TAEM- With the interest in discovering new worlds in space, and the possibility of making a manned mission to Mars in the very near future, The Arts and Entertainment Magazine has sought scientific professionals and educators to interview so that they can reveal the many aspects of making these discoveries for our student readers. One of the main topics on many of our reader’s minds is what can be expected to be found there and can effect the astronauts that may go to these worlds.

One expert that we have found is Dr. Lewis Dartnell of the University of Leicester, England. Dr. Dartnell, tell our student readers about your formal education and how it has helped you in your work.

LD- I’ve come from a life sciences background – I read Biology at Oxford University, before moving to University College London for a Masters-PhD programme in a department called CoMPLEX (Centre for Mathematics & Physics in the Life Sciences and Experimental Biology – a real mouthful of an acronym!). This is a phenomenal inter-disciplinary doctoral training centre where mathematicians, physicists, computer programmers, and biologists like myself are all shoved into a room for a year and told to teach each other the stuff they don’t know yet. That year was incredibly hard work, but really paid-off in giving me a very broad understanding of scientific research and what sort of techniques and analyses can be used. It was after this that I was able to start a PhD in astrobiology – the science concerned with the search for possible life beyond the Earth. (more…)

Dr. Constance E Walker of NOAO

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine is always expanding to provide stories and educational tools to all the college students who follow us. Our Science section has provided excellent educational references and informative interviews of college professors from around the world. We have also posted interviews from some very well known scientists to add to our educational information.

  We have recently had an interview with the director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at the Green Bank’s site in West Virginia, Dr. Karen O’Neil. The information gleamed from this was not only an educational tool for students, but for teachers and scientists as well. For that purpose we would now like to turn our attention to the National Optical Astronomy Observatory at Kitt Peak near Tucson Arizona.

   Dr. Constance E. Walker, from NOAO, was just the person that we needed to talk to. Dr. Walker is not only an astronomer but she is the driving force behind many light pollution education effort nationally and internationally, including the GLOBE at Night citizen science program. Dr. Walker, in order to bring out the importance of education for the field of astronomy, please tell our student readers of your own formal education.

CW- Hi! Nice to meet you. I hold bachelor’s in physics and astronomy from Smith College, a master’s degree in electrical engineering from the University of Massachusetts, and a Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Arizona. (more…)

(Photos by Todd Goodrich)

  TAEM- With our Science section expanding so rapidly, The Arts and Entertainment Magazine , is constantly searching the great colleges that we are seen in to explore the many branches of science that they offer. Our student readers have shown a great interest in Marine Biology and Paleontology, and we are delighted to include a University that excels in both.

   Professor George D. Stanley, Jr., of the University of Montana teaches a course that involves the study of marine fossils found on the North American continent and the surrounding oceans as well as many locations throughout the world. Professor, please tell our student readership about your own formal education and what first interested you about this particular branch of the world of science.

GS-Well my field of science is paleontology, a subject I became fascinated with at the tender age of 10. As an avid fossil collector, I dreamed of one day being a world adventurer and paleontologist and somehow I have kept up with that dream. I received a BA from the University of Tennessee and my PhD at the University of Kansas.  Following my graduation, my education continued as a Research Associate at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum where I developed a, exhibit hall of ancient life and made many valuable contacts for my career.  As a Fulbright Fellow in Erlangen, Germany, I studied corals and the limestone reefs in the Alps. I guess what drew me into the field of paleontology was gorgeous fossils, life and deep time. Paleontologists really are time travellers, reconstructing the ancient past by digging up fossilized life of the past. That’s awesome in any sense. (more…)

TAEM- The Arts and Entertainment Magazine recently attended the Northern Virginia Astronomy Club February meeting that was held at George Mason University. The guest speaker for the evening was Andrea Jones from the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.

The program centered upon the latest achievement of NASA involving its newest robotic rover sent to the planet MARS.  The mission was established to run a number of experiments for possible future manned landings on the red planet. There have been a number of robotic instruments sent before, but none large enough to conduct the list of experiments needed to expand our current knowledge of the planet. (more…)