14 February 2012
Proposed NASA Budget Cuts Mars Exploration by $226 Million
As you have no doubt heard, the proposed budget for fiscal year was announced today. Overall, NASA did alright, ending up with $17.71 billion as compared to the $17.77 billion estimate for fiscal year 2012. However, this number hides some painful changes, specifically in the Mars exploration program.The proposed budget would cut the Mars program from $587 million in FY 2012 to $360.8 million in FY 2013. That’s a cut of $226 million, or about 38%. Ouch.
24 January 2012
Graduate School Advice: Part 3 – Staying Sane and Happy
Grad school can be an emotional rollercoaster, and there are a lot of cultural forces at work in academia that don’t have grad students’ happiness and mental health as a high priority. Still, it is possible to get through graduate school while minimizing the low points, and I think things are generally getting better in the academic culture (though there is always room for improvement). This is a huge topic, so I’m going to focus on several particular sub-topics: Impostor syndrome, doubt, and guilt (a.k.a. work-life balance).
18 January 2012
Content Blocked by SOPA/PIPA
Click here, here, and here to learn more about these bills that could result in widespread internet censorship.
Rovers in the Mars Yard
Check out this great photo that I saw on the Curiosity Facebook page, showing models of Sojourner, MER and MSL, along with two engineers for scale. Curiosity is a really big robot!
11 January 2012
Graduate School Advice: Part 2 – Qualifying Exams
You’ve probably heard of the dreaded Qualifying Exam, but what is it like? Well, it varies a lot from school to school and between disciplines, but I can tell you what ours was like in Astronomy at Cornell. The qualifying exam (or “Q-exam”) was split into two parts for us. The first part is a written test at the end of the first year, taken along with the other first …
6 January 2012
Graduate School Advice: Part 1 – Classes and Teaching
To follow up on my last post about my science resolutions for the new year, based on lessons learned during grad school, I thought it might be worth posting more generally some advice based on my graduate school experience. As I jotted down notes on what bits of advice I might want to share, it rapidly became clear that it was too much for a single post. So, consider this …
4 January 2012
Science Resolutions -or- Grad School Lessons Learned
Now that I have finished graduate school and am an older, wiser “post-doctoral fellow”, I was planning to put together a post containing advice on grad school. But then as I thought about it, I realized that the bulk of my advice fell into the “do as I say, not as I do” category. That, combined with the new year and accompanying new job, led me to re-tool my advice …
20 December 2011
Carl Sagan is my Homeboy
I am happy to report that my office mate Melissa Rice and I are both now PhDs! My defense was on Friday, and Melissa presented me with this awesome shirt: After Melissa’s defense yesterday, we thought it would only be fitting to pose in front of the portrait of the man who inspired us to become planetary scientists. We are proud to call Carl Sagan our homeboy: Today is …
16 December 2011
Thesis Defense!
Today is my PhD thesis defense! Let me just note how weird it is to write that. In any case, once I have recovered from all of the snake fighting, I am planning to get back into the habit of posting more often, beginning with some thoughts on grad school and advice for those still muddling through or just starting. Stay tuned!
4 December 2011
Lost Cosmos Episode: The Meat Planet
I’m on my way to San Francisco later today, along with 20,000 of my closest friends. I’m not sure how much I will be able to blog about it, since I am still editing my dissertation and putting the final touches on my presentation for Wednesday, and AGU evenings are often spent catching up with friends and colleagues. For example, my adviser has started a tradition in which a large …
Ryan Anderson is the Shoemaker Postdoctoral Fellow at the U.S. Geological Survey Astrogeology Science Center. Ryan has a background in Physics and Astronomy and received his PhD in Planetary Science from Cornell University. His research led to the selection of the Gale crater landing site for the upcoming Mars Science Laboratory rover "Curiosity", and he is on the science team for the ChemCam instrument on Curiosity. He is a payload downlink lead for ChemCam and for the Pancam color cameras on the Opportunity rover.
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