Alum Profile
A DISCOVERY OF COSMIC PROPORTIONS
Her passion for astronomy has taken Emily Petroff ’08 across the planet
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n May 2014 a gigantic, but fleeting, flash of radio waves known as a ‘fast radio burst’ or FRB, was recorded live for the first time in history. Tese FRBs have been documented many times, but always weeks, months, or even years after the fact. Viewing an FRB live was truly a historic event in the
astronomy world, but for Emily Petroff ’08, whose research project captured the act, it was all in a day’s, or rather a night’s, work. “In and of itself it’s pretty cool to catch this happening, but it represents something bigger,” said Emily who is currently working on her PhD in astrophysics at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, Australia. “Up to where we are now in the field of fast radio bursts, we only know of about a dozen sources and that’s not very many,” she said. “We’re in the early stages of what we will eventually be able to do. Our discovery kind of sets the scene for a new era of discovery, the era of real time discovery.” Emily’s research in astronomy has taken her from
“Because I had a research prize under my belt I was qualified to enter the research group,” she said. At Carleton, she investigated pulsar polarization with her
research group, led by Dr. Joel Weisberg. Tis work was at the CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science (CASS) center in Sydney over the summers and during other school breaks. It was on one of these trips that she got in contact with Swinburne and they offered her their PhD position.
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the Aardvark Science Expo to the other side of the world. “One of the many positive things that I remember about OES was the ability to design my own research. Tat’s the part of astronomy that I really love, I love doing research,” she said. “I found that passion while I was at OES because they actually let me answer my own questions, pursue my own research, and try to figure stuff out on my own. But then be able to come back to really supportive mentors when I had questions or needed guidance.” When Emily was a student at OES, there wasn’t an astronomy
program. But that didn’t hold her back. She worked with teachers like Rosa Hemphill and Bill Lamb, who helped her perform independent research and also put her in touch with astronomers to discuss opportunities and find out more about the career. During her junior year, she submitted an astronomy related
project to the science fair that took her to the International Science and Engineering Fair competition where she won a prize. After graduation she headed to Carleton College in Minnesota where her OES science project was actually part of the reason that she was able to get into the research group that she wanted.
OES prepared me for my career better than college prepared me for my career. I think it all comes down to the habits you build in your teenage years and OES was great at developing those habits.
” — Emily Petroff ’08
Emily is set to graduate in October and has already accepted a postdoctoral research position at ASTRON in the Netherlands where she will be working on a new telescope that is currently being built. Her hope is to use it to find more FRBs and discover more information about them. While there, she also hopes to develop her personal skill set. “I’m hoping that I will have the opportunity to supervise
students,” said Emily. “I’ve had a lot of really great mentors over the years and hopefully I can be that for future students.”
MORE:
www.oes.edu/ magazine
LEARN • Emily’s website
• Video from Australian TV
Summer 2015 29
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