My name is Kim Arcand, and I am the visualization lead for the Chandra Observatory which is based
at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge Massachusetts. I like to think of SAO
as a sort of cornucopia of different people who are trying to understand the nature and evolution
of our universe. When I was growing up, I didn't particularly have any visible women role models.
I didn't particularly care that I hadn't seen these women, but I just thought it was odd. And
as a mom of a girl who is interested in science and math it's just really important being able
to provide those role models. One time I think it was fifth grade for her I went into her class
and I was doing a lesson on the evolution of stars and this idea that you know stars
live their lives and then end up in some other form. And one of her friends came up to me and,
at the end of the lesson, she said to me "I didn't know mommies could be scientists." And the fact
that she said that out loud, and I was able to absorb it, it just hit me that more work needs
to be done. As an astronomer, and particularly working with data visualization as my specialty,
what I am interested in doing is helping create versions of the data that we can model for either
an expert audience or a non-expert audience. I like to consider it telling stories with data.
Sometimes that data wants to be in the form of a two-dimensional image sometimes that data wants to
be in the form of a three-dimensional model. The exciting part is sort of letting the data do the
telling. It sort of tells me where it wants to go and what format it will ultimately take. Chandra
is a really cutting-edge piece of equipment, even though we're now 20 years into its mission. The
Chandra X-ray Observatory, because it looks at a type of light that we can't see with our eyes,
all of that data has to be translated and processed in a way that humans can see. And
as the information is collected, it's recorded after the observations, and then from there
it's packaged up into binary code. So just a simple form of ones and zeroes. And that data
then eventually makes its way through the Jet Propulsion Laboratory before finally coming up
here to New England where I get to take a look at it. Some of the projects I'm working on this
semester with Kim include building a video of the Chandra telescope and walking through the
experience of how the photons get read into the telescope and how scientists process those photons
and interpret the data. I'm really thankful for the experience of working with Kim and diving into
this space of visualization because that motivated me to explore it more in my later years at Brown.
Working with Kim has been a great experience. Moving forward with my career, I could maybe
use my abilities to push for more diversity in the fields that I'm want to go into, whether it
be for underrepresented minorities or genders I feel like having talented people like myself be
able to show others that it's possible is a great was the word... motivator. There is this astronaut
that worked on the Chandra mission, her name is Eileen Collins, and she was the first woman
to command a NASA space mission. That's all her daughter ever knew and so her daughter literally
thought that all moms got to essentially either fly or command NASA space shuttles. There's this
idea that science has historically been a single person, typically a man, sitting in a room having
this lightbulb moment. And while there's you know certainly instances of that; I think science today
is this much more collaborative environment. Where you're working with different groups of people
coming from all different backgrounds and all with a slightly different viewpoint on life. It is
that idea of many different people trying to add some value and do something for a greater good.