typical PTYS PhD programs take ~5 years). As always, this is specific to my own experience in my own field and things change rapidly in academia. Your mileage may vary.

State of the Blog (2010-2011)

It's been another year since I began this experiment and one year since the last "State of the Blog" post. This writing business seems to be turning into a bit of a habit. It's been quite a year and there's lots to review. Some things I feel I have been doing forever, and it is a surprise to notice that many are only fairly recent developments.

Back to Bushnell

When I was 8 or 9 years old, I remember having an interest in astronomy and so my parents bought me a department store telescope, one christmas. While it wasn't one of the dreaded Tasco 'scopes, it was only a slight improvement: a Bushnell. It was refractor a couple of feet long with a two-inch plastic lens, two 0.85" eyepieces (15mm and 5mm) with astonishingly small apertures, a couple of plastic barlows and a star diagonal. To its credit, it did have a rudimentary viewfinder and extendable wooden legs for the altitude-azimuth platform. Unfortunately, aside from the Moon, I wasn't really able to see much of anything, despite many nights of attempts. I do remember one very bright star which I used to look at and watch how it would shimmer and change colour while close to the horizon (Based on the year and the view from my window, Stellarium suggests that this was Sirius). Given my inability to get much out of the thing, I pretty much abandoned it and let it sit idle in my room waiting for the night or two a year when my curiosity would grab at me and I would haul it out again.